Cutting Online Church Services Is an Act of Exclusion
Arguing to drop virtual church services abandons lessons learned over the pandemic
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, some denialist pastors bucked public health orders and insisted on continuing in-person church services. Soon though, the majority of U.S. churches transitioned gatherings, historically housed in sanctuaries and pews, to a virtual scape. Certainly, many large churches had already mastered video feeds and multisite worship, but now smaller and mainline Protestant churches also adopted video tech and streamed to their congregations. I’ve spoken to church leaders who rue having been late to move online when instead their flocks took to consuming conspiracy theories and YouTube prophets.
In our current phase of the pandemic, many churches have returned to in-person gatherings but retain a virtual option. By all measures, the pandemic has been a long, hard slog, and it’s natural for some to begin wondering when each of us can return to “normal.” Perhaps it was with that exuberant hope for the…
