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“The church made the call to put everything online last month,” said 22-year-old Warell, a member of his church, C3 NYC, in Downtown Manhattan. “Even for dinners, we had thought at the time that gathering 10-12 people was safe, but even that’s too many people to have in one place.”

In a time where social distancing is needed to curb the spread of coronavirus, Lachlan and many other Christian churchgoers must now kindle spiritual community over a computer.

For Lachlan, this means attending C3’s pre-recorded digital Sunday services on his laptop. Running hourly from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., the stream lets members like Lachlan follow his pastor with a pop-up digital Bible and send text messages with his friends using the stream’s chatroom.

But for more intimate C3 gatherings like dinner parties that are now done over  Zoom, the transition hasn’t been as smooth.“Before corona, we’d usually meet every Wednesday to have dinner, catch-up with one another, pray, and talk about the last service,” said Warell, adding that he misses the social setting. “It’s kind of awkward trying to single out a conversation in a 15-person Zoom call.”

For other C3 members who attend more than one church like 23-year-old Joo Lee, the switch to online has made the transition between communities easier.

Lee typically starts her Sunday with a morning prayer at her Korean church IN2 in Koreatown, and follows it with a C3 service ten blocks away.

“I now don’t have to go all the way uptown and switch between the two,” she said. “It’s been easier to be a regular in both communities.”

Even so, Lee says the impersonal live streams could dampen a sense of community for older church members.

“For our generation, we’re used to this, we’ve been online all the time,” she said. “But for my parents, they’re really sad about it, they see it as a whole different reality.”

For other Christian organizations that depend on group gatherings like Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU), an organization dedicated towards engaging college students with faith, remote gathering has brought together new perspectives.

“I try to tell everyone that we want to do our best to honor what the government says,” said Sam Gryzwa, a CRU campus staff member. “But we also have to recognize that we share a bond as Christians that goes beyond this idea that we only need to meet in person.”

Prior to the pandemic, Gryzwa set up Bible studies and other CRU events on New York University’s campus. But now, FaceTime and Zoom are the only ways to reach students.
“I keep myself as available and open for discussion as I did on campus,” said Gryzwa. “We just have to get a little more creative to get to God now.”

While groups like C3, IN2 and CRU have postponed in-person gatherings to prevent the virus from spreading, other religious groups across the country have come under fire for ignoring social distancing precautions.
In the last two months, a Virginia pastor died from COVID-19 after defying social distancing, while a church conference in Kansas City sparked 44 new COVID-19 cases and five deaths.

“It’s important to be able to connect with God now more than ever,” said Warrell. “It’s important to do it safely though.”

“We do have the ability as Christians to have hope in all of this,” said Gryzwa. “We’ve just now got to focus on how to share that hope at home and through computers.”

Harrison Tsui is an NYU undergraduate journalism student.

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A practicing Catholic for 29 years, Vacacela, always thought something was missing from her religion. A key part of her new church liturgy is close reading of the Bible, unlike the Catholic practice. She reads the Bible daily and interprets the readings to help her with everyday life. 

“I feel like I get the knowledge about things that I don’t know to make decisions. Like using a GPS when you are driving to an uncertain place,” said Vacacela, a human resources manager. 

Finding a sense of meaning  has been especially true with the onset of the coronavirus which she believes was predicted in the Bible, especially by the use of the word “pestilence.” Vacacela refers to Bible passage on Mathew 24:7,

“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” 

Another passage is Luke 21:11, 

“and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.” 

These passages and others hold deep meaning for Vacacel and thousands of others who turn to the Bible for solace and answers during the pandemic. Americans seem almost evenly divided about Bible predictions of this pandemic. About 44 percent of Americans who said they believe the coronavirus is a wakeup call to turn back to faith in God and the signs of coming judgment, according to a survey by The Joshua Fund, an education organization. However, the same survey found that 47 percent of Americans believe the coronavirus has nothing to do with the Bible or God’s prophecy.  

Leslier Uribe, 21, a human resource assistant, also believes the coronavirus was predicted in the Bible. She attends the same church in Jackson Heights as Vacacela. She too refers to the Bible’s use of  the word “pestilence,” and says it’s a sign of the end of times.  She cites the book of Revelation chapter 22 verse 12,

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” 

What does give her hope is the increase in the number of people who have joined  her church for online services, including some non-believers. “I don’t know if after this happens if people will continue with the same enthusiasm, desire, and the same need if seeking God,” said Uribe. 

