Nails were strewn over the parking lot of one church. Another church had police cars blocking the parking spots; still another had worshippers given notices of fines if the Christians persisted in having Easter services. Jail time was threatened if the Churches were not totally shut down for the most holy of all Christian celebrations.
Other would be worshippers had fines as large as $6000 facing them. States such as Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana had local officials blocking committed Christians from worshipping as they saw fit. At one time, New York Mayor Bill De Blasio claimed he would shut down any place of worship if they did not follow his edict to cease and desist from entering the church doors; he would do this by “taxing them out of existence”.
Another threat was to forcibly quarantine anyone attending for 14 days. Other draconian measures were to be put in place to prevent Americans from praying and singing to God in communal worship.
These and other efforts to close houses of worship were threatened in order to “fight off” the rages of COVID-19, and in spite of worshippers agreeing to federal guidelines on social distancing and size of the meetings.
These were met with the usual push back from people of faith; lawsuits were instituted before Easter to block the more egregious of them. Basing their argument on the opening lines of the Bill of Rights, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise there of “, a federal judge, Justin Walker, issued a temporary order against officials, ending his ruling with a memo, which stated: “The Mayor’s decision is stunning and it is beyond all reason unconstitutional”.
Unfortunately, such overreach to restrict our freedom of worship was met mostly with shrugs of disappointment and resignation by most people of faith, including, for a time, me. But the longer I thought about this attempt to punish Christians for believing, the more I became convinced that here is the perfect vehicle for what used to be called “civil disobedience” when a law or edict was patently wrong. Examples abound, most significantly in my lifetime the demonstrations against Jim Crow laws in the 50s and 60s, which resulted in sweeping Civil Rights legislation to give African Americans what they should have had all along.
With President Trump aiming for May 1 for relaxing some of the more restrictive of “rules” concerning the coronavirus pandemic, my proposal is to have our own Tea Party moment, and have every committed Christian in America to say “Enough is enough! We have followed for months the restrictions, but at what cost? Is our conscience the price to pay? What other rights are going to be ripped from us in the name of “saving lives?”
On May 3, a Sunday, we need to open the shuttered places of worship and once again gather with families, friends and fellow Christians, first as a renewal of our faith and second as a concerted effort to lift the jackbooted foot of tyrannical government off our necks.
We may or may not succeed, but generations to come will look back on us as those who refused to allow our God-given right to worship be torn away, and it also might be a time when we are looked upon as true warriors for the faith.
What have we got to lose? Pick up you Bibles and come with us to Church on May 3.
“Sic semper tyrannis!” “Pitchforks! To the barricades!”