Church Leaders: Stay Closed (For Now)
In the coming weeks, church leaders must choose whether to hold public meetings, or continue to cancel them because of the coronavirus pandemic; to obey the scriptural command to not give up meeting together, or the government’s command to stop meeting together; to feed souls or to protect bodies.
Souls and Scripture trump bodies and governments, so it would seem to be an easy choice. Indeed, Rusty Reno of First Things argues churches are wrong to close their doors. He believes that closing in time of pandemic disease is to adopt the world’s fear of death as its overriding priority, when the gospel should be about the celebration of life.
First Things is a leading periodical for Christian intellectuals, and Reno’s argument will carry weight with church leaders—many of whose congr...