Two pastors of Valley Bible Church discuss how Christians should respond to COVID-19 restrictions on worship in light of Scripture and the U.S. Constitution. They argue that all authority comes from God and that Christians must joyfully submit to government unless commanded to sin, while viewing fallen leaders with healthy skepticism and trusting God's providence. They hold that First Amendment religious liberty remains in force, urge respectful political engagement and peaceful protest over rebellion, and say conflicts between levels of authority call for discernment centered on gospel witness. They also criticize reliance on predictive models over empirical data, stress the human costs of lockdowns, describe giving as worship rather than seed money, and say the church declined government aid.
Reviewed
Its text teaches none of the positions Doxa lists.
Keyword counts
Woke keywords
Counted144 points from 25 keywords, 128 matches in 12,395 words
- government… 11
- state 15
- nation… 7
- free… 26
- politic… 10
- america… 5
Doxa counts words and phrases from a fixed list, each worth some points. It doesn't read context, so a word counts however it's used, and a keyword ending in … counts every word that starts with it.
The church's decision to stop gathering at the start of the pandemic was right at the time, a joyful submission to the governing authorities given the unknowns, though whether to continue is now an open question.
A Christian worldview speaks to every area of life, including how to respond to government pandemic restrictions, and Christians should get their view of authority from Scripture rather than the news.
All authority comes from God, who delegates it to distinct spheres such as family, state, and church, and these spheres may not take over each other's roles.
- Adopts· English historian (Lord Acton)
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Because of the fall, every part of human nature is touched by sin, so leaders tend to misuse power for advantage, while the image of God explains why some leaders still do good.
An adversarial press acting as a check on power gone astray is a good thing.
In some states the pandemic lockdown has become a pretext for officials to grab more power.
Christians should view everyone in authority with a healthy, realistic skepticism, without letting it become cynicism or a spirit of rebellion.
Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 require Christians to submit willingly and joyfully to governing authorities, except when those authorities require sin, in which case Christians must obey God rather than men.
Christians honor God by submitting even to foolish leaders, short of being required to sin, and can accept the harmful consequences as God's providence.
God's providence governs every event, including rulers' hearts, pandemics, and persecution, so Christians should not live as functional deists who think God is hands-off with the world.
Like Paul appealing to his Roman citizenship, Christians may rightly use the legal rights their citizenship gives them to resist injustice, and American constitutional rights are such a stewardship.
First Amendment religious freedom does not disappear during a pandemic, and officials should explicitly weigh and acknowledge the constitutional freedom to worship when making restrictions.
Religious liberty belongs to everyone, including those whose worship Christians reject, and Christians should defend others' right to worship according to conscience.
The biblical command not to forsake assembling together allows a temporary postponement of gatherings to preserve life, but believers must ultimately gather physically again.
In a representative republic, political freedom is a stewardship, so Christians should be involved in politics by voting, supporting candidates, and running for office, and neglecting it is to their peril.
Christians' first response to objectionable restrictions should be to pray for their leaders and contact them respectfully with a reasoned case, not to vent angrily on social media.
When a lower authority forbids what a higher authority permits, Christians must use discernment, choosing what best honors Christ and gospel witness while stewarding their freedoms, and Christians of good conscience may decide differently and deserve charity.
- Endorses a source· Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. remains a good model of peaceful civil disobedience and demonstration, and Christians who protest should do so peacefully.
Though the Second Amendment is valid, carrying a firearm to a lockdown protest to make a point would be wrong for Christians; the issue is worship, not gun rights.
The freedom to worship is the right Christians should be most concerned to protect, and they should pursue avenues to worship as God commands even if other rights are infringed.
Church elders have a duty to protect their people physically as well as to feed them, and must not put them in harm's way.
Leaders making pandemic decisions are in a hard position, and Christians should acknowledge this, pray for them, and be their most consistent encouragers.
Christians under evil regimes such as China's must keep a basic posture of submission to the state that never compromises their greater submission to Christ, and some rightly worship in secret when open worship would compromise the gospel.
- Adopts· Martin Luther
The peasants who rose in political rebellion were wrong.
Pursuing biblical goals through rebellion and revolution loses the gospel, as the Peasants' Revolt nearly derailed the Reformation, and Christians must keep revolutionary zeal out of their political witness.
Church is not about the building but about worshipping God, yet physical gathering matters, and church leaders will push the boundaries of loosened restrictions as far as they can to get people worshipping together again.
Caring for the church's employees is the church's responsibility, not the government's, so the church declined government pandemic aid.
Giving is an act of joyful worship, not a tithe quota or seed money that obligates God to restore jobs or protect from illness.
Restrictions that single out churches while other gatherings reopen would be an attack on religious liberty warranting a different, more public response than society-wide restrictions.
Washington State has not targeted religion but has ignored it, because the church has become irrelevant in public life, largely through its own fault.
The initial pandemic shutdown was probably right given what experts knew, but restrictions now carry heavy human costs such as domestic violence and suicide, and the church should speak up for those lives.
- Rejects· IHME
The epidemiological computer models (IHME) guiding pandemic policy have been consistently and spectacularly wrong.
Leaders should base pandemic decisions on empirical data and real science rather than predictive models.
God sometimes uses pain and suffering to wake people to their spiritual condition, so Christians should pray for revival and evangelize rather than only for lifted restrictions.
Faithfulness to God may sometimes be taken as political rebellion, as with Jesus, but Christians are free to limit their own liberties for the gospel, provided this is not cover for cowardice or fear of man.
The law of love trumps the law of liberty: Christians should do what is loving toward God and neighbor even when they have the liberty to do otherwise.
The church's protection from the virus should be credited to God's providence, not statistical luck.
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