COVID-19 Denialism--A Threat to the Health and Safety of US Churches

By Robin G. Jordan

As I read through the comments that some individuals have left in response to the Church Leaders article, “Doctors: Religious Services Are Among Highest Risk Activities,” I am forced to conclude that the medical professionals who developed the two charts examined in the article overlooked a major contributing factor to why religious services may be high risk activities—the high levels of denial in one segment of the Christian population of the United States in regard to the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for precautionary measures to prevent the transmission of the virus. This segment of the US Christian population may not be large but it is highly vocal. It not only dismisses the seriousness of the pandemic and the risk of infection but also argues that what are reasonable public health measures in a pandemic of the magnitude and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic are a form of religious persecution.

While I do not believe that we should demonize the people with whom we disagree, I also believe that the attitudes of this population segment represent a threat to the health and safety of Christians and the larger population. I characterize this population segment as Christian because it identifies itself as “Christian” and frequents a website that identifies itself as “Christian.” Whether this population segment’s beliefs and values are Christian in the sense that they are consistent with the teaching and example of Jesus, however, is an open question. The attitudes that this population segment displays are “un-Christian” in that they do not conform to Jesus’ teaching and example and reflect a number of the worst non-Christian stereotypical views of Christians. Consequently, they may not only represent a health and safety threat to Christians and the larger population but also they may represent a threat to the witness of Christians in the United States and around the world.

I will concede that some individuals who are leaving comments on the Church Leaders website may have succumbed to the Jeckyll and Hyde effect that Keith Mathison describes in his article, “A Social Media Jeckyll & Hyde Effect.” Offline they may be less vociferous and more reasonable. The attitudes that underlie their online comments, however, give cause for concern. Their denial of the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic points to a major disconnect, or lack of understanding or connection with reality. So does the characterization of reasonable public health measures as a form of religious persecution.

If members of this population segment are church-goers and they exercise a measure of influence in the decision-making process of their church, the church is likely not taking adequate precautionary measures if it is taking any precautionary measures at all. If either is the case, the church represents a health and safety threat not only to its attendees but also to the community. The extent to which the church may pose a health and safety threat to the community will depended upon such factors as the size of the church, the size of the community, and the extent of its members’ contacts with the community. In a small community in which most of its members attend a particular church, that church may become the epicenter of a cluster of COVID-19 cases that affect a large segment of the community.

The members of this population segment are not only influenced by the inaccurate and fake information being circulated on the internet but they also circulate this information, using it in promoting their view of the pandemic and the reasonable public health measures that state and local governments have implemented to contain its spread. They are not satisfied just to express their view but aggressively seek to propagate it.

At the same time I do not want to tar everyone in this population segment with the same brush. Some members of this population segment may be the victims of misinformation themselves. They have been led to believe like one unfortunate young man that the pandemic is a hoax. He learned that the pandemic was not a hoax when the virus killed him. Others may be struggling with the painful realities of a full-blown epidemic. Denial is not an uncommon reaction to such a calamity. People in a state of denial will respond with fear and anger to anything that threatens their denial. Fear often underlies anger. Rather than deal with the anxieties that circumstances may arouse, they respond with anger. People in a state of denial will also seek to bolster their denial by seeking to convince others that the way they see things is the only way to see them. It is easier to deny something when others are also denying the same thing. They will reinforce each other’s denial.

Denial in a public health emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious problem. It can interfere significantly with efforts to respond to the emergency. It should not be treated as a difference of opinion. Treating it as such only reinforces the denial and lends it legitimacy. We may be forced to take that position in hopes of gaining the cooperation of those in a state of denial but ultimately it will prove counterproductive. They will fall back on the argument, “Well, that’s just your opinion,” as if in an epidemic there can be a wide variance of opinion, including the opinion that there is no epidemic at all!

This brings me to a second area of concern. Based upon the range of articles that they have been publishing, the editors of the Church Leaders website are not in my estimation taking a firm position on the need for public health measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Church Leaders draws articles from a number of other websites as well as uses the articles of freelance writers. Its selection of articles can be very revealing into its editorial policies.

This weekend the editors of Church Leaders posted two articles that can easily be misconstrued as encouraging defiance of the public health measures that the State of California has implemented and which affect religious organizations. The images that were posted with these articles convey that message.

The guidance that the State of California has published includes recommendations for a temporary moratorium on choral singing, congregational singing, and corporate recitation. Such a moratorium is a reasonable precaution in light of the growing body of evidence that the COVID-19 coronavirus is also spread by airborne transmission. Singing and loud talking have been implicated in the production of aerosols that carry the virus. These two activities not only increase the number of virus particles that may be exhaled, they also increase the number of particles that may be inhaled. Both activities involve deep breathing. A temporary moratorium on choral singing, congregational singing, and corporate recitation is a reasonable application of the precautionary principle. For those who are unfamiliar with the precautionary principle, it is essentially that “when an identified threat of serious or irreversible damage to… human health exists, a lack of full scientific knowledge about the situation should not be used to delay remedial steps….” In other words, it is better to be safe than sorry.

This recommendation does not sit well with some Californian faith leaders and has caused something of an outcry. It is one of those precautionary measures which like face masks has become politicized.

