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Purgatory : Public health and religious freedom

edited April 2021 in Limbo
This discussion was created from comments split from: Rodney Howard-Browne arrested.

I thought this was worth a thread of its own.

Eutychus
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Comments

  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Behind this piece of lunacy nevertheless lurks a not totally illegitimate concern about the crisis being exploited by governments to curtail public freedoms and freedom of religion in particular.

    Reconciling a gathering of believers with social distancing and reducing opportunities for mingling is something I'm having trouble getting my head around.
    You're not the only one asking these questions, for example: http://tiny.cc/5do7lz. Of course religious groups (and I'm sure you don't dispute this) have to act in a responsible way for the good of wider society. The questions arise over legal restrictions and their enforcement. I think one does have to note that, in most countries at least, the restrictions are not on "religious gatherings" but on all gatherings. I think that makes a difference.

  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited March 2020
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Behind this piece of lunacy nevertheless lurks a not totally illegitimate concern about the crisis being exploited by governments to curtail public freedoms and freedom of religion in particular.

    Reconciling a gathering of believers with social distancing and reducing opportunities for mingling is something I'm having trouble getting my head around.
    You're not the only one asking these questions, for example: http://tiny.cc/5do7lz. Of course religious groups (and I'm sure you don't dispute this) have to act in a responsible way for the good of wider society. The questions arise over legal restrictions and their enforcement. I think one does have to note that, in most countries at least, the restrictions are not on "religious gatherings" but on all gatherings. I think that makes a difference.

    From your link: "“No right with public effects is absolute, including the precious right of religious freedom,” he added."...

    That sort of makes sense, but it raises questions as to who, ultimately, grants rights.

    Further: "Decrees banning religious freedom also (...) must be time-limited, with a clear and public expression of when the ban will end”

    While France's Health State of Emergency is well-defined and subject to review, AIUI this is not the case of the prohibition on gatherings. You are right that in general religious gatherings are not a specific target*, nevertheless I think that for those who usually attend, they are more than a leisure activity, which many gatherings are. They are of existential significance.

    Another problem is that powers granted under emergency legislation have a way of becoming enshrined in normal law later. This is certainly the case in the wake of the state of emergency decreed in France after the 2015 terror attacks. Some of the provisions (the time people can be held after arrest, for instance) are hair-raisingly extreme.

    In my world of prison chaplaincy, we are concerned that measures embraced to overcome our current inability to enter jails (one project involves dedicated call-out lines) may be seen as a useful excuse to keep us out altogether once this is over. Precedent comes in the form of court hearings via video link, once the exception and fast becoming a norm, and a terrible substitute for being there in person (for one thing, the legal counsel cannot be with the defendant and the judge at the same time).

    ==
    *ETA bear in mind that the largest single identified source of super-spreading in France is an evangelical gathering in Mulhouse immediately before preventive measures were announced. The last I heard, 17 people in that congregation have died and people infected there have gone all over France and beyond just when they were the most contagious. I know two of them. The church is not to blame at all, but that hasn't stopped them attracting blame to the point that France Info has tried to do a damage limitation piece on their behalf, which is pretty much unprecedented in my experience.

  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    In recent years I have less and less sympathy for any kind of religious freedom/religious belief argument that boils down to "I don't have to follow the same rules as anybody else because 'religion'".

    And that's mostly because I don't see why such an argument suddenly becomes legitimate because the adjective religious is placed in front of terms like 'belief'.

    Rule of law fundamentally means that sometimes I have to go along with rules that I don't personally agree with. Everyone does, or else face consequences for not going along with those rules. It doesn't matter whether I personally think current rules about limiting gatherings are appropriate, as far as the law is concerned what matters is which of those are genuinely rules that have been put into law, as opposed to guidelines/advice. I can choose to follow guidelines or advice. Once something is a law, I don't get a choice. That's the point.

    But then people think that somehow they can avoid this by claiming that it's not them personally that doesn't agree with a rule, it's God that doesn't agree with a rule. Which might be workable if it wasn't for the fact that God appears to hold a bewildering number of divergent views all at the same time, depending on who you ask.

    In other words, to me claiming that a belief is 'religious' tends to be little more than outsourcing, and asserting that somehow you're not responsible for your own beliefs because you developed them while using words like 'God' or 'spiritual'.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    I should probably add, of course, that much of my recent interaction with this question has been in the context of people trying to argue why they should get special exemption from the general requirement to be decent and non-discriminatory towards homosexuals.

