Many Christians have not gone back to church services after the pandemic. Even if there never had been a pandemic, many of them would have stopped going because they were already becoming disillusioned with their faith community. The pandemic only served as a catalyst to speed things up. Many left, feeling no need to come back. Others believed that the reaction of many fellow Christians, including and especially the leadership of various Christian communities (priests, pastors, et. al.) proved they were not concerned about the general welfare, not only for the community at large, but even of members of their own churches as they tried to find all kinds of reasons to ignore the precautions needed to protect society from COVID. It showed that so many churches, so many Christians, had strayed from Christ’s message of hope, love and mercy, and instead, they were being directed by pseudo-piety and legalism. They saw Christianity being turned upside-down and inside-out, from being a religion of love, to becoming like a cult, where questions and legitimate criticisms were ignored. The way abuse had been treated, sexual or otherwise, had already shown that problem, but it became heightened with COVID, as spiritual abuse was trying to have Christians put themselves, and their communities, at risk; they were encouraged to ignore government regulations and restrictions, and congregate together even though doing so would likely cause COVID to spread like wildfire. They were being told not to worry, that they should show their trust in God by going to church, despite, of course, Scripture and tradition consistently telling Christians not to be so foolish and put God to the test that way. Even Jesus, during his earthly ministry, kept himself safe from unnecessary risks and harm. Thus, when Christians, especially those who were extremely susceptible to COVID, were told by their faith community that they shouldn’t wear a mask or even get vaccinated for COVID, they saw their fellow Christians did not value them or their lives.
To be sure, it wasn’t just the reaction to COVID which has had many Christians question their relationship to their church communities. It is all the scandals that they had seen coming from them for years which made them want to have nothing more to do with their churches. Despite this, even though many of them have stopped going to church services, many of them feel as if they are still Christian. They continue to place their hope and trust in God. Their issue isn’t with Jesus, but with his followers. They feel, unless there is significant reform within Christian faith communities, they cannot continue their association with any of them.
Christians should be embracing each other, showing each other love and respect. This, after all, is what Jesus said should be the sign of the Christian faith (cf. Jn. 13:35). Instead, the world sees anything but love from Christians. The most vocal Christians, those with the greatest following, seem to be anything but loving. While this is a great scandal in and of itself, one which the greater Christian community seems to do nothing to fix, the greatest scandal remains the sexual abuse scandal. The scandal is not merely about Christians in positions of authority who are found sexually abusing those under their authority, it is that when such abuse happens, it is hidden from the community and those who are found abusing others are seemingly protected by ecclesiastical authorities. Little, it seems, is being done to help protect people from abuse or to help the victims. There needs to be substantial reform, one which acknowledges the pain and suffering which has happened within the Christian community, but also the pain and suffering it has caused outsiders. Efforts must be made to do all that can be done to heal the harm many suffered from sexual abuse, even as changes are needed to be made to make sure such abuse is not protected or hidden in the future. The way victims are treated, it is clear that Christian communities are ignoring and going against the teaching of Christ. For many, the pandemic only exemplified this, for it showed how selfish and self-centered many Christians have become, as they show they want everything to be done according to their desires instead of looking to and helping those in need.
Christians who love their faith, who want good faith communities, who, indeed, love the church, can be and should be critical of the institutional church’s failures. Some need to rise up and follow the example of the prophets. They need to speak up against secular and religious authorities who are manipulating and abusing the Christian community, using the community for their own self-interest instead of the mission Christ gave to the church. The prophets’ love for God led them to embrace the pathos of God, a pathos which is for the poor and vulnerable. When they spoke up, their criticism was made out of love. They did not hate their people, but rather, they loved them enough to declare the need for reform. This is why antisemitic misreadings of the prophets, using them to demonize the Jews, run contrary to the message and desire of the prophets themselves. Similarly, Christians speaking up against the abuses the poor and vulnerable have experienced, abuses done to them by members of the institutional church or at least defended by the institutional church, must not be read as some sort of anti-Christian rhetoric. Instead, such Christians show their great love and commitment to Christ and the Christian faith, for they are serving Christ and those who have been neglected by the church. Indeed, as they know they will likely encounter all kinds of hostility for what they say, they show how great their love is by their willingness to follow the way of the cross, to accept such abuse being thrown at them for the sake of those whose greater abuse has otherwise been ignored.
