American Evangelicals have been revealing more about their view of God than they realize on social media over the past few months. Somehow, they’re not embarrassed.
If you’re like me, you’ve seen their posts, too. You know the ones: where they show a bustling Home Depot store and a darkened sanctuary, a full airplane and empty pews, a crowded beach and a vacant church parking lot. “Why is this okay? And this isn’t?” the posts will ask.
There’s an insinuation that governments—and particularly elected officials left of center—are trying to shut down the church. They imply that governors are flexing an assault on Christianity, that they’re beginning our nation’s march to the outlaw of our faith. The spaces between their words are filled with fear and entitlement, ignorance and a lack of self-awareness.
What myopia misses
First, they fail to acknowledge that government restrictions have come from officials on both the right and the left. Secularists and leaders who practice religion have both enacted guidelines based on the information given to them. Even if it were just the left, these religious suffragists failed to notice that the churches of liberalism were shuttered, too. Trumpeting elephants have long told us that Hollywood and liberal arts colleges are the bastions of liberalism. Theaters and production companies are also closed (and would love to have the exceptions afforded to churches). Touring musicians have been grounded. Colleges and universities—like churches—have been pushed to online-only instruction. People who bow to the gods of alcohol and sports have seen their houses of worship shut down or likewise limited.
Admittedly, COVID restrictions have been arbitrary and uneven. Science, not usually pressed into timelines of days or weeks or even months, has produced constantly-updated results. Politicians and populist voices alike have bastardized the recommendations for more power, more influence, more airtime. On an individual level, some may even have been happy to stick it to people of faith who’ve criticized them—just like Herod’s wife took pleasure in beheading John the Baptist. With President Trump proving in 2016 that the Religious Right is the primary voting bloc to assuage, though, it would be political suicide in many states to start a war against religion. We know how much the elected like to get re-elected.
Also, it’s not just Evangelicals that lost their access to full auditoriums. Every religion lost access to their houses of worship—including those of Islamic, Jewish, and Universalist faiths.
Ironically, these online protestors are diminishing their faith even more than the governors they hate are. They don’t believe their god is bigger than these restrictions. Their deity is confined by sanctuaries and buildings. Facebook ranters like to quote Hebrews 10:25, the “do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together” verse, but fail to acknowledge that we all assemble in more ways than chairs or pews lined in rows. Congregants who spend hours each day on their phones and tablets and laptops find online church a bridge too far. People communicating via text messages & phone calls, email & social media, FaceTime and Zoom somehow don’t recognize that they are assembling during the pandemic without large social gatherings. It isn’t ideal, but it’s functional.
What inconvenience reveals
COVID-19 is showing that we rely too much on public gatherings to stay engaged with the church and other congregants. We don’t have the phone numbers of people we worship within our address books. We don’t practice non-Sunday check-ins, let alone the daily meals together practiced by the first believers in the book of Acts. We think ministry has to be corporate because it’s scalable and more efficient. We forget that Jesus had compassion on crowds but kept going back to small circles to mentor his followers. The rigors of personal ministry, intimate discipleship, and experiential education make it easier to just have a building where people can show up rather than a holistic lifestyle of ministry.
Because pastors have built churches around their personality, their perspective, and their proclamations, they are now left with a revealing hollowness. Because most churches are built as audiences instead of circles, many of these men of the cloth don’t have an ecosystem where truth and empathy and care can now be disseminated to their flocks with or without them. Just as COVID-19 has accelerated the growth or demise of companies and practices in the marketplace, it has created haves and have nots in church world. The haves: the congregations that have been foregoing midweek services for small groups, community service, and mentoring. The have nots: those whose pastors are now ripping up cease and desist orders on social media videos, those who denigrate preachers with online platforms, and those with congregations who want their churches’ paid staff to do ministry on their behalf.
What irony abounds
Fundamentalist preachers of my youth told the story of a pastor who wanted to see what kind of congregation sat in the pews in front of him. As their cautionary tale goes, this minister hired armed & masked gunmen to invade a church service and demand that they recant their faith and leave or be killed. “Would you die for Jesus?” the preacher would then ask. If I remember right, that anecdote got tied into stories from communist nations, where followers huddled in secret house meetings—the true believers. There was definitely a commentary on how comfortable Christians have gotten, how truly following Jesus isn’t easy.
They were right about that. But they and those who have amen’d them have failed their own litmus test at an embarrassing lesser level. When the government asked those fire and brimstone hurlers to close big gatherings for a couple months, to reopen to limited crowds of masked congregants, and to use online tools to reach their parishioners, they learned their congregations weren’t even ready for inconveniences—let alone real persecution. Pastors and church attendees clung to the Bill of Rights before Romans 13, to the sword swing of Peter instead of the “render unto Caesar” of Jesus. One pastor I saw on Facebook Live said he was ready for civil war.
What message gets sent
Their roots were too small. Their church proved too weak for a breeze, let alone a hurricane. Their community was too shallow. Most of our nation has lost freedom and autonomy, sports and entertainment, travel and connection with family. Instead of taking hope to them and living out of claimed promises, Evangelicals have grown publicly militant, grossly political, and embarrassingly cantankerous.
There is a valid lament for losing some of the luxuries of Sunday services, the contagious energy of large gatherings, and the comfort of tangible friendships. We can talk about what we miss, what we long to experience again. When we turn that discomfort into vitriol, we show the world we worship comfort. When we turn public disobedience into a virtue, we put a bushel over our light. When we use our time, energy, and platform to push our wills, we tell our audience who really sits on the throne of our hearts. When a pew position defines our Christianity more than our life the six other days of the week, we don’t have anything worthwhile to offer everyone else that can find their fulfillment in a seat at a stadium or theater, bar or airplane.
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Stock image purchased form iStockPhoto.com
