By johninnc
One of the more revealing vestiges of the covid era was the extent to which churches and their leaders hewed to, and even vociferously advanced, the fickle government narrative.
Many of the same pastors, who routinely and thunderously spew forth on every perceived social ill, assault on “christian values” and “religious freedom,” registered no meaningful complaints when it came to the tyrannical lies, censorship, and coercion of local, state, federal (and emerging world) governments under the guise of “protecting us” from covid.
One of the ways that the US government gained “buy in” from churches was to provide them with money to help them through the crisis.
In early 2001, we ran a post that touched on the billions of dollars of “covid relief funds” paid to US churches. See below:
I want to preface the next section of this post by saying that a church taking, or not taking covid relief funds is not a reliable indicator of the truth or falsity of its gospel message(s). But, I believe that churches that accepted covid relief funds cannot be trusted with the wellbeing of their congregants, irrespective of their doctrine.
Following are excerpts from an article entitled the Downside of the New Normal:
The world has changed, and overall, it is not for the better. We have changed. Our government has changed. Our values have changed. Covid-19 has given us an unjust legacy of new ways of thinking, new values, and new expectations. It is overall, an unjust system…
What are some of the negative characteristics of the New Normal?…
There are much closer ties between church and state that will have unforeseen consequences. In Australia and America, the churches laughed all the way to the bank in Covid Hysteria. Many received millions in subsidies, payouts, and other financial benefits, perhaps carrots to smooth over the closure of the churches and their silence. Usually, churches are always saying something in the public sphere, but during Covid Hysteria, they were very quiet.
I found an interesting online resource that can be used to track “Payroll Protection Program (PPP)” federal “loans” (most of the “loans” have been forgiven) in the US. Please see link to the search tool, below:
I did a quick search for prominent churches in Charlotte, NC that received PPP loans. Here were some of the larger cash recipients:
Forest Hill Church – $4,104,900
Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte – $1,584,953
First Baptist Church – $713,195
Friendship Missionary Church – $580,500
Providence Baptist Church – $572,700
Northside Baptist Church – $500,000
First Presbyterian Church – $407,120
In addition to the churches who took covid funds, many who did not take covid funds also stood on the sidelines and failed to speak out against one of the greatest evils of our generation. In so doing, they both missed a great opportunity, and made other societal issues that they might raise appear trivial by contrast.
Some of the sounds I heard from Christian leaders regarding the government covid actions were:
Cheerleading
Parroting
Promoting
Govsplaining
Gaslighting
Virtue signaling
Condemning
Whining
But most of all, the silence was deafening.
I have seen all sorts of tortured reasoning for why churches taking covid money from the federal government is OK. One of the more creative came from a friend who is not a professing Christian: that a church accepting covid funds is no different than a church accepting aid from a public fire department if the building were on fire. I think that is a silly, trifling argument, similar to suggesting that congregants using public roads to get to a church is no different than a church accepting covid relief funds. Anyhow, I didn’t necessarily expect him to understand.
One of the interesting things to watch – the unforeseen consequences of the closer ties developed between church and state during the covid era – will be the nature and extent to which churches will be coopted by government into supporting other exigent matters, such as changing our diets, restricting the sizes of our families, monitoring and reducing our “carbon footprints,” censoring speech, prosecuting unjust wars, and so on.
Notes From A Retired Preacher 