Clergy to scofflaw churches: repent

Here is the full text of the letter sent from 18 clergy admonishing Springs Church as well as Church of God Restoration:

Dear Pastor Leon and the members of Spring Church,

We are writing to you as clergy also serving faith communities in Manitoba and beyond.

During the past two weeks, Springs Church has garnered a lot of local media attention and sparked debate in our city and province regarding COVID-19 pandemic restrictions implemented by public health authorities. Springs Church has deliberately violated these restrictions in the name of religious freedom and subsequently lost a court challenge of these restrictions.

Much of the rhetoric coming from Springs church centres on the right of Christians to worship under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You have claimed that your drive-in services are safe and your right to gather to worship outweighs the Province of Manitoba’s right to restrict gatherings for the sake of public health.

Drive-in services may be relatively safe (but not as a safe as staying home) and the question of how the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is weighed against these public health orders has not been settled in court.

However, we are not writing to you regarding the epidemiology or legality of drive-in services.

We are writing to you as peers and siblings in Christ and as called and ordained ministers of Christ’s Church.

We find that your actions during the past days of encouraging Christians to disobey public health orders in the name of freedom are not an example of following Christ.

We find that your insistence on the right to worship is not in keeping with Christ’s command to love our neighbour.

We find that your actions disregard the dangers of the COVID-19 in our community and that they only serve to create potential harm for our healthcare system and healthcare workers already pushed beyond capacity.

We find that your insistence on individual freedoms over collective responsibility are an affront to the many individuals, families, friends, community groups and other faith communities who are refraining from gathering for the sake of our neighbours.

We find that your focus on your own perceived loss (of not being able to gather for a short time) to be offensive to those 381 Manitoban families (as of December 5th) who have lost loved ones as a result of this pandemic.

Therefore we call on you to take the following actions:

That you repent of your actions and publicly apologize for putting your individual right to worship ahead of the good of our community.

That you publicly encourage your church members to remain at home and worship online while public health restrictions remain in place.

That you cease all legal action against the province and redirect those funds intended for legal costs towards a charity that truly helps Manitobans, such as Harvest Manitoba.

If and when these actions are undertaken, it would be our hope that they be a first step towards reconciliation between Springs and your sibling communities of faith in Manitoba.

Finally, knowing that we are not the first people of faith to live through a pandemic, we offer you the following quote from Martin Luther, written in 1527, about how Christians ought to respond to the Black Death:

Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid persons and places where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me, and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others.

* This letter also applies to any congregation refusing to follow public health orders under the guise of religious persecution including the Church of God Restoration South of Steinbach.