Loving Jesus After Covid

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Covid-19's impact on giving

More than a few of us are ready for the Covid-19 shut down to be lifted.  Like so many other issues in our nation right now this seems to be a matter of deeply held opinions causing a deep divide.  The church finds itself in the midst of finding the balancing point between desiring not to spread disease and the desire to gather again. 

While some churches have simply closed and encouraged their members to worship individually at home while waiting for meeting bans to be lifted other churches have worked aggressively to offer virtual services. Some churches are using drive in services insisting that members stay in their cars and have no direct contact with each other.  I have yet to meet anyone who likes this approach to being the church.

There are some who insist that the church is being singled out.  While non-essential businesses are being allowed to open, the church is banned from meeting.  Some see this as a sort of proto-persecution, a way of gauging the response of Christians in America to being oppressed. For this reason some churches and Christians have begun to insist on having their rights restored and being allowed to gather in mass worship meetings.  There have even been suggestions of “worship protests” in which Christians gather to worship in protest of the ban on large group meetings.

Is this the beginning of a plan to oppress the church in America?  If Christians do not speak up and declare what they believe now, will they lose the right to speak up at all?  Is this the beginning of persecution?  I believe that is a question that only future historians will be able to answer.  I can see both sides of the argument and honestly I am not sure that it is the most important issue the church faces.  It is possible that governments can take our freedom.  No doubt a free society feels better for the church than an oppressed society.  But around the world today where there is the maximum level of freedom, there the church is most in decline. 

Will we lose our freedoms? Maybe, but nothing can make us not love Jesus.  And that is where the church ought to focus.  Uncle Screwtape advised that if possible his apprentice should attempt to get the patient to practice what he calls, “Christianity and”.  Screwtape explained that the amalgamation of Christianity with anything would, from hell’s perspective, be a positive thing.  His suggestions seem fanciful or even comic for us, and there is no end to the possible combination of additives to Christianity.  We could have Christianity and vegetarianism, Christianity and spelling reform, Christianity and hand sanitizer, Christianity and social distancing, Christianity and mask wearing.

Even if the Supreme Court ordered that all churches be reopened this weekend would that mean that America would suddenly begin to experience a grand revival?  Most likely not.  In fact, until some things change inside the American church the decline we have been experiencing will continue in the post Covid future.  Now is the time to return our focus to hit the reset button of our churches to loving Jesus with our whole being.   If persecution actually does comes, only loving Jesus will give us the strength to endure.

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