    Because if you dislike gays for some general reason, the law doesn't care. But dress your antipathy up as a commandment from God and suddenly that's different?

    There's been a draft religious discrimination law up for debate in Australia. It talks about religious belief without explaining what that is. Because defining what makes a belief 'religious', as opposed from a garden variety non-religious belief, is insanely difficult.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    Also in the current context, our Prime Minister is well known to be a Pentecostal and closely associated with the large Hillsong church.

    He did not flinch from commanding all churches closed. Quite a few had done so anyway, but religious gatherings were one of the things specifically shut down as non-essential.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    I don't really disagree with any of that. In this crisis, locally I was ahead of the curve in arguing that our church should stop meeting before it ever became a legal requirement or anything near one, mostly because I was more attuned to its seriousness than those around me.

    However, I also know people who took considerable risks smuggling printing press materials across the Iron Curtain to churches whose members tended to get locked up in psychiatric hospitals indefinitely because their religious belief was classed as mental illness. You can't pretend states never do this kind of thing.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Another problem is that powers granted under emergency legislation have a way of becoming enshrined in normal law later. This is certainly the case in the wake of the state of emergency decreed in France after the 2015 terror attacks. Some of the provisions (the time people can be held after arrest, for instance) are hair-raisingly extreme.
    I made this same point in my sermon on March 15th, which was about fear in the face of the approaching pandemic: "One of the things that tends to happen when we are frightened is that we do irrational things to protect ourselves ... [including] things which can have unintended and serious consequences. Shami Chakrabarti, at that time the Director of the Human Rights organisation “Liberty”, pointed out what happened in Britain after the Twin Towers attack in 2001: new laws about arrest and extradition were rushed out in order to protect us against terrorism. Those laws may have been popular but Chakrabarti says they were bad ones as they gave Government powers which it should never have had. For anyone – including people who are totally innocent – can now be accused of being a terrorist and locked up".

  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I don't really disagree with any of that. In this crisis, locally I was ahead of the curve in arguing that our church should stop meeting before it ever became a legal requirement or anything near one, mostly because I was more attuned to its seriousness than those around me.

    However, I also know people who took considerable risks smuggling printing press materials across the Iron Curtain to churches whose members tended to get locked up in psychiatric hospitals indefinitely because their religious belief was classed as mental illness. You can't pretend states never do this kind of thing.

    Very true.

    The protections lie in having the rationale for laws be visible and accountable*, and also in having meaningful forms of protection (Constitution, Bill of Rights etc) where restrictions on freedom have to be justified and proportionate to some other important goal.

    Not that any of that is likely to operate perfectly. But I find it difficult to think of any other system that's viable. You need a court system that's capable of requiring the law-makers to justify what they're doing.

    *Laws are really just tools for achieving policies. It amazes me how sometimes it can be incredibly difficult to get my instructors to explain what they're actually trying to achieve when they ask me to write a law, as if I don't need to know. Not only does it help me immensely to know (and by far the best working relationships are with the people who can really explain the policy goals), but they really ought to be preparing to explain the very same things to the Parliament, and somewhere down the track maybe the courts. If you can't rationally explain the point of the law you're encouraging people to knock it down (and for the populace to try ignoring it).
  • SusanDorisSusanDoris Shipmate
    edited March 2020
    orfeo wrote: »
    In recent years I have less and less sympathy for any kind of religious freedom/religious belief argument that boils down to "I don't have to follow the same rules as anybody else because 'religion'".
    <snip>
    In other words, to me claiming that a belief is 'religious' tends to be little more than outsourcing, and asserting that somehow you're not responsible for your own beliefs because you developed them while using words like 'God' or 'spiritual'.
    Whole post - well said. Nothing to add except perhaps to ask whether you think there is a difference between religious freedom and religious privilege and if so what would you say it is. I am not sure myself - I'll have to think about it.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    In recent years I have less and less sympathy for any kind of religious freedom/religious belief argument that boils down to "I don't have to follow the same rules as anybody else because 'religion'".
    <snip>
    In other words, to me claiming that a belief is 'religious' tends to be little more than outsourcing, and asserting that somehow you're not responsible for your own beliefs because you developed them while using words like 'God' or 'spiritual'.
    Whole post - well said. Nothing to add except perhaps to ask whether you think there is a difference between religious freedom and religious privilege and if so what would you say it is. I am not sure myself - I'll have to think about it.

