The Need to Feel Safe and Church Reopenings

By Robin G. Jordan

Pastors and other church leaders who are considering reopening their churches need to pay attention to the need of would-be attendees to feel safe. This is very real need and should not be dismissed as a lack of faith as some church leaders appear prone to do. COVID-19 has greatly shaken our world and heightened our need to feel safe.  If church leaders ignore this need and do not take adequate measures to ensure the safety of would-be attendees, they are going to lose the trust of these individuals. One has only to look at what has happened to the Catholic Church as a result of its hierarchy’s poor handling of child sexual abuse perpetrators in the Catholic clergy to see the damage a loss of trust can do.

Unfortunately the decision to reopen a church (or keep a church open) in a number of cases has not been motivated by a desire to meet the spiritual needs of the congregation but to make a political statement. Church leaders involved in these decisions have bought into conspiracy theories that deny seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic and attribute the reports of the heavy toll in human lives in the United States and other countries as exaggerated and politically motivated.

The failure of some church leaders to take the COVID-19 pandemic with the seriousness that a highly infectious disease like COVID-19 warrants is going to greatly damage the public images of churches across the United States. I personally witnessed the damage that the election, confirmation, and consecration of a bishop openly in a same sex relationship with another man did to the public image of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Louisiana in 2003 and the negative impact that this development had upon churches in the diocese.

Church leaders who argue that COVID-19 is no worse than a bad case of the flu and that the kind of measures that health experts are urging businesses, schools and churches to adopt are unnecessary are not only underestimating the seriousness of COVID-19 but also of the flu. Every year the flu takes a toll in human lives. I began receiving annual flu shots after one of my grandnephews was diagnosed with leukemia. Due to his chemotherapy regimen his immunity to infectious diseases was seriously compromised and a bout with the flu could have killed him.

While church leaders may not be able to keep would-be attendees 100% safe from COVID-19, this knowledge should not prevent them from doing everything that they can possibly do to protect would-be attendees from infection. They should aim for keeping would-be attendees 100% safe. Such an attitude will inspire confidence and build trust. It conveys to would-be attendees that the church leaders in question value their lives. It will convey to the larger community that Christians do care about their fellow human beings.