One of the two articles in question stresses the importance of singing to Christian worship. While singing does play an important role in church services, what the article does not mention is that the degree of importance varies with the ecclesiastical tradition, denomination, and the type of church service. It makes a number of sweeping assumptions and can be misconstrued as maintaining that the importance of singing outweighs the importance of the health and safety of the congregation and the community.

The second article contains a quotation from the Bible which can be misinterpreted as mandating singing in church services if it is taken out of context and treated as if it establishes precedence for the practice of singing in church services, which, however, it does not. It is a descriptive passage not a prescriptive one and there is no evidence that the author of the particular gospel in which it is found intended to set a precedence for a practice with the inclusion of the passage in that gospel. It is the kind of passage that those who cherry-pick passages from Scripture to bolster their arguments are apt to choose.

These two articles, since they were posted on the weekend, will have greater visibility than they would if they had been posted on a weekday. The editors of Church Leaders do not change articles on the weekend like they do during the week.

The editors of Church Leaders might argue that they are trying to maintain a balance between the different opinions on the issue. However, the choice of the weekend to post the articles, the content of the articles, and the images posted with the articles suggests otherwise. I have been posting a blog for sixteen years and I know that these things can make a difference. As I noted earlier where denial may be involved, treating it as a difference of opinion serves to reinforce it.

I have found Church Leaders to be a source of a number of very helpful articles. Consequently, I am disappointed in its apparent failure to take a firm stand in support of public health measures needed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Its editors may feel that they need to take their present approach to retain the website’s readership but I believe that what they are doing is a disservice to that readership.

All websites are influencers. The extent of the influence they may exercise may vary and fluctuate. With whom they may exercise may also vary and fluctuate. However, they do exercise influence. They can exercise influence for good. Or they can exercise influence for evil. Evil is a strong word. However, some websites do exercise that kind of influence. Porn sites are one example.

Christian websites I would hope exercise influence for good. But I know that it is not always case. Christians are human beings and human beings are not infallible. Even those who have experienced the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit are still inclined to sin. As the Bible warns us, the human heart—our innermost self—is deceitful beyond measure. We deceive ourselves as well as others. Most Christian websites I believe are a mixed bag. They can be a good influence. They can also be a bad influence. I do not exclude Anglicans Ablaze or my other blogs from this assessment. I strive to be a good influence but I also recognize that I am far from perfect.

As far as the COVID-19 pandemic is concerned, I have sought to put the health and safety of my fellow Christians and my fellow human beings first. I have encouraged the application of the precautionary principle and the principle of levels of intervention in determining what measures a church should take to protect its members and its community from infection with the COVID-19 coronavirus. I have only touched on the political situation in the United States where I saw that it was interfering with efforts to contain the virus and to reduce human suffering and death.

I come from a background in which hymn singing was an important expression of one’s personal faith in Jesus Christ. Now I am not talking about hymn singing in church but hymn singing in daily life. My strongest memory of my grandparents is their hymn singing. They not only sung hymns when they went about their daily chores but also they sung them when we went anywhere in the car. When they were not singing a hymn, they were whistling or humming a hymn tune.

My grandfather had been an organist at a Wesleyan Congregationalist chapel. He played the piano and the violin as well as the organ. My grandmother was the daughter of an English school master. To set a good example for his pupils, he attended both the local Church of England parish church and the local Non-Conformist chapel with his family. My mother sang in the choir of her church as a teenager and later in life. My mother was trained as a schoolteacher in a women teachers training college operated by the Church of England. She led the daily assembly at the village school where she was head teacher. The assembly included a hymn, a Scripture reading, and prayers.

While an English schoolboy I sang hymns from the Moody & Sankey Song Book and Songs of Praise. During my teen years I sung hymns and canticles from The Hymnal 1940 at Morning Prayer and Holy Communion. When I returned to the Episcopal Church in my 30s, I joined the choir of my mother’s church as well as became a lay reader.

During the ensuing  years I was not only the senior lay reader of the church that I had helped to plant but also a worship committee chairman, liturgical planning team member, chorister, cantor, precentor, and song leader. I was involved in the music ministry of that church for the better part of the fifteen years that I was a member of the church. After I left the Episcopal Church to further pursue my interest in church planting, I was a choir member and soloist at a Methodist church plant and a praise team member and soloist at a Baptist church plant. During the last few years I have served as a song leader and soloist at a small Anglican church. I can say with all honesty that I have been immersed in church music for a good part of my life.

While I greatly value church music, choral singing, and congregational singing, I value human life even more. To my mind it is exceedingly troublesome that some Christians are taking a very legalistic view of singing, insisting that churches must have singing despite the contribution that it makes to the spread of the virus, particularly in enclosed spaces that are poorly-ventilated, spaces in which the air is recirculated rather than replaced with fresh air from outside of building. Jesus calls us to a life of sacrificial love and service, not to putting our preferences first. Despite what they may say, this is what these Christians are doing.

A temporary moratorium on choral singing, congregational singing, and corporate recitation in churches is not a total ban on singing in the Church. The Church exists outside the four walls of a building. There are many ways that Christians can sing without endangering each other or their communities. It takes a little imagination and a little creativity but it can be done. We also have the resources to do it. I encourage readers to think about how it can be done and to share their ideas with each other.