    I think you've hit upon the problem. A lot of the time people talk about 'freedom' when they really mean 'privilege'.

    Freedom would consist of being able to gather and worship. Which in most Western societies doesn't tend to be under threat.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Long-term, perhaps not. But I can easily see restrictions on "non-essential" acts of worship in a society obsessed (perhaps rightly so) with social distancing and preventing mingling.

    Or compulsory registration of all attendees (to refer again to the super-spreading evangelical gathering in Mulhouse, it proved difficult to track those attending - around 2,000 people from all over the place - because the event was free and did not require registration. This point has been raised in their defence in the media, but I don't think that means it won't have been noticed).
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited March 2020
    Well yes, as I said, our own Pentecostal leader put religious gatherings squarely in the non-essential category.

    Which doesn't stop use of video technology, same as everybody else that is faced with the fact that public gatherings are now restricted to a maximum of 2 people (in some States of Australia by law, in others it's currently only guidelines). Shutting down only certain kinds of gatherings is so... last week I think it was. This stuff moves fast.
  • What I find staggering in people demanding exemption from social distancing on the grounds of religion is the stunning lack of faith: Matthew 18:20 tells us where two or three gather in my name, I am there with them. If these people really have faith, what better time to show it and live it out ?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Matthew 18:20 tells us where two or three gather in my name, I am there with them. If these people really have faith, what better time to show it and live it out ?
    As @orfeo points out, this is now illegal in many places, including where I live.

  • chrisstileschrisstiles Hell Host
    edited March 2020
    What I find staggering in people demanding exemption from social distancing on the grounds of religion is the stunning lack of faith: Matthew 18:20 tells us where two or three gather in my name, I am there with them. If these people really have faith, what better time to show it and live it out ?

    I think they'd raise you: Is 54:17 "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper"
  • What I find staggering in people demanding exemption from social distancing on the grounds of religion is the stunning lack of faith: Matthew 18:20 tells us where two or three gather in my name, I am there with them. If these people really have faith, what better time to show it and live it out ?
    How would you describe that faith? Faith in what? It seems to me that the elephant in the room is the non-presence of God.
    People can gather and believe that God is with them, but all sensible people, believers or not, know that they are far morelikely to avoid or recover from the virus by relying on practical, medical advice and help.

  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    @chrisstiles there's a Circus thread in there somewhere...

    I'm not disputing the public health issues. Which @TheOrganist seems to think don't apply to groups of two or three, contrary to public health emergency law here.

    I am nonetheless arguing that this public health crisis may present a real challenge to gatherings of all kinds in the future, and more specifically gatherings indoors of people prone to singing, embracing, shaking hands, and so on, that have historically been the target of government surveillance and, occasionally, persecution.

    Acknowledging the genuine public health risk does not make that problem vanish.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    People can gather and believe that God is with them, but all sensible people, believers or not, know that they are far morelikely to avoid or recover from the virus by relying on practical, medical advice and help.
    Believers in God are not the only category of people to believe that their particular practices render them exempt from contagion. In anecdotal evidence, a lot of middle management appear (or appeared) to believe their desks and related status offered adequate protection, and that they could legitimately shove off to their second homes without contaminating anybody else in their holiday home area.

  • They say they gather to worship and share their faith, but if they're in the middle of a group of fellow worshippers the last is a given. So we're left with the next bit, which is clear that God will be with them even though small in number and, by implication, not in the normal place for worship.

    So why insist on being with fellow believers?
  • System wrote: »
    This discussion was created from comments split from: Rodney Howard-Browne arrested.

    I thought this was worth a thread of its own.

    Eutychus
    We have seen the best of people but we have been exposed to something of the not so good. Enjoy isn't quite the word but some people are flexing their muscles to push the boundaries. Some Police forces in the UK are resorting to tactics that, whilst they are necessary, can be put over in a less than kindly way.

    Our local council closed the allotments after "advice" When put to the test, they couldn't provide a copy of the advice but had to backtrack esp. as Michael Gove (of all people) said it was ok to tend your allotment. They've backtracked.

    I agree we shouldn't meet but I am a little concerned with 750000 volunteers, the NHS when all this is over, will have access to a vast volunteer group. I rather suspect this will ensure that they won't make the changes they need and NHS staff wages will be kept down by the volunteer availability.