The coronavirus can change people’s behavior, although sometimes only on a temporary basis.  It’ll be like a sugar high,” says  Juan Hernadez, a professor of Biblical Studies at Bethel University, “It’ll change it for a while and go back to normal. But others will learn lessons from it and perhaps plan better.” 

Professor Hernandez does not believe the coronavirus was predicted in the Bible. He said that for centuries people have turned to the Bible to make connections to current events. “If there was a candidate for a physical fulfillment, it might be the Black Plague where one-third of the world population was devastated; this doesn’t compare.” said Hernandez. 

He explains that the Bible can be read as a historical narrative or as a prophecy. While the coronavirus can be linked to the use of “pestilence,”  it’s important to read the full passage. “The descriptions are so vague that they have multiple applications,” said Hernandez.

Herandez recently hosted a live screening online with a pastor where both answered questions from people who believe the pandemic is a reflection of God’s judgment. “Irrespective of whether it is judgment or not, it is an opportunity to reflect and recalibrate who we are and what we’re doing,” he said. 

Some other Christians wonder whether the pandemic is a sign of the return of Jesus Christ. In a study made a decade ago, Pew Research surveyed that forty-one percent of Americans expect Jesus to return by 2050 while forty-six percent disagree. 

Mayte Felix, 22,  doesn’t believe  the pandemic is a sign yet of Jesus’ imminent return,  “Before Jesus returns there are going to be all kinds of things that are going to happen but no one knows,” said Felix. “It’s going to be like a thief in the night, so it can be one of the signs or not. We don’t know exactly when to expect God.”  

Felix attends  “Sobre La Roca,” a Pentecostal church in San Diego, California where her parents are pastors. Although she sometimes feels a little discouraged she prays and has faith  that everything will be alright. After losing two jobs because of Covid-related layoffs, she has sought God more through prayer.  

Mayte’s mom, Maythe Felix, is among those who  believe the coronavirus was predicted in the Bible. “I definitely don’t believe the end of the world is right now, but I do believe we are seeing the last signs of  the end of times,” said  Felix, a pastor at a Pentecostal church. “After this pandemic, the world will never be the same, it will be harder for humanity.” 

Because of social distancing the church closed and now offers online service three times a week.  About 75 homes are tuning in to their online services reaching more than one person per home. “I believe we have grown as a church. People tell us, I’ve shared the link to my dad, I’ve shared it with my brother, with my friend,” said Felix. 

The people have been asking Felix and her husband, Carlos also a pastor, about the last signs and our thoughts. “We responded by saying we must prepare because nobody knows the day or time he will come, but we must be ready.” However, now going into the sixth week people have calmed down and have been praying more. 

During the service she and her parishioners have been studying the Bible more and reviewing the prophecies of Christ’s return.

“We are praying more, asking God to restore our hearts, clean us, and prepare us because the Bible says without holiness no one will see him,” said Pastor Felix. Hernandez agrees with that approach. “The bottom line with the Bible is not so much when but to persevere, to be faithful, irrespective of the circumstances,” he said.   

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As the rhetoric of the Republican Party becomes increasingly divisive, they are looking to their faith to help them decide where they fall on the political spectrum.  

“I grew up under the guise of thinking that the Republican Party was just right about everything because it took the “Christian stance,” said Naomi Jackson. “But the key question for me has become: what is God doing?”

Jackson attends Vox Veniae, a non-denominational and notably progressive church in Austin, Texas. Like any other church, the ambience of the service was set by dimmed lights, bowed heads, and soulful, heartfelt music, but when it was over, Jackson discussed the way the atmosphere of southern religion is changing with her friend, Gina Bastone. The change is particularly focused around influential religious figures like Jen Hatmaker and Beth Moore.

“These white, suburban, middle-class women, evangelicals, are suddenly realizing ‘Trump does not represent me, he does not represent my values,’” said Bastone. “I think that’s a really interesting, shifting demographic that is not what you see in the mainstream media.”

Jason Igkpatt speaks with another member of the congregation during the service at Vox Veniae. Photo by Samantha Springer.

Jason Ikpatt is also a member of the congregation at Vox. For him, the current state of politics in America has made his position abundantly clear and completely absolute. Because he doesn’t want “companies releasing toxins into the air” or for “children detained at the border to have to represent themselves,” he said there is “not much room for nuance to reflect my actual opinion.”

“For me, because things have become so binary in the political sphere, there is really only one option,” said Ikpatt.

