Lockdowns Had a Devastating Impact on Religion | Brownstone Institute - Dean Broyles:
April 1, 2022 - "The government’s unprecedented decision to essentially 'lock down' most of society and quarantine nearly everyone, including the healthy, and severely limit or ban religious gatherings at places of worship during the pandemic has inflicted significant collateral damage on religious individuals and religious institutions. Perhaps the most significant immediate impact of the pandemic on religious practices was the seismic shift from in-person group worship to virtual, online worship, as governments used their emergency powers to impose harsh restrictions, allegedly related to the public health. The long-term impacts of this coerced change are still being felt and the consequential damages are still being calculated....
"The dividing line between whether a particular business or institution could remain open and continue to operate was whether it was deemed 'essential' by the government. But why were places of worship not automatically deemed 'essential' in the United States, where we have at least two clauses in the First Amendment protecting religious liberty?... Yet, at the same time a myriad of secular government and business locations, not similarly protected by the Bill of Rights were, often, quite arbitrarily and capriciously declared 'essential,' including hardware stores, big box stores, marijuana dispensaries, liquor stores, and even strip clubs. Places of worship, however, were discriminatorily relegated by a host of petty tyrants, blatantly eschewing their constitutional responsibilities, to a lower caste....But for many, if not most of the faithful, regular in-person religious fellowship with other believers and worship of the Creator with others is, for them, as essential as the air they breathe, the water they drink or the food they eat. This is a spiritual reality that the materialistic secular state cannot, and will not, ever understand....
"Many so-called 'civil rights' organizations, including the leftist ACLU, were largely silent in the face of this blatantly and overreaching trampling of our civil rights and silencing of the lambs. But even in a culture trending in a post-religious direction, the impact of the coerced closures was deep and wide. Nearly 50 percent of the US population, who regularly participate in religious services, was impacted.... Gallup acknowledges that the halting of in-person worship during the pandemic 'is one of the most significant sudden disruptions in the practice of religion in U.S. history'.... For Catholics and Protestant Christians, for example, holy communion was indefinitely suspended and weddings and baptisms were delayed. In some states, religious leaders were even forbidden from visiting and praying with the lonely, sick, and dying....
"Many Christian pastors argued that the government mandates were 'unjust laws'.... More than 2,000 bold and courageous pastors in California signed the declaration of essentiality, committing to open church doors by Pentecost Sunday (May 31, 2020), with or without government permission. Places of worship started filing civil rights lawsuits alleging the government’s mandates violated the First Amendment to the US Constitution, specifically the rights guaranteed by the religious Free Exercise Clause, the Free Speech Clause and the right to Peaceable Assembly. But even as churches were allowed to start reopening in late spring 2020, states continued to treat them more harshly than secular locations.... California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, for example, was the only governor in the US to impose a ban on indoor singing and chanting at places of worship. In the Golden State, places of worship did not have the sympathy of the federal judiciary. In fact, places of worship lost every single case in the federal district courts, at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and even at the US Supreme Court during the first eight months of the pandemic.
"Good public policy always weighs the costs of a course of action compared to its benefits. Yet there is strong evidence that closing churches likely caused more public health harm than good.... Sociologists have confirmed that religion is a major social institution that can serve to significantly integrate society and provide a positive stabilizing force in culture. In fact, there is more than 50 years of peer-reviewed scientific research documenting the enormous public health benefits of regular attendance at places of worship. These established public health benefits, completely ignored by many governments’ virus 'risk' analysis, include, but are not limited to, reduced stress, less risk of depression and suicide, fewer deaths of despair, better sleep, lower blood pressure, fewer instances of substance abuse, stronger marriages, lower mortality (including fewer deaths from heart disease and cancer), better immune function and lower risk of viral infection. The overall healthy lifestyle of regular church attenders provides them with a lower risk profile for health complications and death from Covid-19. Sadly, public health officials and judges deciding church-state cases largely ignored this powerful evidence. The indefinite lockdowns and bans on religious services at places of worship likely undermined these well-established public health benefits and probably led to collateral harms to public health, including anxiety, depression, substance abuse, suicide, and other deaths of despair....
"The discriminatory restrictions on religious gatherings in some locations were so overbearing that on August 20, 2020, the US Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom issued a COVID-19 and Religious Minorities Statement, co-signed by 18 nations. The statement cautioned, 'States should not limit the freedom to manifest religion or belief to protect public health past the point necessary, or close places of worship in a discriminatory manner'.... Yet this important and timely international warning did not slow down or stop California state officials who, in federal court filings, continued to repeatedly scapegoat and demonize places of worship as virus 'super-spreaders'.... Fortunately, the Government’s unscientific 'super-spreader' myth epically failed and was ultimately ignored and rejected by a majority of the US Supreme Court (in multiple rulings) as a baseless excuse for targeting places of worship for government-sanctioned discrimination.
"Finally, in April 2021 the last holdout anti-church state, California, [waved] the white flag, removing its mandatory capacity limits and indoor religious singing and chanting ban. Governor Newsom agreed to statewide permanent injunctions against his sweeping restrictions on places of worship, paying out millions in dollars in attorney’s fees to dismiss civil rights lawsuits. But the damage had already been done. The collateral damage to people of faith and places of worship is significant and is still being calculated. It may take many years to understand the full impact of foolish public health policies.
"Damage to religious individuals has been significant. Believers struggling with anxiety, depression and hopelessness during the pandemic were physically and emotionally cut off from their faithful community and spiritual support systems.... Those needing counseling, encouragement, and prayer couldn’t access other believers and religious leaders. Pastors report seeing more suicides, drug overdoses, and deaths of despair. As Johns Hopkins notes, participation in religious communities is associated with lower suicide rates. The closure of churches contributed to social isolation and possible higher suicide rates....
"[T]he profound damage to religious institutions is also quite remarkable. Charitable giving at many places of worship dropped precipitously during the pandemic. Many churches took government PPE funds to help weather the financial storm, but those funds only lasted for so long. A significant number of places of worship divided and some split over how to best faithfully respond to the pandemic. Some that have reopened have seen a 50 percent or more decline in attendance and charitable giving as people found it more comfortable and convenient to participate digitally, rather than gathering in-person.
"As of March 2021, Pew Research said that past regular attenders at places of worship reported that 17 percent of their churches remained closed and only 12 percent reported their churches were operating as usual. Only 58 percent were attending religious services in-person and 65 percent were still participating online. Before the pandemic in 2019, more churches closed than opened in the United States (4,500 vs. 3,000) because of shrinking church membership, representing a 1.4 percent decline. Those numbers are expected to accelerate and double or triple in the wake of the pandemic. Some places of worship that closed early in the pandemic will never reopen....
"Undoubtedly, it will likely take years to arrive at accurate conclusions regarding the long-term impacts the government’s overreaching pandemic response has had on religious individuals and institutions. We can even now affirm some important basic truths and lessons. First, religion is essential for millions of Americans. Second, in-person religious worship is much better and is much more spiritually effective than is virtual worship. Third, we must never allow fundamental constitutional rights, including religious freedom, to be suspended by a virus. Fourth, public health considerations must take into account the positive dynamics of religion and must always respect religious freedom. Fifth, public health decisions must always carefully take into account the collateral damage of its policies, including on religious institutions and people of faith."
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