    The queues in shops are sort of necessary but again there's the danger that when this is over we'll keep doing it just as we did after WW2. It means that businesses and shops no longer have an impetus to provide good service.

    Finally the Govt schemes for financial support for businesses mean that some unviable businesses are kept going when they should be closed.



  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited March 2020
    @TheOrganist Which part of "restricted to a maximum of 2 people" (already one too many where I live) don't you understand?

    Unless I'm mistaken, the Greek word for 'church' is ekklesia: a gathering.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    I agree we shouldn't meet but I am a little concerned with 750000 volunteers, the NHS when all this is over, will have access to a vast volunteer group. I rather suspect this will ensure that they won't make the changes they need and NHS staff wages will be kept down by the volunteer availability.

    This is precisely the sort of "crisis creep" I'm worried about.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited March 2020
    On a perhaps slightly frivolous note, it did seem that the congregation at Our Place (small, but usually spread out among the pews - though families tend to sit closer together) took quite quickly to NOT shaking hands, embracing etc. at The Peace, and did NOT take exception to being refused the common cup.

    Should an ongoing public health risk (albeit lower than at present) mean that these restrictions become semi-permanent, with an added embargo on gatherings of over 50 people (say), and the continuing need to use hand sanitiser on entering the church, we should have no problem.

    Said he, hopefully...

    (BTW, with all due respect, I do wish The Atheists™ wouldn't keep derailing these threads...we can't prove the existence of God/god/gods, and neither can they prove the opposite)
  • I agree we shouldn't meet but I am a little concerned with 750000 volunteers, the NHS when all this is over, will have access to a vast volunteer group. I rather suspect this will ensure that they won't make the changes they need and NHS staff wages will be kept down by the volunteer availability.

    See my comments in the other thread.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    @TheOrganist Which part of "restricted to a maximum of 2 people" (already one too many where I live) don't you understand?

    Unless I'm mistaken, the Greek word for 'church' is ekklesia: a gathering.

    Eh? I wasn't suggesting anyone should be getting together, quite the reverse: the biblical quote gives the number, and I was saying it should be taken as meaning government restrictions should be observed. Of course, if you are a family with child or children there are going to be more than two of you, and how separate you can be from your children depends on age, but that should be the only exception.

    I most definitely was not suggesting that small groups should get together, sorry if you took that meaning.

    As for the gathering, it can be spiritual rather than temporal or corporeal.
  • No, I didn't think @TheOrganist was being literal. The point is the gathering - however small - and, as we are learning, that can be achieved in different ways.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited March 2020
    I most definitely was not suggesting that small groups should get together, sorry if you took that meaning.
    That didn't stop the church nearest to us with a hospitalised covid-19 case taking that option after church gatherings were banned...
    As for the gathering, it can be spiritual rather than temporal or corporeal.
    I really think there are limits to this, and that we're going to hit them sooner rather than later.

    That's because in my understanding, if you take away the Incarnation from Christianity you don't have much left. The corporeal component is the essence of the thing. And post-Ascension, that corporeal component is very definitely corporate, too.
  • To backtrack a bit: this article (which I regard as conspiracy/scaremongering) shows how some folk are thinking: https://tinyurl.com/v2odso4
  • When religious faith leads to public danger, there's no right to religious freedom. None.

    This includes no right to sealed confession in Canada as far as I understand it. Neither for lawyers who know someone is harming (usually sexual assaulting) a child or planning a crime to harm others. These are public health issues also. A person, clergy or anything, should be criminally liable if they fail to take preventative and protective steps I think.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    SusanDoris wrote: »
    People can gather and believe that God is with them, but all sensible people, believers or not, know that they are far morelikely to avoid or recover from the virus by relying on practical, medical advice and help.
    Believers in God are not the only category of people to believe that their particular practices render them exempt from contagion. In anecdotal evidence, a lot of middle management appear (or appeared) to believe their desks and related status offered adequate protection, and that they could legitimately shove off to their second homes without contaminating anybody else in their holiday home area.
    I hope someone is keeping a sort of count of the acts which are genuinely kind, thoughtful, considering the health of others not just themselves, and the numbers of those so selfish and inconsiderate acts of selfishness, so that perhaps more good will result from all of this worry and that perhaps a small step towards better world co-operation might happen. Hmmmm.