Not all southern Christians have always had a liberal inclination, and some still struggle with issues that conflict with their beliefs. Roxanne Van Brown grew up Baptist and attended a Baptist church for almost her entire adult life. She considers herself a radical prayer warrior and has been a staunch Republican for many years, but a paralyzing fear for the future has swayed her political affiliation.

“He is a bully [Trump].” said Van Brown. “He is putting our lives, our national security, in danger, and I can’t support that.”

Van Brown is a member of a Facebook group named “Christians for Beto.” Though she vehemently opposes abortion, gay marriage, and the legalization of marijuana, she will no longer vote Republican.

“For me, the breaking point was when that shooting [Parkland] happened down in Florida.” said Van Brown. “I’m going to vote the way those kids tell me to vote.”

Jillian Myles works for a Texas state Senator. She also finds herself torn when it comes to the issues she cares about, specifically abortion and immigration.

“I have some non-citizen friends,” said Myles. “I care about their well-being, and their status, and their path to citizenship. But on the line of abortion, I have always cared about the unborn, because scripture says God knits us together in our mother’s womb.”

She had not decided who she was voting for yet, but her obligation to her faith plays a bigger role in the way she votes than her occupation does.

“Honestly,” said Myles, “I have just been praying a lot, and trying to look at the big picture… what candidates care about, what they are pushing and hoping for, in line with what scripture says.”

Like Jackson, she is looking to where she sees God and to what will advance his kingdom.

“And that is hard,” she said. “Because I think that both sides of the aisle have good ideas for doing that, so it’s hard to say that one party is going to accomplish it.”

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Hitting the 22-mile marker next to Marcus Garvey park in Harlem, today marathon runners were greeted with cheers of “you can do it”, signs reading “22 miles and you still look sexy”, and the smells of cooking hot dogs and hamburgers.

The members of 5th Ave. Church of God, located right along the route on 5th Avenue and 120th street, came out at 9:30 a.m. to offer free food, music, words of encouragement and prayers.

“We’re out here today because we realized that New York City has one day that it comes together, that it’s absolutely diverse and unified and that’s on this day: the marathon,” said church member Diana Branch. “So we figured we’d come out and join in with all of the diversity and beautiful love of unity and also give out free food and tell people the love of Jesus just by showing it, because sometimes people don’t want to come into church and I get it. We’re too churched out in this nation. So instead of doing all of that we wanted to come out and pray for people, give them food and bless people.”

Members of the church attend the race every year cheering runners on and offering them prayers and inspiring words, but this year they wanted to do something different.

“Last year when we came out we were just talking and cheering people on, but this year is the first year that we’ve done the food and the music,” Branch said. “We’re giving out hamburgers and hot dogs and water and we’re also sending the kids out to encourage the runners with waters and high-fives.”

First lady of the church, Juanita Daniels, wanted to make sure that the church supported and encouraged the runners and everyone at the race without compromising themselves.

“To be relevant without compromise,” said Daniels on why the church was supporting the race. “Our music is Christian music. It’s Christian rap, Christian salsa, Christian R&B and it’s a tool of Evangelism. It would draw those who normally wouldn’t come. If you watch for a little while you will see people walk by and they’re dancing and they don’t even realize its Christian music and it draws them in and then we have that chance to spread the love of Jesus with them.”

Branch also felt that it was important to support the race and runners because it was a great time to come together.

“It’s a beautiful day for diversity,” she said. “I admire this day so much because with everything that’s going on with the world this is the one place right now that nobody’s angry. It’s awesome.”

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Middle Church members clap to music during Sunday’s worship. The Church has over 800 members, who are various races, sexualities and genders. Photo credit: Leticia Miranda.

The topic of religion and reproductive rights has taken a new turn with a recently launched national campaign to talk about controversial reproductive health issues directly from the pulpit.

The campaign called, “It’s Time,” plans to equip faith leaders with new curriculum, sermons and engagement tips available this March to “change the conversation on faith and reproductive choice,” according to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice’s website, an interfaith coalition based in Washington, DC. But even with its novel goals, the campaign’s mainly liberal church base struggles to meet the needs of its members who look outside church for guidance around their reproductive health.

Selima Jumarali, 28, a member of the Middle Church in the East Village, Manhattan, which is a protestant-based organization with a social justice framework, said that for her spirituality and faith are not the strongest influences over her reproductive health decisions.

“Social justice is my spirituality,” said Selima Jumarali, 28. She says she chooses to seek guidance on reproductive health issues outside of her church. Photo credit: Leticia Miranda

“For me it’s more my social justice that guides my reproductive decisions than my faith,” she said. “It’s more about investigating myself as a woman and the choices I have and the power I have over my body that would lead me to decisions about my reproductive health rather than what a text says or what a religious leader tells me.”

