White House turns to faith groups and churches for coronavirus help
The White House is turning to faith-based groups and church pastors who command large audiences to promote guidance on how to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as new cases continue to emerge across the country.
On a call with religious leaders last Wednesday, the White House Office of Public Liaison asked the heads of some of the nation’s biggest houses of worship to encourage congregants to wash their hands and take other precautionary measures to help reduce the number of coronavirus cases in the United States.
“The White House is telling us to tell our congregation to adjust and submit to the information and to advice,” Alberto Delgado, pastor of Alpha & Omega Church in Miami, said.
White House officials on the call did not ask pastors to cancel in-person services on Sunday, but some of the faith leaders did anyway based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warnings about the potential for coronavirus spread and the impact on the elderly.
The purpose of the call was to encourage faith leaders to get their congregations to participate in the census. But the coronavirus came up, leading officials on the call, which included U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham and Advisor to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative Paula White, to provide guidance on best practices for dealing with the pandemic.
“Rather than sitting around and waiting for some government leader in Washington telling us what to do, a lot of us are taking it upon ourself to make our own decisions,” Ralph Reed, chairman of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition, said. “And that’s certainly been the case with the church.”
After last Sunday’s services, the CDC in new guidance advocated for gatherings of fewer than 50 people for the next eight weeks. President Donald Trump on Monday revised that down to no more than 10 people for the next 15 days.
The recommended cap on attendance at mass gatherings puts religious institutions in the position of having to decide whether they will open their doors to worshipers until the risk of spreading the virus subsidies.
Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, which says it has 14,000 members, preached before a live audience last Sunday. He told McClatchy his church divided its congregants to meet the city’s temporary gathering requirements of no more than 500 people in the same room.
His church also had its highest online attendance, with more than 150,000 tuned in to hear his sermon, he said.
Jeffress said he will move to an online-only format for next weekend’s service, in order to comply with the CDC’s new recommendation.
Churches around the country reported having their highest online attendance, said Johnnie Moore, a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Moore said he had been in communication with pastors at the nation’s largest evangelical churches. Because of the White House outreach to evangelicals, its health message reached a significantly larger audience than it may otherwise have, Moore said.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, technologically savvy churches began broadcasting their services online. Some are using social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to share their messages, as well.
Delgado said his church is assessing how he will conduct services in the future. He said he could ask that parishioners sit in every third seat, because people will not come to church if they are fearful they will catch the virus while they’re there.
“It’s a bad situation,” Delgado said. “We live by the donations. If people don’t come, we’re just like anybody. If you don’t go to work, you don’t get paid. If they don’t come here, they may not donate.”
Social distancing also necessitates that churchgoers stay away from typical Sunday-morning greetings like hugging and suspend traditions during their services like shaking hands during peace offerings.
“It’s hard for people in churches, because if you want a hug, you go to church, because we hug each other,” said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council. “We’re friendly, we love each other.”
Churches are having an especially difficult time coping with coronavirus for a number of reasons. In addition to offering spiritual guidance, they operate food banks, daycares, and schools. They rely on tithing and donations to keep those services going.
Some churches are finding new ways to help the community amid the coronavirus. Church of the Highlands in Birmingham is partnering with Assurance Scientific Laboratories to offer drive-through testing for Alabama residents exhibiting symptoms associated with the coronavirus.
Samuel Rodriguez, the senior pastor of New Season Christian Worship Center in Sacramento, Calif., and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said churches are at the forefront of communication about the coronavirus.
“We are disseminating that information, in a very fast, accelerated manner,” he said. “Churches can get people to do things in an expedited manner, arguably in competition with the social media people. So it’s very powerful, the church coming together, and giving instructions.”
The White House has also called on churches to pray for elected leaders, health professionals, the infirm, the bereaved and anyone else affected by the coronavirus. Trump designated last Sunday a National Day of Prayer in a proclamation.
In a statement to McClatchy, the White House said, the president “understands that our faith leaders play an important role in leading Americans, especially in prayer” and that is why he issued the proclamation.
“While churches, temples, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship may not be able to physically gather for the foreseeable future, faith leaders continue to play an important role in our communities large and small and the White House will continue dialogue with these leaders,” a senior White House official said.
Harvest Christian Fellowship founder Greg Laurie told McClatchy he asked God for divine intervention on the National Day of Prayer.
“We saw with the rapid spread of coronavirus, we needed supernatural help, because this is something that cannot be solved with a purely human solution,” Laurie said.
Harvest says its churches in southern California and Hawaii have 15,000 collective members. Laurie has met with Trump at the White House and was one of the faith leaders on last week’s call.
Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a southern Baptist megachurch with multiple sites in Texas, said he told his congregation, “We believe in prayer, and we believe in Purell.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 2:24 PM with the headline "White House turns to faith groups and churches for coronavirus help."
