At least 25 parishioners filed into a beige-brick church in Houston Wednesday evening and were handed rubber gloves at the door. A handwritten sign directed them to designated areas with seats that had been spaced 6 feet apart. Another sign laid out five things people should do to keep from spreading the new strain of coronavirus, including staying away if they felt sick.
The founding pastor of City on a Hill, Juan Bustamante, was in a particularly good mood. A day earlier, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined 30-plus other governors around the country in issuing a statewide stay-at-home order — though he declined to refer to it as such — that also designated religious services as essential. Under the order, Texans must stay home unless they work in certain business sectors or are grocery shopping, running must-do errands or exercising outdoors. Or going to church.
Abbott’s order came the same day the country’s top health experts estimated the deadly virus could kill between 100,000 to 240,000 Americans, and that’s assuming people across the country adhere to social distancing guidelines. Otherwise, the numbers could climb much higher, to more than 2 million dead.
Amid the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Texas — with nearly 4,700 confirmed cases and 70 deaths as of Thursday — many congregations across the state, large and small and of a variety of faiths, closed their doors of their own accord weeks ago and moved all services online.
But there are some religious groups in Texas — it’s unclear just how many — who say it’s their right to remain open because they believe they provide an essential service to their communities at a time of great need. And on Wednesday night, several houses of worship across the state welcomed parishioners.
Top scientists and public health experts have warned that religious services appear to be particularly conducive to COVID-19 transmission, with multiple documented cases of spread in houses of worship across the globe. But Florida is among the states that have reversed local orders to shut down houses of worship.
Harvard University epidemiologist Bill Hanage ticked off examples of virus transmission in houses of worship in London, South Korea, Singapore and the state of Georgia and said exempting religious services from shelter-in-place orders is “an incredibly bad idea.” Nearly four dozen people also were hospitalized in Washington state last week after they met for a two-and-a-half-hour choir practice in a church. Two members have died.
Vice President Mike Pence chimed in on Wednesday, saying in-person religious services — which have been deemed essential by more than a dozen states — should be limited to 10 people and held online if at all possible.
For Bustamante, closing the doors of the church he opened almost a decade ago was never an option.
That’s partly because half of his 100-plus parishioners don’t have internet access at home, he said, but more so because there’s no true replacement for in-person worship, particularly during a time of crisis.
“I truly believe the churches are first responders,” he said Wednesday before the evening service. “I have a deep conviction to keep going and keep standing for what we believe in.”
To him, people are more likely to catch and spread the virus at grocery or liquor stores, which are also exempt.
Bustamante was among three Houston-area pastors named in a petition filed on Monday with the Texas Supreme Court, along with conservative activist Steven Hotze, that asked the justices to strike down an order enacted by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. The order, similar to others enacted by large Texas counties and cities, doesn’t consider religious services — or firearm sales — as essential, which the petition alleges is a constitutional violation.
Jared Woodfill, the attorney for Hotze and the pastors, said on Wednesday that he’s now getting calls “left and right” from churches that want to join the lawsuit — most are evangelical Christian, though a few are Catholic — and plan to continue, or resume, in-person services. At least five more had come on board in addition to the three that signed the petition, he said.
“All of the folks I work with are moving forward with services,” he said, noting the Easter holiday is coming up.
Hidalgo’s order is now seemingly moot, superseded by Abbott’s, though local officials have scrambled to figure out how exactly to interpret the governor’s directive. Some have said they take issue with the religious exemption and are still ordering religious leaders to cease in-person services while they assess the order.
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg called the governor’s exemption for religious services “concerning.” The order’s wording is confusing, he said, and seemed to conflict with advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as his city’s orders.
“If we want to keep people alive, we’ve got to do services remotely,” particularly now, Nirenberg told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. “We’re entering a very dangerous phase of community spread.”
The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth said they are also assessing the legality of Abbott’s order, with Fort Worth telling houses of worship they can’t hold in-person services.
But some conservative communities in the greater Dallas and Fort Worth region, like McKinney and Frisco, have already changed their regulations after a local religious liberties law firm encouraged them to.
McKinney Mayor George Fuller said he didn’t know of any churches that planned to hold in-person services and that the city is telling them to avoid it, but also that he supported “religious liberty and freedom.”
Later Wednesday, Abbott’s office released joint guidance with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that said houses of worship must be given special consideration for constitutional reasons and are indeed “essential services.” However, they must conduct activities online or at home “whenever possible” and some should avoid large gatherings, namely those located in areas with rapid community spread.
