When faith threatens public health

Editor’s Note: Candida R. Moss holds a chair in theology at the University of Birmingham in England and is author of “Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity”. CNN — This week, as stores, restaurants and other businesses shuttered their doors to help stem the spread of coronavirus, a number of conservative Christians chose to frame their response to the pandemic in a different way: as an opportunity to choose “faith over fear.” Candida Moss Candida Moss Writing in First Things, which describes itself as “America’s most influential journal of religion & public life,” editor Rusty Reno wrote that “the mass shutdown of society to fight the spread of COVID-19 creates a perverse, even demonic atmosphere.” Reno argues that fear of death is being allowed to distort social order. Cardinal Raymond Burke – while affirming the need for safety measures such as social distancing and regular cleaning – recently argued that church attendance should nonetheless be considered an “essential” behavior akin to grocery shopping. A pastor in Louisiana held a crowded service for more than 1,825 congregants last Sunday on the basis that he “hold our religious rights dear” and believes that the virus is “politically motivated.” Early reports about the spread of coronavirus in South Korea linked “more than half” of the country’s 3,730 cases to the Shinchenoji Church of Jesus, a religious group that the government describes as a cult. What is most frightening about these latest expressions of “religious freedom” is not just that they threaten to place others at risk, but that religious conservatives form a substantial part of Donald Trump’s voter base – his plan to reopen by Easter may be well timed to speak to them.