{"id":48599,"date":"2020-05-28T05:03:56","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T09:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=48599"},"modified":"2020-06-05T13:18:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T17:18:26","slug":"this-isnt-a-culture-war-its-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2020\/05\/this-isnt-a-culture-war-its-a-pandemic.html","title":{"rendered":"This Isn’t a Culture War, It’s a Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last week, Trump threatened to force states to reopen churches<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Yesterday, during a press conference<\/a>, Donald Trump announced that states must allow churches to open this weekend \u2014 and that if they don\u2019t, he will \u201coverride\u201d them and force them to anyway. Because he\u2019s such a big fan of state\u2019s rights and all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, though\u2014I don\u2019t think most churches are as interested in being allowed<\/em> to open as they are in figuring out how to open safely<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I know someone who works in the music ministry at a church; her church is considering reopening without singing.\u00a0<\/em>Why? Because singing accelerates the spread of droplets and has been linked with multiple clusters of infection\u2014and her church leaders don\u2019t want their parishioners to get sick and die.<\/em><\/p>\n

As Ed Stetzer put it in Christianity Today<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

In a press conference today President Trump called churches, synagogues, and mosques all \u201cessential services\u201d and called on governors to reopen them \u201cright now.\u201d Where I live, Illinois Governor Pritzker has already said that churches are essential<\/a>, and I agree with them both.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not really the question.<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The question people are asking is how and when can churches (and other religions congregations) gather together in groups larger than 10 or larger than 50?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That. Exactly that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of Pence\u2019s visit to Iowa some weeks ago, when he told a group of religious leaders that he was committed to doing anything they could to getting them reopened as quickly as possible, only to be told by a rabbi that they are not ready to reopen\u2014that it\u2019s simply not safe for his congregation.<\/p>\n

This feels like pandering. That\u2019s what it feels like. Talking ad nauseam about getting churches reopened (and simultaneously portraying those who want to keep churches closed as somehow anti-Christian) without actually taking steps to make it safe for churches to reopen\u00a0<\/em>isn\u2019t actually showing support for churches. It\u2019s pandering<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Are there some pastors who think COVID-19 is a hoax, or that it is being overplayed? Sure. Are there some pastors who want to reopen the way things were before, and trust to God to protect their parishioners? Probably. But I\u2019m going to hazard a guess that the number of churches in this category is very very small.\u00a0<\/em>I\u2019m also going to hazard a guess, though, that these are the churches that most have Trump\u2019s ear.<\/p>\n

In the same way, many businesses closed before stay at home orders went into place, because they cared. This isn\u2019t a story about Democratic governors forcing businesses and churches to close. It\u2019s a story of a community grappling with a novel pandemic. But Trump doesn\u2019t know how to govern. Talking brashly and demonizing his opponents is the only thing Trump knows how to do. He\u2019s a one-trick pony.<\/p>\n

And so here we are\u2014with a president threatening states whose stay at home orders are keeping churches closed even as pastors struggle to figure out how they can open without losing their parishioners to a dangerous virus. And here we are\u2014with a White House press secretary accusing reporters<\/a> of \u201cdesperately\u201d wanting to keep churches closed only to have those same reporters fire back:<\/p>\n

\u201cI object to that. I go to church. I\u2019m dying to go back to church. The question that we\u2019re asking you and would like to have asked the president and Dr. Birx is, \u2018Is it safe?\u2019 And if it\u2019s not safe, is the president trying to encourage that or does the president agree with Dr. Birx that people should wait?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Turning the question of how churches can reopen safely in the middle of the pandemic into some sort of culture wars battle is absurd.<\/p>\n

Everyone suffers. Everyone loses.<\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This feels like pandering. That’s what it feels like. Talking ad nauseam about getting churches reopened (and simultaneously portraying those who want to keep churches closed as somehow anti-Christian) without actually taking steps to make it safe for churches to reopen\u00a0isn’t actually showing support for churches. It’s pandering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":48626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[777,99],"class_list":["post-48599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","tag-channel-politics-blue","tag-church-2"],"yoast_head":"\nThis Isn't a Culture War, It's a Pandemic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This feels like pandering. That's what it feels like. 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