Sunday, November 29, 2020

Reflections on Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo: Implications for Faith Communities


 

Last Wednesday evening, just before midnight, the Supreme Court of the United State (SCOTUS) released its decision in the matter of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor of New York.  In this case the Court sided with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Agaduth Israel of America organization by enjoining New York Governor Andrew Cuomo from restricting the rights of these two religious groups to hold congregate, in-person worship services, as a matter of public health during the pandemic.

Two things were notable about this injunction.    First, the Court reversed itself in terms of how it ruled in two similar cases brought by other religious groups earlier in 2020.   Second, this was the first case in which Justice Amy Coney Barrett (who had replaced the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginzburg) changed the outcome of this case before the nation’s highest court.

Not surprisingly, this SCOTUS ruling was greeted with praise by conservative pastor Franklin Graham who tweeted:   “This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for President Trump’s appointment of 3 conservative #SCOTUS justices who ruled last night in favor of churches & against gov't overreach in the state of New York.”    Graham’s sentiments were echoed by the editors of National Review magazine who opined that, in its November 25th decision, “the Supreme Court got church restrictions right.”

Predictably, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, offered an alternative viewpoint:   “The Supreme Court’s order misuses religious freedom and endangers the public health of everyone in New York. With coronavirus cases spiking across the country, we should be heeding the advice of public health experts who recommend limiting large gatherings. COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate between religious and secular gatherings; on numerous occasions, infections at houses of worship have led to major outbreaks in surrounding communities….”[1]

The attention given to this SCOTUS decision led me to look at the actual decision,[2] along with the comments of the justices who concurred with or dissented from it.   Doing so has left me puzzled and troubled about the implications this decision is likely to have across the United States.

First, Justice Neal Gorsuch (in a concurring opinion)  proposed the notion that anti-religious bias, not concern for public safety, was Governor Cuomo’s primary motive in this matter.   “Who knew public health would so perfectly align with secular convenience?” Gorsuch asked, before concluding that  “the only explanation for treating religious places differently [from secular places]  seems to be a judgment that what happens there [in religious gatherings] just isn’t as ‘essential’ as what happens in secular spaces.”   

Gorsuch also seems to propose that Governor Cuomo personally (and capriciously?) decided to alter the pandemic “threat level” affecting congregations of the Brooklyn Diocese:   “The State has effectively sought to ban all traditional forms of worship in affected ‘zones’ whenever the Governor decrees and for as long as he chooses…..[And] just the other day, the Governor changed his color code for Brooklyn and Queens where the plaintiffs are  located….” (emphasis added).[3]

Surely, one would hope, Justice Gorsuch realizes that public health conditions during the pandemic are often changing as the coronavirus ebbs and flows!    Or does he?    It seems to me that the virus itself—not Gov. Cuomo or any other elected official—is the “culprit” here, in terms of determining when a geographical area is deemed to be a “hot spot.”

Justice Gorsuch also muddies the water when comparing religious organizations to non-religious organizations.   So he criticizes Gov. Cuomo for alleging that “it may be unsafe to go to church, but it is always fine to pick up another bottle of wine, shop for a new bike, or spend the afternoon exploring your distal points and meridians.”[4]    In other words, Gorsuch contends that liquor stores, bike shops and acupuncturist clinics are comparable to congregations of religious believers.    

Nothing could be farther from the truth!  As Justice Sonia Sotomayor (in her clear and thoughtful dissent from the decision) helpfully points out, “[state officials] may restrict attendance at houses of worship so long as comparable secular institutions face restrictions that are at least equally as strict.”      Sotomayor identifies such organizations as those that offer “lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports, and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time.”[5]

Now, gentle reader, you may be wondering why a retired Lutheran pastor living half-a-continent away from New York City would even care about these issues.   In short:  I’m passionately concerned that this decision by SCOTUS may increase the likelihood that the Coronavirus will cause more illness and take more lives.   That’s because all across the nation—including rural areas that make up so much of the Upper Midwest—we have local faith communities that are struggling to live by the public health measures (face-masking, social distancing, avoiding congregate in-person worship) designed to stem the tide of the pandemic.    Sadly, too many folks in these scattered rural religious communities struggle to take the coronavirus as seriously as is necessary, to safeguard the health and wellness of them and their neighbors.

