August 6, 2023
'The Essential Church': Faith vs. COVID
By
Jamaica Plain
The Essential Church opened in theaters nationwide last weekend. The documentary reminds me that many individuals throughout history fought state-mandated interference in how Christianity could be practiced, often sacrificing their lives. As I watched three pastors whose churches reopened in May 2020 shepherd their flock, I was encouraged by their faith but also reminded of all the leaders who failed me.
After churches were ordered closed by California's Governor Newsom, the documentary's protagonist, Pastor John MacArthur, preached to a mostly empty 3,000-seat sanctuary. The church doors were not locked, and people, including uniformed police officers, started showing up. The need for church was evident as more and more people, many who had never been to church, gathered on Sunday to hear his sermon. Many heard God's word, and many accepted Christ.
Most pastors and Christians, however, allowed the state to deem church services "non-essential" and adopted the false morality touted by public health officials, where the virtuous treated his fellow man as a biohazard, with keeping him at six feet's distance as the loving thing to do. Five Santa Clara County churches
sued California for discrimination against houses of worship, but ultimately, they settled and moved their services outdoors. My CA church's Sunday service remained online with the doors locked. My husband opened the church library one May 2020 Sunday morning with a group that included our family and one church elder. We've since outgrown the library space. People craved community and the solace of discussing God's Word, the Bible.
A month after starting in-person Bible study, my church started outdoor church services with a televised sermon to attendees, subjected to temperature checks and hand sanitizer. When doors finally opened, families were required to mask, sit distanced from other family groups, and do drive-through communion. After being asked to mask, I told the pastor that policing isn't his job and left. In contrast, Pastor MacArthur's church provided sanitizer and masks, posted signage of public health orders, and left decision-making to his congregants.
Some churches echoed the lie that churches should close (and people enter lockdown) for our safety and health while denying the importance of mental and spiritual health. Some
governors exempted houses of worship from shutdown orders, including Florida's DeSantis, who declared religious services "essential." For the first time in history, healthy people were quarantined along with the sick. Despite dire predictions of mental health harms and learning loss in wealthy nations and starvation and malaria resurgence in poor countries, lockdown persisted. The
Great Barrington Declaration espousing focused protection of the vulnerable and normal life for children and low-risk people wasn't discussed. Probably more concerning is having a lockdown mandate instead of a recommendation.
: Sorry, we aren't censoring, we're stopping harmful disinformation from spreading. It goes against the expert consensus that was formed by people we hand picked last week and is a complete departure from anything established over the last five decades but they're experts and you aren't.