As for the 10-person gathering limit Abbott had previously imposed, it appears only to apply to churches located in areas with rapid community spread though Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for clarity.
“Houses of worship should work with counties and municipalities to evaluate the rate of local community spread and determine the appropriate level of mitigation strategies to implement,” the guidance said.
But Harvard’s Hanage said gatherings of any size are problematic. And the way people interact in churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious facilities — shaking hands, hugging, singing — appears conducive to what epidemiologists call “super-spreading events,” he said.
“We know that church services are places where this gets spread,” he said. “People need to understand that it’s a risk.”
Hanage said that congregations could possibly protect themselves by gathering outdoors — say, in a field — and ensuring parishioners keep their distance, but that “it’s hard to do it correctly.”
In Sacramento County, public health experts said on Wednesday that about a third of the 300-plus cases there can be linked to religious gatherings. That led to a special advisory banning worship services even though they already were not allowed under state shelter-in-place orders.
Beyond Christians, different faith groups in the Houston and San Antonio area continue to abide by the stricter guidelines, despite Abbott’s directive.
Some members of the Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Catholic communities consulted with one another and all came to the same conclusion, said Shariq Abdul Ghani, director of the Minaret Foundation, a Houston-based organization that focuses on building relationships through interfaith and civic engagement.
“Everyone has a feeling that for us, the faithful, our responsibility to our congregants is to keep them safe first and foremost,” he said. Many had adapted and moved services online using Facebook Live, Zoom and Google Hangouts.
The mosques will continue to offer services for the elderly and underprivileged, considered essential, he said, but even that will be abiding by social distancing guidelines and only with the most essential volunteers.
Rabbi Mara Nathan, of San Antonio’s Temple Beth-El synagogue, said the congregation had been holding services in the sanctuary with just clergy and no members, until the mayor issued the city’s March 23 stay home order. Services have been held on Zoom since then, because it’s important “that we’re modeling the most careful kind of behavior we can,” Nathan said. In a way, that has provided members with a more intimate setting than watching services held in an empty sanctuary. “At the end of every service, we make sure to say, ‘We miss you,’ but we’re together,” she said.
Texas is far from the only state to deem religious services essential — more than a dozen others have done so, according to the National Governors Association. That includes states like New York, Massachusetts and Kansas that are led by Democratic governors. But those states still appear to be cracking down on churches that have services with zero social distancing guidelines, at least at the local level.
In states such as Florida and neighboring Louisiana, pastors have been arrested by local authorities after holding services with large groups of people, though on Thursday Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order reversing local orders requiring houses of worship to close. DeSantis said religious services are considered “essential.”
Matt Woodfill, the younger brother of Jared, is one of the pastors that petitioned against Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough’s stay-at-home order, similar to Harris County’s.
Woodfill’s congregation, The Way Church, defied the county’s order last Sunday, when it held regular services, though he said they tried to spread people apart. Attendance was still down significantly, from a high of 200 to no more than 50 parishioners this past Sunday.
The church plans to hold drive-in services in their parking lot for Palm Sunday this weekend. He will stand on an outdoor stage, set up with a PA system and a band, while people can listen in their vehicles. This is a high season for churches, with Easter in another week, so Woodfill wants families to feel safe enough to attend services.
Oakwood Church in New Braunfels, a growing community along Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin, moved all services online for its 6,000 congregants two weeks ago, in response to orders from the city, according to Pastor Ray Still.
Coronavirus has already affected his congregation directly: parishioner T.J. Mendez died March 26 from COVID-19 at the age of 44. Mendez’s family was very active in the church; one of his daughters was an Oakwood staff member.
On Tuesday, Still drove to the Mendez home, where the rest of the family remains in quarantine. He stood outside his car and prayed with them.
The governor’s new order doesn’t change their plans to keep holding services online, he said.
“As Christian people, we’re taught to be respectful and respect authorities, and our authorities aren’t doing that because they want to hurt us, they’re doing that because they want to protect us,” Still said.
–Kiah Collier, Vianna Davila and Perla Trevizo, The Texas Tribune in Partnership with ProPublica.
Alex Samuels of The Texas Tribune contributed reporting.