Those church communities which undermine the rights and needs of the poor and vulnerable, such as those who pitted themselves against COVID regulations, need to be criticized. Their ways as not the ways of Christ. They lift up their selfish desire and put it over the needs of others. It was not anti-Christian to tell Christians during the pandemic to close churches for a time. Rather, it is what Christians should have been doing, without being told to do so. They should have cared for the vulnerable, realizing that staying open, they could and did become super-spreaders of COVID, making them partly responsible for the deaths which occurred. Is it any wonder why so many Christians became so disgusted with their community when they saw how far their community strayed from way of service and love which Christ told them to embrace?
The solution to the problem facing Christianity today is not for all Christians to stop going to church. It is for them to work for changes within, to reform their community. Nonetheless, it is clear, many Christians feel they cannot step back in a church any time soon. And those who feel that way should be supported and embraced by those who continue to go. As many of those who do not return are those who were abused, and felt their community betrayed them, is it any wonder why they do not want to come back? They must be respected for their decision. That is, those whose conscience leads them to feel as they are obligated to continue to go to church services, despite all the evils they see going on in their community, should stand behind the consciences of those who do not feel the same way. But those who do go have a responsibility to speak up for those who do not go, to let their grievances be known to the community, so that they can help push for a change, hoping that one day, many of those who have left might feel like they can come back. It is in this fashion their criticism shows their love for the church while those who stay silent show their indifference to it.
Once again, it is important to note, the problems Christians have had with their churches did not start with COVID. COVID, and the way many Christians dealt with it, became the final straw. The constant abuse they see coming from churches, be it ideological abuse, or sexual abuse, led many to leave the church long before COVID. And such abuse remains the primary reason why many feel they cannot trust the institutional church anymore. But, even without abuse, many Christians feel something is being lost within their faith communities, and the problem which Cardinal Walter Kasper, before the pandemic, identified certainly contributes to why so many Christians are becoming disillusioned with their faith communities:
In the present context, we shall only call attention to one problem: the danger of making the church bourgeois in the affluent West. In many communities, a milieu has developed in which people who do not fit within the parameters of a more or less middle-class lifestyle, people who have fallen on hard times, find a place only with difficulty. That is a situation that is scarcely compatible with Jesus’ own praxis. For during his earthly life, nothing caused as much scandal as his care for sinners. [1]
This is a serious problem. So many Christians are being told they do not fit in. Their moral quandaries are being ignored. They see how the poor, the vulnerable, the oppressed, are no longer being shown dignity and love by their faith community. They understand the preferential option for the poor, they might even hear it presented in some of their communities, but they hardly see it being lived out. Instead, as Cardinal Kasper pointed out, what so many communities want from their members is an embrace of the bourgeois morality; if someone does not share in it, they are looked down upon, if not treated with outright contempt. Who, after experiencing this for so long, will not question their relationship with their community? Why are those who remain in them surprised that so many want to take to the hills and flee from them? When, during the pandemic, Christians saw that their faith communities were more interested in performance than actual piety, that is, when they saw churches doing all they can to try to stay open for their own self-interest instead of serving the greater community by closing so long as the pandemic raged on, is there any surprise that they come to believe that there is a great disconnect between the lived experience in their community with the way it presents itself and its teachings?
