Many of us think that the last year has been a year of unnecessary restrictions on our liberties. Churches were shut down, parks were closed, people were arrested for surfing all alone on beaches, masks were required, schools were shut down, graduations and proms were canceled, stadiums were emptied, arrows showed up in grocery stores, people died alone and separated from their families. Despite all of these "mitigations" half a million people still died in the U.S. (most of whom were in nursing homes where these measures didn't affect them.). Even more troubling, when you look at the data, the stricter mitigations seem to have had zero effect. Looser states did better than strict states, places that never shut down had about the same level of death as places that went all in.
But this isn't a post about Covid restrictions - it's a post about what Covid restrictions can teach us about restrictions in general...
In the past, some pastors have placed a huge amount of emphasis on "standards." Music standards, dress standards, entertainment standards, etc. - these things were literally talked about more than the death of Jesus Christ, the fruit of the spirit, and many other things emphasized in the New Testament.
The thought was that setting up and preaching these extra-biblical rules was protecting people from the world, the flesh and the devil. Without these rules, churches would turn into rock concerts, people would come to church half-naked, and the world would poison our minds (all of which have proved to be legitimate concerns by the way).
But there have been several problems with this emphasis on standards:
First, there is no proof that the mitigations worked. There are plenty of "control groups", churches where standards were not emphasized where the kind of moral problems standards were supposed to protect us from didn't show up. I've been in churches where standards are never talked about where the ladies dress modestly, people dress respectfully for church and where people are striving to live holy lives. In contrast, there are plenty of churches who placed a huge emphasis on standards who have been dealing with moral scandal after moral scandal for years.
Second, the standards were turned into a tool for virtue signaling. Just as there are "double maskers" who, to show their superiority and heightened concern, won't venture into public without donning two masks, there are baptists who drag their wives around in culottes or make their boys basketball team wear pants in the gym. The principle is the same: take an issue to the extreme and then turn compliance into a shiboleth that shows you are the good guys. It's a short step from this to a church full of Karens using criticism and gossip to enforce these rules.
But I think the main takeaway from COVID as it relates to standards should be this: It's possible to take caution too far, and when you do, you do more harm than good. I think there are going to be severe side effects to the "abundance of caution" measures from the last year. The overreach has victims: Kids are missing a whole year of school, widows are dealing with psychological trauma of separation from their dying loved ones, cancer screenings were down something over 50%, suicide and abuse skyrocketed.
I also think we are dealing with the fallout of a lot of well-intended overreach in the church world. When the sheep have a regimented uniform, it serves as easy cover for a lot of wolves. I know a lot of guys in their 30s who love the Bible but wouldn't step foot in an independent baptist church. I hate the "church abuse" and "recovering" podcasts, but boy have we given them a lot of material. The worst unintended consequence is this: All the time we spent talking about standards, we could have been preaching Jesus. We could have been teaching people the word of God, line upon line, precept upon precept. 2020 will go down as the lost year due to COVID panic, I'm afraid we let a culture panic cause us to lose a generation.
But this isn't a post about Covid restrictions - it's a post about what Covid restrictions can teach us about restrictions in general...
In the past, some pastors have placed a huge amount of emphasis on "standards." Music standards, dress standards, entertainment standards, etc. - these things were literally talked about more than the death of Jesus Christ, the fruit of the spirit, and many other things emphasized in the New Testament.
The thought was that setting up and preaching these extra-biblical rules was protecting people from the world, the flesh and the devil. Without these rules, churches would turn into rock concerts, people would come to church half-naked, and the world would poison our minds (all of which have proved to be legitimate concerns by the way).
But there have been several problems with this emphasis on standards:
First, there is no proof that the mitigations worked. There are plenty of "control groups", churches where standards were not emphasized where the kind of moral problems standards were supposed to protect us from didn't show up. I've been in churches where standards are never talked about where the ladies dress modestly, people dress respectfully for church and where people are striving to live holy lives. In contrast, there are plenty of churches who placed a huge emphasis on standards who have been dealing with moral scandal after moral scandal for years.
Second, the standards were turned into a tool for virtue signaling. Just as there are "double maskers" who, to show their superiority and heightened concern, won't venture into public without donning two masks, there are baptists who drag their wives around in culottes or make their boys basketball team wear pants in the gym. The principle is the same: take an issue to the extreme and then turn compliance into a shiboleth that shows you are the good guys. It's a short step from this to a church full of Karens using criticism and gossip to enforce these rules.
But I think the main takeaway from COVID as it relates to standards should be this: It's possible to take caution too far, and when you do, you do more harm than good. I think there are going to be severe side effects to the "abundance of caution" measures from the last year. The overreach has victims: Kids are missing a whole year of school, widows are dealing with psychological trauma of separation from their dying loved ones, cancer screenings were down something over 50%, suicide and abuse skyrocketed.
I also think we are dealing with the fallout of a lot of well-intended overreach in the church world. When the sheep have a regimented uniform, it serves as easy cover for a lot of wolves. I know a lot of guys in their 30s who love the Bible but wouldn't step foot in an independent baptist church. I hate the "church abuse" and "recovering" podcasts, but boy have we given them a lot of material. The worst unintended consequence is this: All the time we spent talking about standards, we could have been preaching Jesus. We could have been teaching people the word of God, line upon line, precept upon precept. 2020 will go down as the lost year due to COVID panic, I'm afraid we let a culture panic cause us to lose a generation.