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Edith Campins says
Yes, because God doesn’t listen to your prayers if you pray by yourself, at home. He only listens when you do it in a church. And he will pay even more attention if you make a cash donation. These people will get sick and carry the contagion to back to their families and neighbors. The only consolation is that we really don’t need these type of peole in the gene pool.
KKsays says
What we need is a vaccine and cure for the stupidity epidemic displayed by some of the people. I guess they don’t realize that God expects them to use their brains that He so generously gave them.
tulip says
Good commentary. I was just thinking last night that church services inside or outside should not be held right now. Some churches stream their services to their parishioners, and that’s good. For others there are religious services on several tv stations that have a program. Sometimes a private prayer given by a worshiper in his or her home in their PJ’s is far more religious and sincere than it is to get dressed up and follow a program and put money in the colllection plate.
WhackAMole says
If you say Church should close, then you have no faith. If you said they should stay open, then you ignore the science. No matter what you say, you are wrong. Doesn’t matter what someone’s personal opinion is, as we’ve seen throughout this ordeal, people will do what they want, no matter what any one person suggests. “The government can’t infringe upon my rights,” is the loudest cry, yet in “normal” times, people’s rights are infringed upon all the time, and regular, American citizens have to fight just to “fit in” to the American Club. It doesn’t matter what science says. It doesn’t matter what religious people say. Come Palm Sunday and Easter, the churches will be crowded. No one will socially distance, not at the levels required. You really think churches will turn away people and say, “Sorry, 10 only,” and call it a day? No. If the doors are open, people will go in, and then in roughly 2 weeks time, they will wonder where it all went wrong when those faithful fill a different building, saying different prayers, and asking for a different type of mercy.
FB Resident says
It’s quite intriguing how the beach and activities within the water are banned yet folks who want to go to a religious service are permitted to congregate indoors. Makes complete sense, thanks, Obama!
Yolo says
Definitely Obama’s fault. 🙄
Theresa says
Remember “WWJD”? (What would Jesus Do?) I believe he’d say stay home and stay well!
Sherry says
This is so BIZARRE and beyond OUTRAGEOUS . . . . .
We need some humor to help us through the day:
Subject: Pandemic Golf
March Madness is cancelled, the NBA is shut down, the Masters is postponed, and my Aunt Marge’s senior bowling has even thrown in the towel. Now restaurants and bars are closed, and our 40-handicap governor is threatening to shut down all entertainment facilities including golf courses. I have not tested positive, but the coronavirus is killing me.
There is nowhere to go and nothing to do. My wife suggested we take a walk, but I don’t walk anywhere unless I have a golf club in my hand and it’s cart path only. My kids have a restraining order on us and won’t let us come within 200 yards of the grandchildren. And we can no longer eat out, but when we tried to cook at home, there were cobwebs in the oven.
The network channels are inundated with coverage of the virus. The golf channel has been showing reruns of old tournaments, which are almost as riveting as watching my brother-in-law’s video of his family camping trip to Yellowstone. And my wife is so desperate for something to do, she is even considering sex, and maybe even with me.
Paranoia is off the tracks. Before the shutdown, we were having dinner at a local bar. I let out a loud sneeze and everyone at the surrounding tables started yelling “check please.” My stock portfolio is plummeting and most of our cash is currently invested in toilet paper. I am washing my hands 137 times a day. I don’t touch anyone. I don’t even touch myself. I have been using tongs to go to the bathroom. This has to stop.
Our society and economy have been crippled by a microscopic virus. Scientists have not yet determined the exact origin but have narrowed it down to a Chinese fish market or Rosie O’Donnell’s bathtub. And no one is sure how to prevent or cure it. In the past, the ways to prevent contracting a contagious disease were simple: don’t eat in restaurants with cat on the menu and don’t date my college roommate’s sister.
I don’t consider myself to be in the high risk category. I have been building up my immune system by eating one meal per day at MacDonald’s for the last 25 years. Germs just slide through me. My only pre-existing condition is an inability to launch a golf ball further than 180 yards. And, according to the CDC, symptoms of the coronavirus are sweats, dizziness, and trouble breathing, which I experience whenever I am standing over a 3 foot putt. I can handle it.
So, I proposed to my regular foursome the idea of escaping from our self-imposed Stalag 17 and venturing outside for a round of golf. Everyone recognized the danger and severity of the situation. But when faced with the decision to remain sequestered with our wives or to risk contracting a deadly virus, it was a no-brainer. Every man opted to play golf.
