I can’t have been the only one to have breathed a sigh of relief when the government permitted churches to remain open during this month’s lockdown. It was a startling acknowledgement from Downing Street of the importance of faith in times of national uncertainty – and one that had not been present in the last two lockdowns. This time, churches were given a freedom that was denied to shops, restaurants and even schools. Here was the government openly prioritising the spiritual over the financial. It was quite a moment.
For centuries, the church has held up the Eucharist as a profound mystery that is as essential as oxygen to the life of the believer.
Imagine my surprise then when, over the following few days, church after church announced that they would not be following the guidance, but would instead be closing their doors indefinitely. I waited for congregations to express outrage or even mild regret at these actions but, apart from a handful of noble outliers, the backlash singularly failed to arrive. For centuries, the church has held up the Eucharist as a profound mystery that is as essential as oxygen to the life of the believer, and yet here were church leaders denying their members the chance to gather together and take the sacraments. And what’s more, most Christians seemed to have made their peace with this situation. As Anglican Priest Revd. Daniel French from Salcombe Devon puts it, “either the great mysteries like the Eucharist matter or they do not. I think sometimes non-church people get this more than we do. They sense something out of the ordinary happens at church.”
Indeed, the importance with which the Eucharist is viewed seems to correlate heavily with whether or not a church is prepared to open its doors. As you can see from this website which helpfully tracks churches that are remaining open, many Catholic and Anglo-catholic churches have been unequivocal in their efforts to continue holding services whilst it has tended to be the evangelical and low Anglican churches that are the first to shut up shop. And the irony of Lichfield and Salisbury cathedrals closing their doors to worshippers but opening them for max vaccinations is not lost on the minority of Christians who do want to meet. Where does the faith of these institutions really lie – in God or in science? If vaccinations can be given within church walls, then surely the Eucharist can too.
At a time of national crisis, many outside the church are understandably turning to faith as a constant which can carry them through.
But the sacraments are far from the only reason churches have to open their doors. At a time of national crisis, many outside the church are understandably turning to faith as a constant which can carry them through. During the first lockdown there was a 50 per cent surge in Google searches for prayer. The Church, you would have thought, exists for times such as these. Remember when, during World War II, George VI called the nation to a day of prayer? Yet now, in the first major national crisis we have faced since the second world war, anyone with an inkling towards the spiritual will likely find the doors of their local church bolted.
So what’s going on? The reasoning many church leaders gave for the closures, including my own, was that they did not want to harm their standing in the community by being the source of an outbreak; nor did they want to put elderly and vulnerable members of the community at risk. What’s more, they said, the wonders of modern technology mean that services can continue online. But to say Zoom church is an adequate substitute for real church is to deny everything that gives church its power. I’ve always wanted to go to Rio de Janeiro. Indeed, I’ve looked at the statue of Christ the Redeemer on a web cam. But it’s categorically not the same as climbing up to it oneself; and any tourist guide who told me otherwise would be selling snake oil.
Where does the faith of these institutions really lie – in God or in science? If vaccinations can be given within church walls, then surely the Eucharist can too.
There are plenty of Christians who would say we mustn’t get caught up with the idea that there’s something special about being in a church building. And it’s true that worship and prayer can take place anywhere. But we do our faith a great disservice when we downplay the value of meeting together – the weekly pilgrimage, however small, to our chosen pew, is a powerful way of setting aside time for what ultimately matters most to us. And there’s no telling how many will return after lockdown once we fall out of the habit of it. Church attendance, which was already in decline, will accelerate at a time when many could have turned to the church for solace.
But there’s a second and more worrying undercurrent at work. All this talk of risk and the management of risk points to a fear of death that has quickly pervaded our national institutions. Many of those in the church who are concerned about the risks of meeting would in the next breath say that faith is the antidote to fear. Yet how can people take this spiritual claim seriously when they see in churches a distinct lack of courage? Persecuted Christians around the world – from North Korea to Somalia – face far greater risks when meeting to worship and yet they do not stop meeting because of these dangers; they meet in spite of them. If the government, with its bevy of scientific advisors, has judged church safe, then fear – either of death or of public reprobation – has to be a motivating factor for keeping a church closed.
What’s more, a dangerous precedent has been set. What incentive does the government have to defend the freedoms of faith communities going forward if their leaders resolutely refuse to make use of those freedoms? Gavin Ashenden, former Chaplain to the Queen, has been consistently outspoken on the need to exercise our freedoms: “civil liberties require us to make a distinction between those who want to withdraw from public life in order to protect themselves in a situation that is scientifically and medically ambiguous, and those who chose to take certain risks congruent with a personal value system and the dictates of their conscience,” he says on his blog. Church is one of the few areas of public life where the government has prioritised personal choice over top-down risk management. How tragic, then, that the church is so doubtful of its own purpose that it cannot offer its own congregants the same freedom.
Joanna Rossiter is Digital Editor of Spectator Life. She writes for The Telegraph, the Spectator and Unherd and is the author of The Sea Change (Penguin).
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