One of the more disturbing things about the government overreach in Canada and much of the “first world” has been the extent to which the church has not only been silent about it, but complicit.
When covid arrived in Canada, my husband and I were attending a small church in downtown Toronto. They, like most churches, closed down and moved to online “meetings” when the government ordered.
In the summer of 2020, we were once again “allowed” to meet, but with many restrictions. Masks and hand sanitizer were required. Each attendee had to sign a contact tracing form. Two out of every three pews were roped off so we had to sit far away from each other. People refused to hug or shake hands. It was like a dystopian vision of church.
Of course, when the government mandated church closures again, they complied. We were unable to attend church for nearly a year and had to try to make do with YouTube livestreams.
In 2021 we moved out of Toronto, and I will forever be thankful that God led us to a church which meets in person, doesn’t require (or forbid) masks, and doesn’t care about anyone’s vaccination status. We hug and shake hands and meet together in groups and eat even when the government tells us we can’t.
But unfortunately, churches like mine are the minority. I have a friend who is the pastor of a church in Ontario, who has kept his church shut in accordance with government mandates for the better part of two years. Their email newsletters have been a consistently sad repetition that we still can’t meet together (but we hope we can soon!)
I was at first encouraged when I read the subject line of their most recent email, which indicated the school they rent was finally going to allow them to meet there again. But - covid vaccines would be required for entry. The newsletter went on to say they “hoped” that would not be necessary “soon”.
I was utterly flabbergasted. The pastor of this church is someone I’ve known for many years. While we’ve drifted apart, he once was someone I looked up to as a spiritual mentor. How on earth could he possibly be complying with such a wicked government mandate?
Sadly, his church is not the exception - it is the rule. Pastors have mostly complied with every government order as it came along. Not only that, they judge and criticize the few pastors who have chosen to obey God and keep their churches open. Those few pastors have not only been punished by the state with fines and even jail time, they have been subjected to “friendly fire” by other so-called Christians.
This is the kind of treatment one Canadian pastor has gotten for continuing to feed the homeless, hold church services, and speak against government overreach. This is now the fifth time he has been arrested by a vengeful government enraged by his refusal to submit.
The silence and complicity of most pastors is a grievous betrayal of the sheep by the shepherds who are supposed to care for them. The church should be a refuge from the evil of the world, not an extension of it. Scripture is extremely clear that the church is called to physically gather together:
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Not meeting together makes all of the “one anothers” of Scripture almost impossible. We cannot exercise the gifts the Spirit has given each of us for the good of the body if we don’t see each other.
Watching a service on a computer screen is not a substitute. This takes the “professional” model of church to an extreme. We already reflect this model in the way our churches are set up: rows of chairs for spectators who come in and passively watch a performance by professionals on a stage. This just takes it one step further by making interaction among churchgoers impossible.
Our spiritual life suffers when we do not meet with other believers. Listening to a sermon and some worship songs is not a substitute. Even a sermon is not much good if we have no opportunity to put it into practice. Vast portions of Scripture deal with not only how we are to relate to God, but to one another. John tells us that we can only know if we love God by how we love (or don’t) our brothers in Christ.
Social interaction is essential even for those who are not believers. We are unavoidably social creatures. Forbidding human interaction has been one of the cruelest impositions of governments and has led to increases in deaths of loneliness in the elderly, increased rates of substance abuse and suicides, and skyrocketing mental health problems in young people. Families have been torn apart and people denied access to their loved ones based on their medical choices. The church has an amazing opportunity to reach those thirsting for human companionship, and they have missed it.
Not only that, the pandemic has led many people to think about issues like death and spirituality and the meaning of life in ways they hadn’t before. Some are terrified of dying of covid and need to hear the message of the hope of eternal life in Jesus. Some are terrified of the dystopian, totalitarian direction government is taking, and need the message of a greater authority who one day will bring justice. People need a firm foundation to stand on in the storms of life, and the church has that. Yet it is wickedly and complacently closing its doors to the needy.
The church should be the conscience of the world, speaking out on issues of injustice. I don’t mean that the church should be reduced to a social justice organization: we are called to preach the gospel and make disciples. But if the church never has anything to say about the evils of the world around it, it is irrelevant.
Most of the church was silent or complicit in Nazi Germany and American slavery and segregation. Should the church have taken a stand against these historical evils? Most would say yes. And yet we have a similar example of segregation and discrimination being perpetrated against a minority group - those who have not taken the covid injections - and churches are silent about this injustice. Worse than silent, some are complicit by enforcing vaccine requirements for entry to their services.
