The news coming out about church services becoming super-spreader events for COVID-19 would be comical if they weren’t so tragic.
In a previous post, I tried to rationally rebut some of the reasons pastors have for insisting on holding worship services in the midst of the pandemic.
In reconsideration, I should have just given one reason in response to the arguments: You could kill people!
Jesus was right; people are like sheep. And they will follow their pastors right off a cliff…or in this case, into a petri dish of deadly virus.
Here is a list of just some of the churches in the news for holding services in the midst of the pandemic that allegedly led to infections:
Lighthouse United Pentecostal Church, Union County, Oregon 236 cases.
Bethany Slavic Missionary Church, Sacramento, CA, 71 cases, 1 death
Evangelical Christian Baptist Congregation, Frankfurt, Germany, 101 cases
New Deliverance Evangelistic Church, Richmond Virginia, Pastor proudly defies restrictions, contracts COVID-19 and dies.
Holy Ghost Parish, Houston, Texas, 5 cases, Priest dies believed related to COVID-19.
It is quickly looking like, unlike plagues of the past where the Church is remembered demonstrating the love of Christ to a frightened world, the Church may be remembered in this pandemic for its selfishness to the detriment of the public health.
This is not a hard call.
It’s not a matter of faith.
It’s a matter of simple common sense. GS