The Christian COVID-19 failure

Looking back at 2020, I’d like to look at a particular aspect which has been disturbingly jarring for me – the attitudes and actions that I’ve seen among Christians – the American variety.  I, myself, am a lifelong Christian, but this year in particular has opened my eyes to some stark realizations in the differences between how I see that some of them have chosen to implement their faith.  Some of these people I’ve witnessed personally, and others I am aware of through news reports. What follows is not a comprehensive accounting of all the disturbing things I’ve seen, but it does contain a nice cross section of Christians from various traditions – Christians who hail from Lutheranism, Reformed, Pentecostal and Baptist traditions. I would like to hope that these examples are outliers amongst Christians, but unfortunately I fear that they are likely faithful representations of a larger segment of American Christians.

The behaviors I’d like to highlight include:

• Holding church services, unmasked, in violation of the state lockdown order for non-essential businesses
• Christian school leaders facilitating activities conducive to the spread of the Coronavirus, in spite of being informed of the risks.  
• Christian school leaders ignoring the state level guidelines on mask usage, and creating rogue mitigation strategies in favor of face shields, as well as denying the authority of state authorities
• Mature Christians posting misinformation about vaccines, defamatory claims of philanthropists, peddling conspiracy theories, and racist statements
• Famous pastor disregarding science and the authority of the state and holding church services (California)

Churches holding services in violation of lockdown orders

Near the start of the pandemic, in March of 2020, the state I live in went into lockdown.  Non-essential businesses had their operations restricted or were prevented from being open, and essential businesses had severe restrictions limiting the number of people who were allowed into a building.  I became aware of a local church, which, despite apparently not meeting for the first couple of Sunday’s during the lockdown, received a “word from the Lord” which they used to justify that they should continue to meet. They claimed that they desired to obey the ruling authorities; however, based on a bizarre interpretation of scripture, the church leaders came to decide that they no longer had to honor them.  If you’re curious about their interpretation, there was a significant date related to the governor’s orders which they believed coincided with when they believed the original Passover occurred. The Passover, of course, was the event after which the enslaved Israelites were led from Egypt and delivered from Pharaoh. They believed that because the original Passover date and the date on which the first statewide restriction ended coincided, that this was proof that God wanted to “deliver” them from the rules and policies of the state.  The governor extended the restriction beyond their “Passover”  date, but the church decided to go ahead with their “deliverance” model. It’s not as if they didn’t have the ability or technical know-how to conduct remote services, as they were a church which already was broadcasting services on a weekly basis – they just decided that they wanted to continue meeting.  Not only did they meet, but when they met, they met unmasked, with much hugging.  I think it’s worth noting, that during one of their subsequent services, mention was made of them meeting despite the prohibitions, and it was clear from various indignant and defiant shouts in the sanctuary that no one was going to tell them what to do — even if that meant forcing them to act out out of love for their neighbors and show that they care about the community.  The local police department was ineffectual, and stated concerns about not wanting to “violate freedom of worship”, but I got the sense from the police chief that he didn’t have much interest in pursuing any other available tools which may have been at his disposal. They continued to meet in these conditions for many months until restrictions were eased — and I’m quite sure they never did implement any mask requirements for their services.

Christian school’s willfully risky behavior

My children attend this particular Christian school, and it was near the end of the school year in May of 2020 that an email was sent to parents of children in the choir.  The students at the school, like many others across the country, were in remote learning. The choir director’s email was asking for interest in the school’s annual song presentation, done to honor graduates — it would be recorded and streamed on YouTube, but would require slightly more than 10 students to sing on a stage, and to be unmasked — to quote the choir director, “because you cannot sing with masks on”.  At this point during the pandemic, meetings were restricted to 10 or fewer indoors, and certainly while wearing masks.  I was quite surprised that this idea was even being proposed, so I sent an email to the school principal with a link to an article which detailed how a meeting exactly like this became a super spreader event, infecting dozens, with 2 individuals ultimately dying.  I sent the article wondering if he and the director were aware of this article.  The principal graciously mentioned that they had been aware of the article and that “We feel, based on advice and guidance from others” that they would be able to do it safely.  He never disclosed who these others were, or whether their guidance or scientific knowledge eclipsed that of the CDC or our state’s department of health.  He also never specified how this situation would be different from the spreader event mentioned in the article.  Reviewing the finished video, there were 14 children present on stage, and certainly no more than 6 feet of distance among the participants. He also didn’t disclose that the choir director was of the sort of personality who was generally opposed to mask wearing, making her especially ill-advised council for how to safely conduct a meeting with children during a pandemic. It is interesting to note, that this would have been done during a time in a northern climate when the weather would have been conducive to recording the entire thing outside.  Also of note, the church had previously used a cool technology which allowed individuals to record themselves, from the safety of their homes, and then combine all the videos and sound to allow them to appear to be singing together; this technology was not used, although the choir director had herself appeared in videos which used it prior to this. So if masks really were required to be off, there were many safer, and more reasonable alternatives to what was eventually chosen.