Think about what that means in practice. Certain people will be denied access to spiritual fellowship, the hearing of God’s word, and perhaps salvation, based on their personal medical choices. How can the church not only not see this for the utter evil it is, but participate in it?
Those who defend church compliance with government orders cite Romans 13 to justify it. I won’t look at that passage in detail, but it’s clear what kind of obedience it is talking about:
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. (Romans 13:3-4)
Rulers have legitimate authority to enforce laws against “bad” and “wrong” behaviour. Scripture nowhere defines “bad” or “wrong” behaviour as obedience to God’s commands. God defines what is good and bad, not the state. When the government attempts to punish what God has commanded, it oversteps its authority. In that case, we are called to do as the apostles:
But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:29)
The same person who wrote Romans 13, the Apostle Paul, constantly got into trouble with authorities for obeying God’s command to preach the gospel.
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned….in…danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles…. (2 Corinthians 11:23-26)
Jesus frequently warned his disciples that following him would result in persecution from the world:
But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness….You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake. (Luke 21:12-13, 16-17)
So when I look out at the Canadian church landscape, and I see some pastors being fined, arrested, and thrown into jail for obeying Jesus’ commands to meet together and preach the gospel; and I see some pastors avoiding persecution by disobeying God’s commands and obeying the government instead: which am I supposed to believe are following Jesus?
I’ll tell you my answer: the ones who are doing what he told us to do, and who are suffering the persecution he promised would follow.
If you are taking part in something evil, you are doing evil. If you are ordered to do wrong by an authority, it is your responsibility to obey the higher authority, God. God will not absolve those who comply with evil under the excuse that someone told them to do it. God is the King and Ruler of creation who defines what is good, not the state. We will be judged by his laws, not those of the state, except as far as they reflect his.
I think the reality is that Canadian pastors are not obeying the government because they genuinely believe that it is the godly thing to do (although they may have convinced themselves of this), but because they want to avoid persecution. They do not want to pay the cost of obeying Jesus. They do not like the promises he left us of suffering, but would prefer to have their cake and eat it too: being right with God and avoiding any pushback from a world that we are told “lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).
Pastors in North America have grown accustomed to comfort. I do not think that covid has caused the complicity and passivity we are seeing in the church: its roots are long and deep. For many years it has been very rare, for example, for Canadian pastors to preach or teach in any meaningful way about God’s design for human sexuality. They are silent on one of the most important issues of our day, one that many people wonder about and struggle with.
Canadian churches regularly fail to speak clearly on subjects like sin, repentance, God’s judgement, and hell. They prefer to talk about things that sound nicer and don’t turn people off. They believe that by not offending the world, the world will flock to them. Somehow, it hasn’t worked. But they care more about what people and the culture think than what God thinks.
I have long thought that persecution would be a kind of stripping, a revelation of the true state of the church and a winnowing of the faithful from the false. I never thought it would come in the guise of public health. Unfortunately, it has proven my worst fears about the state of the Canadian church true. But it provides an amazing opportunity to those pastors and churches who are willing to count the cost and remain faithful to Jesus.
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)
SO TRUE. My church is still wearing masks and separate seating and then getting sermons about fellowship and community yet can’t put even a damn coffee pot out. No more chili suppers or events to foster community. Just 25 or so older people attending (I’m older) singing through masks. No children. The young people have left and the upper church district had the gall to use the closed time to move pastors around so we had someone new who knew nothing about us or vice versa. Methodist. They are still kicking the can down the road on LGBTQ issue. I have a trans grandson in another state but I’m done. I quite going last September because of the masks and all the other crap. I don’t give money either. They are complicit and Jesus warned us about obeying the “powers and principalities of the world”. The rest of the churches in our small town are the same. Dead. I bet Satan is laughing his ass off at how easy it was to empty the churches. I meet my God in nature now. I worship there and pass the love with companionship of friends and family I have left. I’m so disappointed. BUT. I am closer to Jesus than I ever have been and have peace and hope. I attended a fundamentalist church for 25 years before. I see the prophecies playing out now. Satan needs humans to do his dirty work and he found some. I am preparing myself. Many of us know what’s really going on.
Most churches in most denominations have either embraced the new faith or betrayed the true faith. There were many however, even in the top ranks who were not deceived. I appreciate your lengthy lament, Keep up the good spirit though and the good fight. Good is still good and bad is bad, and always will be.