Churches in times of corona

On Sunday, I was a two-minute drive from the Mieraskerk in Krimpen aan den IJssel. The churchgoers walked along the street, which even made me a bit angry. Half an hour later, I received a phone call that a journalist had been attacked in the back (!) by a church visitor. I was totally flabbergasted and angry and stunned, and I just didn't know what to say. With your Christian behavior, was the first thing I thought.

As I was leaving Krimpen, a neatly dressed man walked into the street. You can make a reasonable guess if someone is coming out of a church around that time, that seemed to be the case to me. I looked at him extra long and extra frowning, to make it clear to him what I thought of his churchgoing in times of a pandemic, where it’s better not to sit with 700 people in the same room and you can also pray just fine at home. And suddenly I realized that he might not have been to that particular church at all. Therefore, I need to get something off my chest.

Let's not judge all churchgoers based on something that happens in one church in Urk or in Krimpen. You are allowed to gather with thirty people in a church, even now. Just like you can go to the mosque and you can also celebrate a wedding in a small group. You can register online for a service, and if you have a runny nose or a cough, you just stay home. For those who have seen few churches from the inside: those places are quite spacious. Absolutely not big enough to sit together praying and singing without a mask with seven hundred people, but big enough to safely distribute thirty people over at least fifty church benches or a thousand chairs.

But Adeline, if we are not allowed to go to the office for a while or skip a vacation, then that church can also wait, right? I also hear logic in this. As far as I'm concerned, that should be possible too. Plenty of online church services to follow, and if you pray at home, the message will still come across. Only there are many people who are alone, for whom going to church is part of being a little less alone. And for them, I find it so nice that they can still go safely and are still allowed to. Why should two churches ruin it for them?

I hope we can hold on to that thought a bit. And the churchgoers who hit journalists and attacked them in the back, they still have a lot to learn and pray.