Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance. (WCF 23.3, PCA version with emphasis)

This has to be understood as a hard line of separated responsibilities. Romans 13 gives us the basis for the separation of church and state, not the elevation of the state as a near-absolute authority in regard of everything else it wants to rule over. And that also means that Romans 13 can be understood, by necessary consequence, as a framework for civil resistance. The state is never absolute—it is always under the authority of God who establishes it (Rom 13:1).

In spite of the knee-jerk response of the church to the pandemic, there was never any need to do things “differently” in 2020. Everything necessary for the management of this outbreak was already in place. And the bulk of it was always with the individual and with heads of individual households.

If you’re sick, stay home.

If your kids are sick, stay home with them.

In other words, self-quarantine until you’re well—just like you’ve always done when illness visits.

It wasn’t until 2020 that the new rule was for everyone to stay home until he gets sick—and then to stay home some more. And it was imposed by the state on nearly everyone except those arbitrarily labeled “essential” workers for “essential” businesses. Church, as we know, was not deemed an essential business. The church gladly went along with the lockdown charade (even allowing herself to be redefined as a business). Lives and livelihoods were wrecked. And the church was wrecked as well—both in terms of her work, and in terms of her credibility.

Along the way, the church embraced an assortment of lies and false arguments:

The inclination of Christians to embrace irrational and sloganistic explanations for drastic social isolation is an example of the lack of discernment in the church and the inability of God’s people to think in a biblical manner. (Theses, p. 23)

My personal favorite sloganistic logical fallacy was “Stay at Home, Save a Life.” It weighs on my conscience to this very day. I may never know how many people I carelessly killed while shopping for groceries at Walmart. It was unbelievably selfish of me.

The damage to the church goes much deeper than falling for the absurd propaganda. Most people in the church—even to the present moment—excuse the abomination of streaming worship services.

Perhaps because it was already commonplace before 2020.

Perhaps because it seemed like the best alternative.

Perhaps because it seemed like a new way to reach the unchurched.

Or perhaps because, in actual practice, we already had a low view of worship . . . and of scripture.

When one attempts to engage in corporate worship by electronic means (such as television or the internet), the practice is a violation of the Regulative Principle of Worship in several important respects: (1) failing to call the saints together into the public assembly; (2) negligence in administration of the sacraments; (3) hindering the saints from bringing their individual offerings; and (4) attempting to introduce a means of worship that is neither commanded nor sanctioned in scripture. (Theses, p. 25, emphasis in original)

Item #2 is quite serious, as our Confession reminds us regarding church discipline:

Church censures are necessary . . . for vindicating the honor of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel; and for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the Church, if they [officers] should suffer his covenant, and the seals thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders. (WCF 30.3, with emphasis)

But the last item in my list is the big one. Innovative worship is disastrous. Ask Jeroboam, who as a matter of convenience (pragmatism) set up worship sites in the northern kingdom so that folks wouldn’t have to trek all the way back to Jerusalem to worship God in his appointed manner.

And Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will return to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” So the king took counsel, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.” And he set one in Bethel, and one he put in Dan. Now this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan. And he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi. (1 Kings 12:26-31 LSB, with emphasis)

Jeroboam foolishly prostituted worship and religious order as a matter of expediency.

There is another aspect to the restrictions on worship that I suspect is little considered:

Restrictions on public worship not only violate the conscience of the Christian who is commanded to appear in the assembly, they also have the effect of depriving God of the worship due to him by his creatures. (Ps 50:1, 66:1-4, 95:1-7, 111:1; Matt 23:13; Rev 5:13) (Theses, p. 33)

During the lockdown I spent a lot of time thinking about the issue of livestreaming and ended up with the following conclusions:

Instructing the saints to worship electronically is twice a violation of conscience: firstly, in forbidding what is commanded (public assembly), and secondly, by encouraging what is forbidden (idolatry). In this way, the church leadership becomes a stumbling block to the saints. (Matt 18:6; Luke 18:16) (Theses, p. 28, emphasis in original)

My views about virtual worship seem to be in the extreme. But my observation is that the arguments for virtual worship are (as in the case of King Jeroboam) all pragmatic, not biblical. And we must notice that we embrace a relativistic utilitarian ends-justify-the-means ethic at that point. Our mother Eve was the first one to fall for that trick. Shall we sin so that grace may abound? Paul frowns on that rationale, but as pragmatic Americans, we are willing to try just about anything. And after we’ve done it a few times, it becomes an accepted part of our tradition.

I am in favor of using the means that we have at our disposal as a way to extend the ministry of the church in the 21^st century. But I am against crossing the line into the sacred space of worship and treating it like the weekly studio broadcast of our favorite TV show. Some of you may remember that Neil Postman made the salient point 40 years ago that for TV, the medium is the message. And that regarding the broadcasting of church, the medium of TV strips away the transcendence of the church service.

Everything that makes religion an historic, profound and sacred human activity is stripped away; there is no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no theology, and above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence. On these shows, the preacher is tops. God comes out as second banana. . . . What makes these television preachers the enemy of religious experience is not so much their weaknesses but the weakness of the medium in which they work. (Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, pp. 116-117, emphasis in original)

This from a secular sociologist.

Let me now take a step back and land an even harder blow in my criticism. 2020 did not “create” a problem in the church. 2020 only exposed the existing problems in the church:

• it exposed the church’s weak understanding of ecclesiology;
• it exposed the church’s willingness to compromise with culture and state;
• it exposed the church’s willingness to abuse the authority that Christ has entrusted to his shepherds;
• it showed that even in the Reformed church we are disconnected from a Protestant heritage that stood against the abuses of both church and state;
• it showed that we have little biblical discernment as it regards new innovations like streaming media;
• it showed that we can just as easily be gripped by a spirit of fear and deception as the rest of society;
• and it is even now showing that we can make an assortment of critical mistakes and then pretend as though they never happened.

The Bible teaches that spiritual trials expose our faith. In 2020, we discovered a flabby faith under the musty layers of 500 years of accreted Protestant tradition.