The list is macabre. Clearly. But one day ahead of Easter Sunday, there is a message behind it.
One week ago, CNN’s Gary Tuchman asked evangelical church members in Ohio if attending services might be putting their lives at risk and those of others in the community.
Church members cited spiritual insurance from “the blood of Jesus” and dismissed concerns for themselves, for fellow church members, and for others. So faith-filled they are bulletproof.
As it happened, the Christian Post a week earlier reported the deaths of three Christian pastors from COVID-19: from Shreveport, La., from New York City (Harlem), and another from Virginia who died in North Carolina on his way home from Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
The last, Larry Spradlin, a minister and blues musician inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2016, had called coverage of the novel coronavirus pandemic politically motivated “mass hysteria” designed to hurt President Trump.
I started a list. Death, it seems, is very ecumenical.
By now there are over two dozen dead Christian pastors on it. From Michigan to Louisiana. From New York to California. Reports say all died from the coronavirus. All presumably as insured by “the blood of Jesus” as the Ohio church members. Many on the list are African American and from communities hit especially hard by the pandemic
Controversy swirls over whether Christians should gather in churches tomorrow to celebrate the Resurrection with a pandemic loose in their communities. With stay-at-home orders in place in many states, most churches will be closed or hold services online tomorrow. There are, however, a few holdouts who plan services in defiance of police orders (Reuters):
Most U.S. churches are expected to be closed on Sunday, and a broad majority of observant Americans are expected to follow authorities’ recommendations to avoid crowds to limit the spread of the potentially lethal COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
But not all of them.
“Satan and a virus will not stop us,” said the Reverend Tony Spell, 42, pastor of the evangelical Life Tabernacle Church near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He expects a crowd of more than 2,000 to gather in worship at his megachurch on Sunday.
“God will shield us from all harm and sickness,” Spell said in an interview. “We are not afraid. We are called by God to stand against the Antichrist creeping into America’s borders. We will spread the Gospel.”
Others plan to dance with Death to prove their faith tomorrow in Idaho, Kentucky, in California, and elsewhere.
And the list above will grow.
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Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.