I fear that reports about the Diocese of Brooklyn v. Governor Cuomo case could provide “ammunition” to religious congregants who are already pushing back on their pastors, church councils, and local governmental leaders as they seek to “be church” in the midst of this pandemic.    What everyone needs to be clear about is that a large group of people gathering, speaking, and singing in close proximity indoors for extended periods of time—an apt description of a “normal” congregational worship gathering--is one of the most dangerous settings for spreading the coronavirus.

I am deeply grateful for our nation’s constitutional commitment to the free exercise of religion—and I long for the day when we can again bask in this freedom, without needing to follow the difficult public health remedies that have been prescribed for us.    We must be clear, however, that the U.S. Constitution is not—in the immortal words of former Justice Robert Jackson—a suicide pact.  In other words, restrictions that may temporarily need to be made with respect to rights like freedom of religion must be balanced against the need for survival of the state and its people. 

Lawrence R. Wohlrabe

November 29, 2020

 

 

 


[3] In the SCOTUS decision itself, the New York state regulation is said to “single out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment.” (emphasis added)

[4] “Distal points and meridians” have to do with acupuncture.

[5] Ironically, by the time the SCOTUS issued its decision in this matter, the course of the coronavirus had already made it possible for the pandemic threat level in the neighborhoods comprising the Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America to no longer be classified as orange or red “hot zones.”

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Friday, November 13, 2020

Pivoting to Our Next Hybridized "Normal"

 

Pivoting to Our Next Hybridized “Normal”



Thanks to the pandemic, we’ve been forced to reimagine just about everything in our world—and without the chance to do so at the kind of measured, thoughtful, cautious pace we’d normally prefer.   No wonder we’re exhausted as we feel the pinch of what renowned epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm has labeled “pandemic fatigue” plus “pandemic anger.”

Such fatigue+anger is emerging because the pandemic doesn’t “stay in its lane” (whatever that might mean)—but relentlessly spills over into every facet of life.  No wonder it’s so hard to pause and catch our breath.

I’ve been pondering how the pandemic has been affecting churches in my part of North America.   I do so from the vantage point of having served on the staff of three “middle judicatories” of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)—most recently as interim bishop of the Eastern North Dakota Synod, ELCA (from January 15 to October 31 of 2020). 

I had served in this temporary role for less than two months when the pandemic hit.  And shortly thereafter, in rapid succession, three other “pandemics” piled on:   civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, environmental chaos reflected in a staggering succession of “extreme weather events,” and an economic recession triggered by all four “pandemics.”

How have faith communities responded to this unprecedented cascade of crises?  Three phrases—questions, really--capture what I’ve been observing from my unique perch:

            Are we…

·       Pining for our old “normal” or pursuing our next “normal?”

·       Creating new tools or pivoting with existing tools?

·       Focusing on a singular mode of response or envisioning a “hybridization” of responses?

Old Normal…New Normal…or Next Normal?

Quite soon after congregations closed the doors of their buildings and made provisions for fulfilling their primary functions via “virtual” means I was struck by how quickly church members started articulating a desire to “return to normal.”  Such expressions of impatience with the conditions forced upon us by the coronavirus struck me as strikingly premature.

What surprised me even more was my own kneejerk response to such grousing:  “We won’t be returning to normal anytime soon—and even when that happens we’ll notice that the old ‘normal’ we hanker for no longer exists.”

As someone who usually avoids brash pronouncements, I asked myself why—in this instance, at least--was I going out on such a limb?  The answer:  glib talk about “returning to normal” seemed to be seriously dishonest.    Those who started complaining—so soon!--about the emergency closure of our church buildings appeared oblivious to the deadliness of the pandemic itself.

In short, many of us quickly came to regard March 11, 2020[1] as a date that would henceforth mark one of the great “continental divides” in world history.  Others weren’t so sure the pandemic was that big a thing, and some (as we learned during the election of 2020) even harbored the conviction that it was nothing more than a clever hoax.

So instead of pining for a speedy “return to normal,” some of us talked about anticipating a “new normal.”    We did so, convinced that the “normal” we once knew—the “old normal” in which the possibility of a viral pandemic never even crossed our minds--was gone for good.   Henceforth, whatever awaits us, we will live into a world that realizes viruses like Covid19 can appear out of the blue, at any time.

So when I heard persons wishing out loud for a “return to normal,” I started speaking in terms of a “new normal.”