Our foursome does not pose a medical risk to mankind. My friend, George is virus free. Social distancing has not been a problem for him. Other than us, he doesn’t have any friends. Bob, my neighbor is a urologist who has been working from home for several weeks. He has developed a way to do remote prostate exams by having patients sit on their cell phone. And our other partner, Jerry tested himself with a kit he bought online. However, he thinks he may have gotten the wrong kit. It showed no traces of the virus but indicated that he was pregnant with twins.
The federal government has established guidelines for social engagement. For example, you must stay at least 6 feet apart and no more than 10 people are allowed at a gathering, which means Patrick Reed’s fan club can still meet. In addition, our foursome drafted our own specific set of rules for Pandemic Golf.
Rules of Play:
· • Hazmat suits are permitted. As an alternative, one can wear a college mascot costume or big bunny pajamas.
· • Masks are not permitted, because we would look more like stagecoach robbers than a foursome.
· • Leave the flag in. And to avoid retrieving balls from the hole, any putt shorter than Lebron James is good.
· • Ride in separate golf carts and don’t come closer to another player than a fully extended ball retriever.
· • Don’t touch another player’s balls. This is always good advice.
· • No high fives. Fortunately, we seldom have a reason.
· • No petting the geese or the cart girl.
· • Don’t use the spot-a-pot. More disease in there than in all of Wuhan China.
· • No excuses. Slicing or hooking are not side effects of the coronavirus.
· • Make an online bank transfer to pay off your bets for the day.
· • Straddle the sprinkler on the 18th hole before getting into the car.
These rules and restrictions adequately protected us from contamination. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for bad golf. I had trouble gripping the club with oven mittens, but it was an enjoyable afternoon which ended way too soon. There were no handshakes on the 18th green, no beers at the bar, and we drove home separately.
As the pandemic plays through, it is giving us a glimpse into our inevitable future where all meals are delivered, all entertainment comes through the tv screen, and all human interaction is through our cell phone. Where schooling is online at home, exercise is on a stationary bike in our basement, medical testing is done at drive thru windows, and colonoscopies are performed at Jiffy Lube. The world is changing. It is becoming less interpersonal as technology consumes us. So now that we have time on our hands, everyone should take a moment to cherish this fading era, when friends still get together to hit a little ball around an open field for no good reason other than to enjoy the companionship of their fellow man.
snapperhead says
It’s expected in 9 months that a baby boom will begin. In 15 years or so they’ll be called Quaranteens.
marty barrett says
God really is working in mysterious ways these days. I’m sure many of the dead were praying in their final moments as God let their own lungs drown them. And yet, he’ll once again be exonerated by the faithful and i’ll be going to hell, etc…..Ugh
Shark says
Gotta make money to buy gas to power their – jets – helicopters and yachts !!!!
a Christian says
the Bible; these Pastors are supposed to use and read, tells us that Jesus Himself taught his disciples to obey the law. This is so important during this horrific time; I got an email that a local church will be holding drive thru services on Sunday with the Pastors giving out communion and accepting offerings…. THIS IS WHY I DONT GO TO CHURCH ANYMORE…
WWJD says
I’m a Christian first, then mom. I believe what the Bible says and I try to live my life accordingly. SHAME ON YOU CHURCH PASTORS for wanting to hold church!!!!! You are going against the law and you are going to infect your congregation!!!
Shout out to OneWay Church… the Pastors there will hold drive thru church in the parking lot giving everyone communion car side. I am sure the Pastors will not be in Hazmat suits so they will be able to catch it car side and infect every car. Oh and they will be collecting tithes at the same time.
I havnt been to church since I moved to Palm Coast years ago, I haven’t found a church where they do WJWD.
I hope the church leaders and Pastors are arrested. Greed, all it is, is greed, money hungry greed.
If you want to host church, do online church!!!!!!
Pastors these days make me sick!
WWJD says
sorry got the church name wrong NEW WAY CHURCH
deb says
Stupidity runs rampant in Government, Local, state or National. Just think one infected person in a church could infect lots , if that one person coughs or touches someone. And that someone happens to have a family, well we know the outcome. .
Don Davies says
This virus has truly tested our church out here in the Houston area. The pastors council has taken many steps to really adjust to this pandemic and I believe that we have really endured well and will continue to do so with the grace of God. I also thank Keion Henderson, our beloved pastor for really being our guide and our shepherd of God during such a difficult time.