Should your church be meeting during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic? That is something the members of each church should be able to decide for themselves. Will some people make poor choices? Yes. However, politicians don’t necessarily make better decisions. The majority doesn’t necessarily make better decisions. That is why we have a constitutional republic.
Consider (click on the link) California’s Gestapo COVID Church Restrictions: Eric Metaxas with John MacArthur (christianoutlook.com). Here Metaxas interviews MacAuthur. The subject? California authorities are trying to keep churches closed, and MacAuthur trying to keep his church opened.
Decide. Is this a health issue or a freedom of religion issue?
Prince William-Manassas Family Alliance 
My church has been holding services again throughout the past month and while we could not meet at the church building our services were published online via youtube. I think it is a matter of constitutional rights involving both freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Further, the Bible commands us to not forsake the gathering of ourselves with others for worship and mandates of God MUST be given the higher priority over all else.
It depends on whether church people want to carry the burden on their shoulders if they flock together without safety precautions in a church in the middle of a pandemic. If they flock together in the middle of the pandemic and get infected and then carry it home to their friends, relatives and loved ones, how will they feel? It looks to me like a lot of people are so selfish they really don’t care whether they cause someone else to get sick with this thing or not. Isaiah 26:20 tells us what God wants His People to do in a plague situation … a pestilence situation ….”Isaiah 26:20
King James Version
20 Come, my people, wenter thou into thy chambers,
And shut thy doors about thee:
Hide thyself as it were for a little moment,
Until the indignation be overpast.
I say let those who wish to tempt God by ignoring Isaiah 26:20 go right ahead and take their chances … I also say let them be prepared to accept the consequences.
@John
Sorry for the delay. Busy day.
The verse you quoted doesn’t have anything to with COVID19 than it does with the flu. Two reasons.
First. Do you really think God expects us to shut ourselves up in our houses to escape the flu? Well, COVID19 is just about as dangerous. Think not? Well, consider one of the ways we are being urged to get our flu shots. We don’t want the combination of the flu and COVID19 overwhelming the hospitals.
Second. The context of Isaiah 26:20 is within a prophetic book. It isn’t direction for dealing with the flu.
Read https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/is-isaiah-2620-about-a-quarantine.html
Here is another view.
https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=wes&b=23&c=26
Well, you are welcome to tempt God anyway you choose. He has already given the instructions for safety (Lockdown or staying away from other people as much as possible) but if people wish to go out and expose themselves and die that is their business. And it is readily apparent that the Trump Herd is more than willing tio sacrifice themselves and their loved ones just to prove their new “Second Coming True King of Israel” whitehouse squatter right in all things that proceed forth from his lying mouth. Those idiots don’t realize that they are worshiping a golden calf and that if they keep it up the ground is going to virtually open beneath their idiotic feet and swallow their intransigent asses up in the firest of a new nationalistic fascism.
@John
You are advocating a response to COVID19 out of proportion to threat it poses, and this is the best you can do to justify yourself? Wild assertions and baseless accusations?
If you actually practice what you preach, that is just pitiful. If you don’t practice what you preach, that is pitiful too.
I can always tell a Trumpster.
@John
So, now you are going after me? Sigh!
We were discussing an issue. You launched into a senseless tirade full of hostility and nonsense. I was not supposed to point that out?
Think about what you stand for. Understand why you should stand what you stand for, or modify your stance with a better understanding. Then be prepared to defend what you stand for by explaining why you stand for what you stand for. You don’t have to attack someone.
Consider that there is a distinct difference between standing for something and attacking anyone who dares to say something that bothers you. If you don’t understand what you stand for, how can you rightly stand for anything? If you don’t actually stand for anything, what motivates you? Aimless anger? Apparently, but attacking someone is easy.
You said, “Consider that there is a distinct difference between standing for something and attacking anyone who dares to say something that bothers you.” —- First of all, I do not make personal attacks because I do not know anybody who reads this blog and I could generally care less about them or what they say or think —-Secondly when it comes to attacking someone who disagrees with me, I am only following the example of our beloved President … He is the real expert at that and it seems that if he is privileged to do it, so must I also be.
@John
You personally castigate President Trump. Then you try to negate anything I say by accusing by accusing me of being a Trump supporter.
The object of this blog is to discuss certain issues and where the candidates stand on those issues.
If it walks like a duck —
You wrote, “If you actually practice what you preach, that is just pitiful. If you don’t practice what you preach, that is pitiful too.” I remember when there was a particular German leader (1931-1945) who would say such things as, “It will either rain tomorrow or it will not” and “We will either win this battle or we will lose it.” He was never wrong when he phrased things this way. So, either I do practice what I preach or I don’t.” Same idea — same way of phrasing things …so no matter which is the case, you will always be correct. Congratulations!
