On Worship, Freedom, and Love

Let’s get one thing very clear.  We are not choosing to do virtual worship services because of governmental restrictions.  We have the freedom to worship and we doggedly maintain that right no matter what any city council or governor might dictate.  We are choosing to do what we are doing out of wisdom and love—especially for the elderly and most vulnerable among us.

There is a delicate balance here, and great danger. John Whitehead cites the danger we are all feeling.

“At a minimum, this is a time for heightened vigilance. Our Constitution erected a government of limited powers with the task of ensuring that our freedoms are protected against government abuse. While we may tolerate these restrictions on our liberties in the short term, we should never fail to be on guard lest these one-time constraints become a slippery slope to a total lockdown mindset,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “What we must guard against, more than ever before, is the tendency to become so accustomed to these lockdowns, authoritarian dictates, and police state tactics justified as necessary for national security that we allow the government to keep having its way in all things, without any civic resistance or objections being raised.” (here)

Federal and state governments should not have the right to restrict worship, but we do not want to act like fools in the defense of that right. If we concede our rights easily, we will lose them. If we exercise them foolishly we will also lose them and hurt others in the process.

So God bless the pastors and congregations all across this country who have found novel ways to worship over the last month.  Thank God for the drive-in services, live streams, Zoom services, and video posts.  Thank God for individual believers who have taken time to minister to family, friends, neighbors and fellow church members over phones, email, Twitter, and Facebook–even snail mail and sidewalk chalk drawings.

We will meet together again when it is wise.  Hopefully, wisdom and governmental guidelines coincide. This is only temporary.

But until then. Be faithful weary Pilgrim, the morning I can see.