The global covid-19 pandemic is now two years old and the virus appears to be here to stay.
In the early stages of the pandemic, many Adventists were concerned about where all of this could be headed but kept quiet. Our church leaders have had the difficult task of navigating the uncertainty and deserve our sympathy and prayers in their handling of this difficult situation. It did not seem right to me to be too quick to criticize in the early stages of the pandemic. Although sharing the concerns of many, I have kept quiet and refrained from voicing my opinions or concerns, choosing instead to take a wait-and-see approach. I’ve also given the government significant benefit of the doubt with regard to where this was all headed and even took the first two doses of the vaccine myself.
But I cannot help but be troubled the more time goes on when I contrast the passion of some of my Pentecostal clients for the importance of all aspects of worshiping God, with the seeming indifference of my own beloved church towards the governments of many provinces taking over key aspects of our services and fellowship indefinitely. As I have gotten involved in these issues through a series of events that I can only describe as divine providence, my views have started to change. I have also seen firsthand just how fickle governments can be in their policymaking and the amazingly outsized influence media pressure plays in their decision making.
We all instinctively understand that temporary emergency restrictions to mitigate unknown risks and uncertainties are prudent and make sense in the early stages of the outbreak of a new disease. It may not have seemed like such a big deal that we temporarily could not meet in our churches, or could only meet wearing masks and had to refrain from hugging, singing, and eating together. If for a short time our churches had to go online and become little more than a one-hour religious tv program, it was not the end of the world. But at what point do we begin to admit to ourselves that such measures, followed on an indefinite basis, may permanently deform our church culture into something foreign, unrecognizable, and ultimately unbiblical? Is church meant to be nothing more than a songless forum for sermons?
The New Testament has much to say about the church and what it is. Much of this teaching is beautifully summarized in our fundamental belief #12
The church is the community of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. In continuity with the people of God in Old Testament times, we are called out from the world; and we join together for worship, for fellowship, for instruction in the Word, for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, for service to humanity, and for the worldwide proclamation of the gospel. The church derives its authority from Christ, who is the incarnate Word revealed in the Scriptures. The church is God’s family; adopted by Him as children, its members live on the basis of the new covenant. The church is the body of Christ, a community of faith of which Christ Himself is the Head. The church is the bride for whom Christ died that He might sanctify and cleanse her. At His return in triumph, He will present her to Himself a glorious church, the faithful of all the ages, the purchase of His blood, not having spot or wrinkle, but holy and without blemish. (Gen. 12:1-3; Exod. 19:3-7; Matt. 16:13-20; 18:18; 28:19, 20; Acts 2:38-42; 7:38; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:22, 23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11; 5:23-27; Col. 1:17, 18; 1 Peter 2:9.)
If government restrictions are now forcing us to abandon key aspects of this doctrine, do they not constitute real infringements of our freedom of religion? For example, current restrictions in the Province of New Brunswick forbid churches that are not fully vaccinated from singing. How is a silent acquiescence to this restriction compatible with our doctrine that the church is a place where we join together for worship? Is a song-less worship service Biblical?
The Bible also teaches that the church is a place of fellowship and close community. We are the household of God, commanded to have close bonds that are even stronger than those with our own flesh and blood. Are government restrictions that require us to be afraid of touching or being in physical proximity to each other real infringements of this doctrine?
The Bible teaches that we are to celebrate the Lord’s supper. But we have changed the way we celebrate the Lord’s supper by no longer physically touching and breaking the bread. Jesus did not order the bread in individually-wrapped sanitary packaging. He took the bread and broke it. Is the re-invention of our communion service doing away with this practice biblical? The breaking of bread in the New Testament is also commonly understood as the sharing of communal meals. This is mentioned in Acts 2:42 as a continual practice of the early church. Fellowship meals are arguably just as sacred as the sermon hour. But we are showing ourselves completely willing to give this up as well.
On the evangelistic front, our community kitchens can no longer serve the unvaccinated in many places. Our evangelistic efforts can no longer admit the unvaccinated in many places. We are being forced to discriminate and hold back the Word and the truth from some of the most conscientious members of our society who may be the closest to the kingdom. How does this not infringe our freedom of religion?
Fearful
Does fear of the other have a place in our church? When our churches and institutions of higher learning keep out the unvaccinated, are we not promoting an irrational fear of the other? Since we know that an unvaccinated healthy young person is no more likely to transmit the disease than a vaccinated older person, are we not promoting lies and erroneous stereotypes by treating one as safe to be around, and the other as unsafe? Although on a population level vaccination seems to correlate with reduced risk of transmission, on an individual level, how likely someone is to get and spread the virus is not knowable. That is a fact. Maybe we should stop playing God and go back to being His church.
I am especially worried about our youth. The stripping down of our church services to even less than bare essentials can only accelerate the exodus of our youth from church. It is amazing to me how the same crowd that for decades was telling us to do whatever it takes to keep our youth, is now, when it calls for personal courage, poised to throw our younger generations under the bus to please the old folks who want a nice safe church service. There is a vaccine now for those who want to feel safe and we cannot and must not as a church start going down the road of stripping down our church in a vain search for “safety”. If we believe prophecy, things are going to soon get a lot less safe. To survive the coming storm, we need a spiritually vibrant, unafraid church more than ever before.
The credibility of our leadership has never been more threatened. If the government can strip down our church services without a peep from our leaders, then what does that say about our church? Have we returned to the formalism that we came out of? Have we gone back to a sacramental view of church as nothing more than a formal weekly tradition? Is the Adventist movement dead?
I am reminded of the warning to the lukewarm church in Revelation 3:16: “because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.” When compared with some of my clients meeting in tents outside in the winter so they can worship God in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, we have never appeared more lukewarm.
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Jonathan Martin is a Seventh-day Adventist lawyer in Canada with a constitutional and religious liberty practice. He has an undergraduate degree in Theology/ Pastoral Ministry from Andrews University and served as an associate pastor and Bible worker for 5 years.