Jumarali said she attends Middle Church for a spiritual network and a way to learn about social justice efforts. She has more personal connections outside of church where she might discuss issues of reproductive health.

Middle Church member Clara Ibarra said, she thinks that the church is a supportive place to talk generally about reproductive health decisions, but likewise would choose to seek counseling elsewhere if she faced a serious life decision like whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.

“Independently of my faith, I try not to put myself in that situation so I take measures to make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Ibarra, who has attended Middle Church since 2008. “I don’t know if it’s religious. I think it’s more like who I am. I think if you get to that place this would be an open community to support you in that process whatever your decision is.”

This gap between a progressive church’s social justice mission and its actual practice meeting the needs of women is where Rev. Kelli Clement, the executive director of the Minnesota Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and a community Minister in Minneapolis, Minnesota, hopes to fill through the campaign’s curriculum and their own organization’s training tools.

“I know tons of people who are faithful and pro-choice but can’t connect those two things,” she said. “When we are able to connect those two things, our spiritual journey and reproductive lives open up. We understand ourselves more holistically.”

In February, Minneosta Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice, the state affiliate to the national organization, launched the first of several new trainings for clergy across the state on how to support their congregants through reproductive loss. That includes everything from abortion to miscarriage to sexual trauma. She herself benefitted from a Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice training when two separate women called her office two years ago after feeling triggered by conservative attacks on women who become pregnant through rape and choose abortion.

“They knew they wanted to talk about their experience, but not in a therapeutic setting,” said Clement. “They wanted to help make sense of their experience and triggers in light of their faith. It felt wonderful to be able to have this delicate conversation and be a part of it.”

Jacqueline Lewis Senior Minister at Middle Church said that, like Clement, members come to her for spiritual guidance after other reproductive losses like a miscarriage. She rarely hears from congregants who chose to terminate a pregnancy in part because of their fear of judgment, she said.

“I don’t think anyone does it lightly so there’s a space right there for compassion and for prayer and acknowledging the toughness of the decision,” said Lewis. “What should happen from the church is a blessing and prayers for peace. The church’s job is to comfort those who mourn and help people make the best ethical decisions for their life circumstances.”

JacquiLewis_audio 1

Not all faith leaders are as comfortable talking about sensitive topics like abortion in a sermon let alone as a confidant to one of their members. Some of the campaign’s advocates say that’s where these new tools can help clergy support their members who do look to their church institutions for guidance.

“As people of faith, we have been many times so reluctant to be present in the wholeness of people who have sexuality and in their brokenness when they are dealing with challenging issues,” said Clement. “That’s why as people of faith it’s important for us to be present with people in their totality.”

Susan Davis, 57, has attended Middle Church since 2004. She says that she appreciates the church's social justice lens to faith. Photo by Leticia Miranda

Middle Church member Susan Davis,57, discusses her journey in understanding reproductive rights.

SusanDavis_audio

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Thomas McCormick holds two photos of himself, one taken during the early years of his priesthood, the other taken more than 20 years later on his wedding day. McCormick is one of 200 priests of Celibacy is the Issue Ministries who continue to minister even after leaving the Roman Catholic Church to marry. Photo by Chelsia Rose Marcius.

Thomas McCormick opened his leather wallet and pulled out an old photo of a young bearded man in priestly garb. He paused, looking down at the picture before reopening the wallet to jimmy out a second portrait of the same size and of the same smiling face. But the man’s cheeks were now bare, his brown hair faded. A black tux and white bow tie replaced the religious vestments, and now the man was wrapped in the arms of a woman.

The photographs of McCormick —the first taken in 1981 when he entered the Roman Catholic priesthood, the second snapped on his wedding day more than two decades later —are daily reminders of his commitment to both marriage and ministry. Yet McCormick, 60, of St. James, N.Y., and other Catholic “married priests” are considered both outsiders and at odds with the church.

More than 200 ordained married men in “Celibacy is the Issue” or CITI Ministries preform religious rites for disfranchised Catholics who want the blessing of a priest.

A shortage of new priests has left older clergymen without successors and parishioners without guides to keep them within the Catholic community. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, 288 parishes in New York and hundreds more nationwide closed between 2000 and 2010. The Pew Research Center study Faith in Flux, updated in February 2011, found that one in 10 Americans raised Catholic have now left the church as adults, and nearly one in four cite “the rule that priests cannot marry” as a reason for leaving.

