As states begin to crack down on churches violating stay-at-home orders, some Christian leaders are worried that faith groups are at risk of discrimination during the pandemic.
Religious liberty advocates argue that orders requiring social distancing and gatherings of no more than 10 people, which are intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus, also violate churches’ right to assemble. The outcry has been building over the past few weeks, with one Louisiana pastor calling the orders a “persecution of the faith.”
But until Monday, neither law enforcement nor pastors had taken legal action. That changed when Florida police arrested Rodney Howard-Browne, the pastor of The River Church in Tampa Bay. By continuing to hold services, despite a countywide lockdown, Howard-Browne violated health emergency rules and had organized an unlawful assembly, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said.
“His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk, as well as put thousands of residents who may interact with them in danger,” Chronister said at a Monday press conference.
Mat Staver, an attorney at Liberty Counsel, the legal group defending Howard-Browne, countered that the pastor had taken extra precautions in his services, citing the church’s efforts to keep families 6 feet apart at services, its requirements for staff to wear gloves, and its purchase of a purification system to keep the church clean. Furthermore, Staver said, the wording of the order was vague enough that, under Florida law, Howard-Browne could reasonably think he still could hold services.
“Contrary to Sheriff Chronister’s allegation that Pastor Howard-Browne was ‘reckless,’ the actions of Hillsborough Country and the Hernando County Sheriff are discriminatory against religion and church gatherings,” Staver said in a statement.
Before his arrest, Howard-Browne was an outspoken critic of church closures, saying that such action was for “pansies.”
In a similar case, Louisiana police on Tuesday arrested another religious leader who refused to comply with shutdown orders. Tony Spell, the pastor of the Life Tabernacle Church, was charged with six counts of disobeying Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’s increasingly strict orders, first limiting gatherings to 50 people, then to 10, before issuing a stay-at-home order.
Spell in mid-March called Edwards’s orders “politically motivated” and said that he had no intention of moving his services online.
“We hold our religious rights dear, and we are going to assemble no matter what someone says,” he said in a sermon.
Even after he was arrested and issued court summons, Spell held a service on Tuesday night, which hundreds of people attended. Congregants at the service did not abide by social distancing measures, often kissing and hugging each other, according to the local CBS affiliate.
After the service ended, Spell told a large crowd outside of the church that he would continue to hold services as long as he could, comparing the building to a hospital.
“We are needy people. Our souls are lost,” he said. “We need help, and the church is the salvation center of the soul, the sanctuary where we come together and meet.”
Spell previously had encouraged other pastors in the state to follow his lead and said that “the Lord” had told him to defy the governor’s order.
Spell could not be reached for comment.
On Monday, three pastors in Texas filed a lawsuit in the Texas Supreme Court, arguing that ordinances established in Harris County requiring that churches shut down and move services online, as is required of other “non-essential” businesses, violate religious liberty. While conceding that governing entities can limit the size of religious gatherings if there is a “compelling government interest,” the pastors argued that the coronavirus does not meet that standard.
Instead, they said, the order “unilaterally chooses winners and losers.” While “people of faith are prohibited from worshiping in person,” businesses such as liquor stores and grocery stores are unfairly allowed to remain open, they said.
Most people, however, are not troubled by governments shuttering churches, according to a survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute in late March. Only about a quarter of people say that churches should be exempted from stay-at-home orders, the survey found. Among specific religious groups, white evangelical Protestants were the most likely to say that churches should be allowed to remain open.
At the same time, police in cities across the country have clashed with many religious groups as both sides decide how to handle shutdowns best. In Chicago on Sunday, police broke up an Assyrian Eastern Orthodox funeral where more than 50 people had gathered. Several officers on the scene reported that they had seen people drinking from the same communion cup, a practice which many Orthodox churches have retained, even as the coronavirus continues to spread.
Some Catholic parishes, too, have remained open, despite orders both from governments and their diocesan leaders to move services online. In Philadelphia, several Catholic parishes have continued to celebrate public Masses, while still observing social distancing measures, according to Philadelphia Magazine.
“People are being cautious,” said Michael Rock, the pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes. “Not paranoid. But cautious, which is good. I don’t want them to feel like they can’t come to church if they want to come to church.”
The Archdiocese on Monday reprimanded the churches for violating its “directives.”
Religious closures have been a subject of contention for Orthodox Jewish communities in New York, especially as the city has become one of the hot spots for the coronavirus. Mayor Bill de Blasio warned churches and synagogues on Friday that if they did not close for the coronavirus, then the city may “need to take additional action up to the point of fines and potentially closing the building permanently.”
And while some synagogues continued to defy the orders, Jewish leaders have urged them to comply for the sake of public health.
“You are going to murder people, ultimately,” former New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind told the Washington Examiner. “That’s what you’re going to do. People are going to die.”
