INDIANAPOLIS, Updated 7:14 a.m. EST November 17, 2000-- Supporters showed up earlier than usual for Day 3 of the showdown between the Indianapolis Baptist Temple and the federal government.
Many have said that they will not leave willingly.
"I believe the government doesn't have the right to come take God's property," church neighbor Jim Dearth told 6 News on Thursday morning. "They don't have a right to be here. They don't have a right to take God's people or his property."
Dearth said he's among the supporters who will need to be carried out of the building.
"The pastor told us that he knows when it's going to happen — when we leave. I don't foresee us leaving," Dearth said.
Many of the supporters spent a second night camped out to show support for the church's refusal to pay a multimillion-dollar tax debt. Some pledged to remain until authorities confiscate the building.
"They are here voluntarily," Rev. Greg J. Dixon, the pastor emeritus of the 1,000-member congregation, told 6 News on Thursday morning. "Many of these people feel very deeply about religious liberty and the death of the church in America. I'm sure many of them will stay the entire time.
"We doubled who we had here last night and we'll probably double again tomorrow night."
Louie VanSlyke, a minister from Greenwood, was among about 50 people still waiting for any sign of federal marshals on Thursday.
"I plan on getting arrested. I want to get arrested for what's right," VanSlyke said.
The supporters from across the nation continued their biblical filibuster Wednesday at the temple, patiently awaiting the government's impending seizure of the property.
A judge ordered the church to vacate its property by noon Tuesday, but more than 40 hours after the deadline had passed, members of the independent Baptist congregation held an ongoing vigil in the building's sanctuary.
On Sept. 28, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker ordered the church to surrender its property to satisfy a lien of $6 million in back taxes, penalties and interest. The buildings could then be auctioned off.
The church stopped withholding federal income and Social Security taxes from its employees' paychecks in 1984, saying its duty to obey God supersedes manmade laws.
Federal marshals seized a parsonage a few miles from the church on Tuesday afternoon.
U.S. Marshal Frank Anderson declined to say when the Marshals Service would seize the church, but said he wanted to avoid a confrontation.
The church's pastor and pastor emeritus, the Rev. Greg A. Dixon and his father, the Rev. Greg J. Dixon, have said they will passively resist a seizure. They have urged supporters to avoid violence.
Those backing the church included Garret Brown, a 46-year-old carpenter from LaBranche, Mich. He said he traveled to Indianapolis on Tuesday so he could one day tell his 3-year-old son that he had acted on his beliefs.
"I just couldn't let him grow up and let him feel like I didn't do anything to make things better," Brown said.
Encouraging Brown and others to come to Indianapolis has been James "Bo" Gritz, leader of the so-called Patriot Movement. The former Green Beret colonel has been broadcasting his syndicated radio talk show this week from a table next to the pulpit.
A festive atmosphere has prevailed through much of the vigil. In the lobby, church members and allies passed the time making small talk while their children romped and teen-agers played guitars and sang.
The federal government until now has never seized a church for failing to pay taxes, said Richard Hammar, a national expert on churches and tax law and an attorney for the Springfield, Mo.-based Assemblies of God church.
"To have the IRS come in and seize the church's property, that is an extraordinary event unparalleled in American history," Hammar said.
Until now, the Internal Revenue Service has seemed reluctant to take that step, presumably because churches are protected by the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom, he said.
Supporters feared the implications of a seizure.
"When they take one church, they'll come take them all," said Pastor Kay Smith. "I'm a child of the '70s. I know what civil disobedience is."