“Parishes are closing all over and a lot of that is due to the decline in the number of priests,” said Thomas Reese, a Roman Catholic priest and Research Fellow at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center. “With fewer priests in the parish, many Catholics say, ‘Why don’t you do something about this, why don’t you ordain some married men so we can have mass, so that we don’t have to drive 100 miles to the next church.”

Thomas McCormick on entering the priesthood and his decision to leave

Altarv1.mp3

McCormick said his decision to enter the priesthood shocked old classmates. As a kid in Brooklyn, he did “the Catholic thing,” attending mass every Sunday and serving as an altar boy at the local parish. But teenage friends knew him as the guy who sported a leather coat and drank beer on the Brooklyn Belt Parkway – and the seminary was the last place anyone expected McCormick to wind up after a four-year stint with the U.S. Air Force.

“The only reason I went to church while in the military was because I was afraid God was going to strike me dead,” he said. “And then I was invited to go to a little prayer meeting in 1972 in a little town outside of Oxford, England. It was during that weekend that I saw for the first time Catholics who were deeply in love with the lord. But not because of the rules and regulations of the church. They had a personal relationship with God. I wanted that.”

He entered the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, N.Y. at age 27, and was ordained within three years. But McCormick said he did not quite fit in. He wore sandals and kept a beard. He stood on the pews to preach. And he often challenged church leaders.

“They saw me as radical, they saw me as different,” he said. “But I would not be afraid to speak off the altar on ethical and moral issues.”

More than 20 years passed before McCormick left the priesthood; he said it was, for the most part, because of loneliness. But afterward McCormick felt something was missing, and spent the next seven months questioning his decision.

Louise Hagget, founder of CITI Ministries and its website Rent-A-Priest, said there are church laws that validate the ministry of a married priest – an interpretation of Roman Catholic doctrine not recognized by the Vatican.

Still, the group’s online directory – dubbed “God’s Yellow Pages” – lists 200 ordained married men in 42 U.S. states. Hagget said members rarely get together, but she called for a meeting in 2002 to discuss clerical celibacy and the state of the church. McCormick, who left the clergy that year, decided to attend.

“I remember standing up and saying, ‘Hi, I’m Tom, I’m on leave and I’m lost,” McCormick said. One priest approached him after the meeting. “‘I remember him coming up to me and saying I know your pain,’ He looked into my soul and said, “Remember, you are a priest forever. Nobody can take that away from you.’”

The expression, “Once a priest, always a priest” is common among CITI members, including Richard Hasselbach, who left the priesthood in 1990.

Richard Hasselbach talks with parishioners at the Clarkstown Reformed Church in West Nyack, N.Y. Hasselbach left the Roman Catholic priesthood to marry yet still continues to preside over weddings for Catholic couples.

“I don’t think the Pope would be too thrilled with me if he were to join the conversation,” said Hasselbach, 60, of Carmel, N.Y. “But the word ‘catholic’ means universal, and I believe that my baptism and my ordination is a universally Christian one. So I feel like I have the key to every church door. And I should be able to walk into any church in Christianity because I am a universal Christian.”

Yet this understanding may be lost on recently ordained Catholic clerics. Reese said younger priests appear to adopt a more traditional approach to ministry and “are not agitating to change the rule” on clerical celibacy.

“These guys who have entered the priesthood in the last 20 years tend to be more conservative and, more importantly, much fewer in numbers then the classes the 50s and 60s,” he said. “They’re not going to be able to replace the current crop of priests facing retirement, illness and death.”

According to Hagget, more than 75 percent of the married priests in CITI Ministries were ordained between 1950 and 1979, when Catholic reform groups began popping up across the country.

Many groups have since dissolved. Stuart O’Brien, 74, of Boston, a married priest and a part of the reform group Corpus, said members continue to meet with church leaders on the issue of celibacy.

He said most of their efforts “fall on the deaf ears of Rome.”

“There are no young priests, no middle-aged priests, just old priests,” O’Brien said. “You cannot make these people come alive with a 75-year-old priest. The church talks about getting young people to come back, but come back to what? What do they have come back to?”

McCormick oversees about 100 Catholic weddings a year, and he said marriage has allowed him to connect with parishioners in a way traditional priesthood could not.

“If the church were to change the rule on celibacy, I would go back tomorrow—and so would most of the priests I know,” he said. “There’s a fear that it would restructure the entire world understanding of Catholicism. But I know more now from being married, and my preaching would be more effective because of the life experience I have.”

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