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When Churches Stay Open, It May Be to Chase the Almighty Dollar
Pastors don’t want to miss out on lucrative holidays or essential donations—even during a pandemic
On the fifth Sunday of Lent, a week into the governor’s order limiting gatherings of more than 50 people in Louisiana, Pastor Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge used the church’s 27 buses to shuttle people to a tent revival service. This week, Spell defended holding services during the pandemic in a video that was published on TMZ. “True Christians do not mind dying,” he said. “They fear living in fear.”
In Ohio, Solid Rock Church defied the statewide stay-at-home order and continued holding services. On its website, Solid Rock explains it is taking the temperature of the staff each day, avoiding Communion, and encouraging worshippers to stand six feet apart. Ohio, which is succeeding in flattening the curve through aggressive stay-at-home measures, exempts church gatherings from its stay-at-home order, although Governor Mike DeWine has called continuing to gather in large groups “not a Christian thing to do.” After Tampa Bay River megachurch pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested for holding services in defiance of his county’s stay-at-home order, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued an overriding order that does not bar churches from holding services. This Holy Week, days before Easter, Kansas’s state legislature revoked the governor’s order limiting religious services to 10 people. Other states that have made exemptions or recommendations for parishioners and places of worship in their stay-at-home directives include Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and West Virginia.
Following public health guidance, the vast majority of the nation’s religious bodies have moved services online, or like Ohio’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church, created alternatives, such as a drive-in option with driver-side donation offerings and car honks for “amens.” The estimated 7% of Protestant churches that were still holding in-person meetings by the end of March have been publicly met with the sort of scorn that now gets directed to spring breakers or other social-distance flouters. Even staunch religious liberty advocates have voiced concerns that these outlier pastors putting…