What could be more suited to faith, what more helpful to compassion, than assuaging the poverty of those in need, undertaking care of the sick, succoring needs of the brethren, and recalling our own condition in the distress of others? [2]
St. Leo the Great stated here what Christians have long forgotten, what Christian communities seem to ignore. True piety is found in the embrace of love. Such love will make sure that Christian communities work for and help those most in need. They will work to heal the sick, not do things which will needlessly make more people sick. It is true, many churches reluctantly closed down during the pandemic, but that is because the law made them do so, not because they believed they should. There were some, like Pope Francis, who understood the dangers of the pandemic, and so encouraged the Christian faithful, telling them that they can continue with their faith even if they could not presently go to church services, but many others tried to act like the faith was being compromised if they could not go to church. That is, so many Christians did not want to change their lives due to the pandemic. They wanted everything to continue as normal. They cared little about the lives which would be lost, so long as it was not theirs. This led many Christians, and especially vocal Christians, to act as if COVID were nothing, which is why they fought against regulations that served to protect the poor and vulnerable. Those Christians, more than any others, were the loudest in many local communities. They were not silenced, but promoted.
The gaslighting so many felt coming from their Christian communities in regards COVID merely continued the kind of gaslighting such communities had in regards other scandals, such as the sexual abuse scandal found throughout the Christian communities. Constantly, the abuse scandal was treated as if it were a trivial amount of people who were harmed, and a trivial number of Christian leaders who were involved. That response showed how bad the situation was and continues to be. Even if there were only one sexual abuse victim whose suffering was covered up, that would have been one too many. But there are many, many more, and the victims were disenfranchised due to the way they were treated; their voice should have been lifted up above the rest, just like the prophets lifted up the voice of the poor and vulnerable who suffered at the hands of religious and secular leaders of their day. Those victims have a legitimate reason not to trust their fellow Christians, as they see their fellow Christians not only did not take their suffering seriously, they allowed things to continue within significant change taking place in their communities. Many such victims would love to be able to return to their churches, but until we see all the reforms which need to take place so that the victims, instead of the abusers, are the focal point of the community, we should not be surprised that not only will the victims keep themselves distance from the Christian community, more and more Christians, recognizing the problem, will likewise feel the same way.
Church is important for the Christian. Christ came to unite Christians, and that unity is described as the Church. But such unity is not to be established by force. It is to be built up by the sacraments and bonds of love. When the bonds of love are replaced by selfish ambition and false piety, Christians need to speak up. They need to follow the example of the prophets who loved God and their faith and yet spoke harshly to those who led their community. It is love, including love for the church, which requires Christians not only need to speak truth to power, but to act. Until they do, they should not be surprised that their communities will lose members as all their pious words will meaning nothing in comparison to the actions of the people.
Those seeds are found in its tradition, the teaching and examples given to it by Christ and the saints. It is found in the grace given to it, especially in and through its sacraments, for without that grace, it becomes a mere human institution, incapable of such regeneration. This is why many, disillusioned by the institution and their fellow Christians, still go, because they still believe, and they hope by going they can not only be a voice for change, but serve as active resistance to the corruption within, standing up for those who have suffered unjustly due to that corruption. They hope that they will see such regeneration happen in their lifetimes. Until then, they will speak up and amplify the voices of those who raise legitimate criticism of the church. They will stand with those who have suffered abuse and find themselves parting ways from the Christian community. They will recognize the treatment of COVID only represents a symptom of a greater problem, which is why the decline in church membership after the pandemic is not due to COVID itself, but only sped up by it. And so they will try to deal with the greater problem, hoping beyond hope, that they will be able to contribute, even if a little, to the change which needs to take place.
[1] Walter Kasper, Mercy. Trans. William Madges (New York: Paulist Press, 2013), 168.
[2] St Leo the Great, Sermons. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland CSJB and Agnes Josephine Conway SSJ (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1996), 43 [Sermon 10].
[3] Dorothy Day, “Letter to Karl Meyer. August 13, 1981” in All The Way To Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day. Ed. Robert Ellsberg (New York: Image Books, 2010), 492.
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