Christian school ignoring state guidelines

A few months later, prior to the start of school for the Fall of 2020, and after mask usage had unnecessarily become a political football, the school sent out a series of surveys which helped to clearly show the fault lines within the community.  The survey asked about parental preferences and opinions regarding students for mask wearing vs using face shields.  It should be noted that near this time, our state board of education in an effort to reduce/eliminate the mask use issue had mandated that mask usage would be required in all schools — face shields were not allowed.  At this particular Christian school, however, it was abundantly clear that mask use was a major hot button, hence the reason that face shields were even mentioned as a potential option to returning families.  To give a sense of how much of an issue that this posed, there were many families who answered the survey indicating that if any face covering, whatsoever was required, then they would not be returning to the school for the coming year.  In fact, the face mask was so controversial, that the school decided to go the route of using face shields, and putting plexiglass dividers on the students desks.  Those who advocated for mandatory mask use as a stipulation to their return were in the definite minority.  My wife and I asked to have a meeting with the principal to share our concerns and try to understand where the school was coming from with their decision to go with face shields.  We shared with him that the state requirement was for masks, and that the board specifically called out shields as not being effective for viral “source control”.  He reflected that he heard us, and that as Christians they desire to obey the authorities, referencing Romans 13.  So, how did they plan to justify not having to obey the authorities?  When I asked this directly, he paused, appeared very uncomfortable, and stated that he didn’t want it to come across the wrong way, but that he didn’t think the state board of education had authority — so, problem solved, apparently. (Humorously, a month later, he did reverse course and finally abandoned the face shield idea; apparently the threat of fines and legal fees from resulting disobedience to the state board were enough to rethink his commitment to Romans 13).  

When I asked him why mask use was such an issue, he stated that it would interfere with social/emotional development, and that was why it was so important to him for people’s mouths to be seen.  When I asked him for his source, he effectively engaged in hand waving, pointing to a super thick book on education and implying that it was part of the body of knowledge from his training as a teacher. (My wife who also happens to be a teacher, was as unconvinced as I on this issue, and agreed he was blowing smoke)

Christians peddling misinformation

Several Christians in my life, and one in particular that I’m close to, have been posting disinformation on a social media platform.  They represent differing Christian traditions, but these individuals are definitely ultra right politically.  I have witnessed them reshare or post things which are blatantly false and which show lack of concern for any sort of fact checking whatsoever. They also show a lack of concern for defamation — maybe they suppose it is ok when it comes to politics? Some examples I’ve seen: posts of unscrupulous doctors who cast doubt on the seriousness of the pandemic, references to the QAnon pedophilia theory, a post stating that Bill Gates once funded a vaccine that would keep people from believing religion, doubts/fears about the ingredients of covid-19 vaccines. In some of these cases, I engaged.  Other times I flagged them for removal from the social media provider.  What types of responses did I receive from these lifelong Christians?  In one case, the poster relented and removed the obviously false information.  In the other cases, I was asked “how do we know what truth is?”, and “who gets to define truth”, and the flat out rejection of mainstream news sources as untrustworthy.  While it’s true that some media sources might view things from a certain perspective, and that we must take perspectives into account when assessing the usefulness of a source, what I encountered is a flat out rejection of anything these sources said, merely on the basis that they did not like what was being said.  Moreover, I was told that we can’t trust them — that the correct posture to take is to assume that they are lying.  I found it so sad that these individuals could be so deceived and untrusting of others, and unwilling to recognize that such a stance is unloving.  Even more disheartening was their willingness to make their beliefs public in association with the name of Christ.

Famous pastor disregarding science

In California, a famous pastor, made headlines by mocking the coronavirus and having his church disobey the orders of the local authorities. I was very familiar with this pastor, as I had read several of his books in the early years of my faith.  I respected this gentleman for many years, until finally hearing his unreasonable views on evolution – but that’s a topic for another time.  But around April of 2020 this man began engaging in covid denialism which was characteristic of Trump and allies, and then tried to use the bible as an excuse for disobeying the lock down orders for Los Angeles. How did he justify it?  By saying that Christ, not Caesar is in charge of the church, and that civil leaders can’t tell them what to do. This author of such books as “The God who loves” couldn’t seem to grasp that as followers of “The God who loves”, we also need to love others as he loved us.  And that rather than look out for the needs of others, or seek other’s best interests, or reduce the amount of suffering and death that is in the world, he would rather selfishly promote what he wants, and what his congregation wants.  Instead of helping to bring forth the Kingdom of God on earth, he brought forth a different kingdom; he flipped Christ’s already inverted kingdom values and asserted the values of the world.  He is not alone to blame; his attitudes are a broad reflection, I believe, on a substantial portion of American Christianity.  Thanks to him and those like him, by their actions they have managed to do the opposite of what we were commanded to do in the sermon on the mount.  They increased many peoples’ poverty of spirit, made more people suffer, parched the throats of those who thirst for righteousness, blessed themselves in their arrogance, made peacekeepers harder to find, and brought persecution upon themselves for unrighteous behavior. 

Conclusion

In reflecting back on this, several questions come to mind.  

• Why did these Christians act this way? Are these just anecdotal examples of American Christian’s behavior, or does this point to a systemic flaw?
• Did they actually do wrong?
• Is reducing suffering and death in the world something that should be done when it is our power to do so?
  • Does this relate to our prayer for “God’s Kingdom to come”
  • Do humans have the ability to bring about hell on earth?
• How much suffering and death came about by their selfish behavior?
• If they don’t realize they’ve acted as a poor witness
  • Will they ever repent or will they continue to cause damage with their worldview?
• If a worldview is built upon imaginary elements, could that cause people to act in destructive ways?