Everybody knows that the Covid19 thing is nothing but a hoax and that it is all going to go away on its own one of these days … probably after the election ….. and even it if doesn’t go away on its own, we will have an effective and safe vaccine before or shortly after the election …and if we did less testing for the virus we would have fewer cases ….Everybody knows all this because the President has assured of all this …and, as everybody knows, every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of the president is Gospel Truth and that everything and everyone who disagrees with him is a liar or deceived or an anarchist or an arsonist or worse … which means that One Half the nation aren’t worth the time of day —Everybody knows these things already.
@John
Could you explain what makes COVID19 an order of magnitude or more more dangerous than the flu?
During mid-April the “counted deaths” for COVID-19 in the United States were around 15,000 per week. During a typical “peak week” for the flu, the “counted deaths” are about 750.
COVID-19 deaths are actually anywhere from 10 times to 44 times the number of influenza fatalities.
Other experts say there are also reasons beyond the raw statistics that indicate COVID-19 is more dangerous than influenza.
@John
What is the current death rate, especially since certain governors have stopped sending people with active COVID19 infections into nursing homes?
According to CDC, the current United Stated Covid 19 death rate is 199-thousand plus 213 recently reported cases …. and the influenza death rate currently stands at 6,515.
@John
How many people are dying per day now?
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-deaths-united-states-each-day-2020-n1177936
Mortality for COVID-19 appears higher than for influenza, especially seasonal influenza. While the true mortality of COVID-19 will take some time to fully understand, the data we have so far indicate that the crude mortality ratio (the number of reported deaths divided by the reported cases) is between 3-4%, the infection mortality rate (the number of reported deaths divided by the number of infections) will be lower. For seasonal influenza, mortality is usually well below 0.1%. However, mortality is to a large extent determined by access to and quality of health care.
@John
Define the term case rate. How does the term case rate relate to a random individual?
Lots of people die every year. Is the lockdown saving more people or resulting more deaths?
Why don’t you just go on doing what you do and be thankful that you or your loved ones have not caught this thing yet. All this semantic exchange is accomplishing absolutely nothing. If you are Conservative then it is an assured thing that nothing is going to change your mind about anything …ever ..and I might say much the same about the dedicated Liberal as well … Just go ahead and enjoy life, do the best you can, and hope that you get spared the horrors of watching a loved one die from the pandemic …
@John
You are just repeating carefully selected statistics designed to misguide. Some strains of the flu kill more people in some years than they do in others. We can slow the flu’s spread, but we cannot stop it. Effectively, COVID19 is a bad strain of the flu. No. COVID19 is not the flu, but the threat it poses is similar. In fact, COVID19 may be more contagious. So, it is harder to stop. So, it is a waste of effort to try to protect everyone by shutting down everything.
So let the fools who don’t value their lives and who don’t care about their so-called-loved ones just run helter skelter into the threat with no precautions at all and let them take their chances … I personally hope that most of them get what they are looking for .. One thing is for sure … the covid deny-ers get no sympathy from me if they come down with it.
@John
You are stating a conclusion based upon a false premise. The Spanish flu was a flu pandemic. It was significantly more deadly than COVID 19, but Woodrow Wilson ignored it.
How do we compare apples with apples? COVID19 is a type of cold virus. Some strains of the cold are bad news, just like the flu.
In our modern age we know more about how the cold and the flu kill people. We can even create somewhat effective vaccines. Yet instead of allowing our knowledge to calm us, we are letting so-called experts selected by the news media to panick us. Dumb. COVID19 is not anywhere nearly as dangerous as smallpox or the bubonic plague was to our ancestors. So, calm down.
Go and haunt some other blog for awhile, why don’t you?
@John
Sarcasm. That’s really all you have got. Think! You are listening to a news media that calls our president a fascist and then effectively complain he is authoritarian enough. You listen to people like that and you cannot be pleased.
Reblogged this on Boudica BPI Weblog and commented:
H/T Citizen Tom
Thank you!
If we can eat out, go to the liquor stores,
venture to ocean or beach, shop— then we can go to church— be smart, no hugging, kissing( icons for the orthodox) shaking hands— spread out, cover up but by all means, worship!!!!!
@Julie
Just the way I feel.
There is no problem here. This is America. If people wish to go into an enclosed space with a bunch of other people (Any of which could be infected and not know it) and hobnob and party or worship with the deadly virus circulating in the air …that should be their right. If that is the fate they wish for themselves and their loved ones, then I say “Let them have at it.” It is their bodies and they should have the say about what they put into those bodies and if they are ignorant enough to have this kind of death wish, then I say, “Let them have it and the more the merrier.”