My mom's church opened back up very early in the lockdown phase, and quietly made masks a don't-ask-don't-tell thing. Some of the older folks wore them. Nobody else did. I believe the leadership has been actively helping people with religious exemption requests. I have been done with Calvinism for a long time, but I respect their stance on this. I suspect there are a lot of smaller denominations and independent churches that have done this, and just haven't made a big public issue out of it. Why paint a target on your back?
The mainline denominations all caved, though :( The Orthodox church got a lot of "refugees" from other denominations back when they all started cracking up over things like gay clergy. We're getting a whole fresh wave of them now... I overheard a visiting family recently talking about how they'd been Methodists for ever, but their church had been closed for 18 months, and that was a bridge too far. I felt so bad for them. It was wrenching for them to even think about leaving their old, familiar church--they were really attached to it-- but what do you do when they lock the doors on you?
The GOA caved, too. We were going to try to join the nearest Orthodox church, when we moved here. And then, they weren't open consistently enough for us to attend regularly. We gave up, and we are now driving an hour to go to an Antiochian church.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-11-25 03:19 am (UTC)The mainline denominations all caved, though :( The Orthodox church got a lot of "refugees" from other denominations back when they all started cracking up over things like gay clergy. We're getting a whole fresh wave of them now... I overheard a visiting family recently talking about how they'd been Methodists for ever, but their church had been closed for 18 months, and that was a bridge too far. I felt so bad for them. It was wrenching for them to even think about leaving their old, familiar church--they were really attached to it-- but what do you do when they lock the doors on you?
The GOA caved, too. We were going to try to join the nearest Orthodox church, when we moved here. And then, they weren't open consistently enough for us to attend regularly. We gave up, and we are now driving an hour to go to an Antiochian church.