  • God is probably keeping such a count.
    :wink:
  • The legislation giving Police the powers to stop and fine etc hasn't received the Royal assent. It's therefore not a law and any individual acting as if they think it is, is breaking the law. Simples!
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited March 2020
    RE: Religious gatherings in spite of social distancing decrees: I keep thinking of Dt 6:16 in which the writer says "Do not tempt the Lord your God...but do what is right."

    I am pretty sure, at least in the US, if someone becomes ill in such a gathering, that person or their family may be able to sue the socks off the organizers.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Matthew 18:20 tells us where two or three gather in my name, I am there with them. If these people really have faith, what better time to show it and live it out ?
    As @orfeo points out, this is now illegal in many places, including where I live.

    I am completely certain that Jesus is present in virtual gatherings of people in His name, even if their bodies are in different buildings.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    I wouldn't be doing 'virtual church' if I didn't agree, nonetheless the prospect of doing only virtual church is not one I welcome or that I think is adequate. It would be as if the early church history consisted of nothing but the epistles and not the churches that received them.

    In other news, I got a memo today announcing that the two-month Sanitary State of Emergency decreed here on March 24 de facto means I can't go back into my jail until (at least) the end of that time period, i.e. May 24. Of course, we may well still be in lockdown then :scream: (two weeks in today), but that strikes me as precisely the kind of overreach I'm expressing concern about here.

    (By extension, I'm guessing that summary judicial proceedings will be extended until at least then, etc. Groan).
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    I wouldn't be doing 'virtual church' if I didn't agree, nonetheless the prospect of doing only virtual church is not one I welcome or that I think is adequate. It would be as if the early church history consisted of nothing but the epistles and not the churches that received them.

    I agree that church-over-zoom is a poor imitation of church-in-person, but it's a lot better than just having some letters.

    It depends what you mean by "virtual church". If you're meaning a broadcast of a church service (priest / worship leader produces a broadcast, congregation are spectators on TV / youtube / facebook live / whatever) then I'd agree with you that that's quite close to everyone being individual recipients of an epistle.

    If you're talking about prayer services held over zoom / WebEx / jitsi / some other videoconference solution, then that (can be) much more interactive, and a lot more like a community.

    I agree with you that it's not adequate. Apart from anything else, we can't share communion over zoom, and the fact that we're all going to be at home in front of our computers for Easter is very sad indeed. It's also sensible, in the short term. We'll gather in person when we're not endangering our neighbours by doing so.
    In other news, I got a memo today announcing that the two-month Sanitary State of Emergency decreed here on March 24 de facto means I can't go back into my jail until (at least) the end of that time period, i.e. May 24. Of course, we may well still be in lockdown then :scream: (two weeks in today), but that strikes me as precisely the kind of overreach I'm expressing concern about here.

    I understand that people need to plan, but making concrete plans two months out right now does seem a bit like overreach. Although if I was in charge of a jail, I'd be erring on the side of keeping the virus out of my jail. I don't know what your jail is like, but I'd imagine it would be hard to isolate many sick people in it, and so I'd want to be pretty certain that people like you, or like prisoners' lawyers, weren't bringing the virus in to my jail. But I'd also worry about guards bringing it in. It's not so bad with lockdown in place, but as you start to lift the lockdown, I'd be worrying about the families of the guards getting infected, and then having an infected guard show up for work. But it's also hard to sequester prison guards away from their families for a couple of months or so.


  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    I agree that church-over-zoom is a poor imitation of church-in-person, but it's a lot better than just having some letters.
    I think we really haven't scratched the surface of the differences between RL church and virtual church (some of which we've been discussing over in Ecclesiantics).
    Although if I was in charge of a jail, I'd be erring on the side of keeping the virus out of my jail. I don't know what your jail is like, but I'd imagine it would be hard to isolate many sick people in it, and so I'd want to be pretty certain that people like you, or like prisoners' lawyers, weren't bringing the virus in to my jail. But I'd also worry about guards bringing it in.
    This is the problem. All the reasons are legitimate ones. Except that they ignore the role chaplains play in "moral and spiritual support", and providing that remotely is not being widely facilitated. I generally appreciate the staff I work with in prison, but it's hard not to get the impression that these measures are seen by some as a way of keeping the pesky chaplains out from under their feet.

    Meanwhile, would you consider installing this app? (I see the UK is considering going full Wuhan well before France...).

  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Meanwhile, would you consider installing this app? (I see the UK is considering going full Wuhan well before France...).