And that lasted for about one day!....

….because if the vaunted “new normal” we longed for allowed us—even for a nanosecond—to lower our guard and settle into a fresh experience of stasis, such a “new normal” could prove to be as dangerous as our old normal.

It was at this point that I decided to speak, instead, about the “next normal”….a chance to catch our breath and recuperate until the next big global challenge comes along and calls forth the sorts of concerted, focused, imaginative responses that we’re witnessing day by day, all around us.

And such talk about a “next normal” applies not only to the public health issue of the coronavirus pandemic.   What about those other “pandemics” that have come after us this year?  If “returning to normal” means making peace with systemic racism, snoozing while global climate change takes its toll on our precious environment or looking the other way while economic injustice gets by with murder—then I want nothing to do with such an “old normal.”

And I trust that I’m not the only one who sees things that way!

So please, let us set aside all the silly talk about “returning to normal.”   Let us, instead, pray and plead and work for the next normal that will surely prove to be a gracious gift from God.

Creating from Scratch—or “Pivoting” With What’s at Hand?

When the news media began paying attention to the pandemic, reporters often stressed that we were facing a novel coronavirus, i.e. a new virus for which no treatment or cure existed.   The resulting terror that gripped us was compounded by the fact that this virus was airborne, making Covid19 astonishingly easy to contract.

Christian congregations were especially vulnerable, given the fact that, as Bishop N.T. Wright has noted, “Christianity is a team sport. It’s something we do together. Think of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, graciousness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23). All of those are things we do together. You can’t be practicing them apart from one another.”[2]

As scientists were racing to create a new vaccine to combat a new virus, churches also hastened to create—seemingly “from scratch”--new ways of “doing church” under the difficult conditions created by the pandemic.  How could we still worship, extend care for one another, teach the faith, organize ourselves to serve God’s mission in a new environment in which simply being in close quarters could kill us?

As sobering as that challenge seemed to be, church folk responded with amazing speed and imagination.   As we did so we discovered that instead of “creating from scratch” the novel tools we’d need, we already had many promising resources in our “toolkit.”   We didn’t need so much to create, as we were being called to “pivot” with approaches that were already in use.

Case-in-point:   the rapid, widespread embrace of corporate worship using digital/electronic  means like Zoom, Facebook Live, YouTube, etc.   Fortunately we had many congregations that were already live-streaming their worship services, and these early adopters quickly became teachers and examples to the rest of us.    Better yet--some of our finest resource persons turned out to be younger believers—those in the first third of life!

In a similar vein, “virtual” meetings soon replaced in-person gatherings such as church council discussions, congregational meetings, and in eleven of the ELCA’s 65 synods, all-digital synod assemblies complete with elections of new bishops.

Hybridizing Ways of “Being Church Together”

As I write this blogpost Americans are basking in early, positive reports about potential vaccines for the coronavirus.   Such promising news not only cheers us up, but also points us ahead to a time when the coronavirus will no longer be first and foremost on our minds—when the pandemic will cease to cause sickness and premature death.

When that much-anticipated time comes, what will we do with the new tools for ministry that helped us weather the pandemic?   Tuck them away in mothballs, in case we ever need them again?

I don’t think so.   I foresee churches moving ahead with various “hybridizing” arrangements that wed familiar ways of ministering in-person with one another with the emerging remote or virtual tools that have helped us survive the pandemic.   For example:

·       Live-streaming public worship services will become more common, making it possible for those who can’t attend worship “in-person” on a regular basis—whether because of health concerns, inclement weather,  living in remote areas, tending sick family members—to still worship via digital means.

·       Deliberative bodies within the church will continue to “meet” in-person and/or via virtual means—reducing travel time and expense, drawing in members who maintain dual residences (e.g. “snow-birds” from the Upper Midwest who spend their winters in warmer climes), and not allowing inclement weather to postpone vital opportunities for corporate decision-making.

·       Opening up church-based classes, forums, discussion groups, or gatherings  for inquirers/seekers/religiously curious folks to be offered via both in-person formats and digital formats could actually attract persons to explore the Christian faith and consider joining a congregation. 

Above all, whenever this current pandemic is history, I pray that churches across the world will set aside time for prayerful reflection and earnest conversation about what we learned about “being church together” in the year 2020.

Lawrence R. Wohlrabe

November 13, 2020

Moorhead, Minnesota

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