    I'm struggling to see how that would work as described. The article says that "He added that employers might also be justified in requiring staff to use the app if they worked "in an old people's home, with vulnerable groups or [were based] in very crowded places"." - but it doesn't help me if my staff are using this app unless all the people they have contact with are also using it. Employers already know when their employees are sick, because they call in and say "I'm sick". You need to know when to tell Dave not to come in, because his drinking buddy or the lady who sat opposite him on the train just got sick, and you only get that if drinking buddy and train lady also have the app.

    It's theoretically a good idea to have a sort of dynamic quarantine like this that only pops up where necessary, but a necessary precondition of such a system is the widespread availability of rapid tests. The majority of people with COVID-19 only have mild symptoms. There are probably a lot of infectious people out there who don't know that they're infectious, and have no idea that they're any more ill than the usual winter grottiness.

    Would I install such an app? That depends - do I have a government that is prepared both to give me a cast-iron guarantee that there will be zero commercial use of the data generated from it (in any form) and is prepared to jail chief executives of companies that are found to be in breach of the guarantee? If it's all in the public good, there should be no problem giving me such a guarantee, right?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    So you can see why religious organisations might be a little wary of actions taken in the name of public health measures, then...?
  • No.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Matthew 18.20

    For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

    Jesus says the minimum is two
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    @TheOrganist Which part of "restricted to a maximum of 2 people" (already one too many where I live) don't you understand?

    Unless I'm mistaken, the Greek word for 'church' is ekklesia: a gathering.

    Does the gathering have to be physical? There are plenty of Anglican churches here - and probably other denominations and religions as well - where there is electronic gathering via Zoom or a similar programme. We went to a eucharist from Christ Church Newcastle Cathedral this morning. Admittedly there is no taking by those online (a real loss) but perhaps something can be worked out.

    Otherwise, what Orfeo's been saying. I think that the ban in Sydney on gathering for public worship came from ++Glenn before there was any government announcement.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Telford wrote: »
    Matthew 18.20

    For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

    Jesus says the minimum is two

    And if you're right in your approach, a maximum of 3.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Telford wrote: »
    Matthew 18.20

    For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

    Jesus says the minimum is two

    And gathering with one other person is currently against the law where I live unless you happen to live under the same roof. I find myself in a situation in which the minimum basic requirements for the presence of Christ, according to the Bible according to @TheOrganist, are prohibited by law.

    I'll survive, but the point is that it is possible for legal measures to render worship as usually understood impossible; my question is about the point at which one might decide faithfulness to God overrode obedience to man (undoubtedly part of Rodney Howard Browne's excuse).

    (ETA it's a bit like the Overton window. Imagine how you would have responded to churches being forbidden to gather for worship - on any grounds - in any of our Western countries just a few weeks ago).
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    I find myself in a situation in which the minimum basic requirements for the presence of Christ ... are prohibited by law.
    Clearly the situation is difficult, lonely and painful. And clearly it's semantically impossible to have a gathering of less than two people! But surely what Jesus was trying to say was that "(Even if) only two or three are gathered I will (nevertheless) be with you" - in other words an assurance that, in contrast to a synagogue where the presence of 10 males was required for it to be quorate, he would be with even the tiniest group of Christian believers. And - although I freely accept that it's not the same as gathering congregationally - we must believe that he is with us even as we worship alone.

  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    As I say, I can live with that (and personally am not living on my own), and these are (one hopes) exceptional circumstances. I still think one has to envisage the eventuality of there being a point where state law bends Christian practice to breaking point.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    It wouldn't occur to me in this day and age that 'gathered together' had to mean physically in the same location.
  • I am grateful for the technology now available which enables many of us to meet online. Ten years ago, even five, it wasn't.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    KarlLB wrote: »
    It wouldn't occur to me in this day and age that 'gathered together' had to mean physically in the same location.

    It obviously doesn't have to, nevertheless I think that there stalk the twin ghosts of gnosticism and docetism. I don't think the Incarnation, Christ's engagement of all five senses, including touch, and the calling of an actual group of people together in one place, were considerations due solely to the cultural context of the Christ Event; I think they say something profound about what it is to be human and social and what the Word being made flesh, then and now, is all about.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    I think they say something profound about what it is to be human and social and what the Word being made flesh, then and now, is all about.

    Though that's a wider issue than religious freedom isn't it ?
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