Covid: government exceeded mandate – evangelicals

The government did overreach itself during the pandemic, delegates at an Affinity event have broadly concluded.

With the backdrop of the government’s Covid Inquiry, the organisation, which represents 1,200 evangelical churches and groups, recently held a symposium bringing various partners together to reflect on how Christians and churches responded to the pandemic.

Speakers and panellists included representatives from national and local church ministry, the Christian Medical Fellowship, politics and law. There were those who championed lockdown measures, held very strong reservations, or were somewhere in between.

There was also a message from the former Faith Minister, Lord Stephen Greenhalgh, who spoke about his concern that lockdown measures for churches lasted too long and were not deemed essential in relation to other parts of society, and that there was poor understanding by government about churches, but equally poor understanding of government by churches.

Some of the questions covered included:

• Why did most churches comply with the Covid restrictions?
• If lockdown caused more harm than good, would it have been better for the church to resist as an outworking of loving our neighbour?
• Even if lockdown was reasonable, should the government, or churches, decide whether Christians should be allowed to meet up in person?
• If the pandemic proved the government was religiously illiterate and Christians mostly ignorant about government, what should we do to correct that?
• Did the fear of illness and death so overwhelm us that we became blind to the hope of the gospel and started believing that staying alive and healthy is all that matters, or were we merely being wise and caring for others in the best way?
• What did lockdown teach us about innovative ways to care for one another?

Some of the provisional conclusions were that:

• Our response to Covid lockdowns was a complex overlay of theology, character (especially our appetite for risk) and our health experience.
• The church needs to further reflect on whether we really do have a robust theology of illness and death.
• The government did at times exceed its mandate. There was not agreement on how much this happened, but with hindsight there was clearly some overreach.
• Relationships were tested during lockdown. There were great examples of care for the isolated, but also many examples of ungodly debate and superficial judgments of others in the frustration and fear of that period.

Graham Nicholls, Director of Affinity Gospel Churches in Partnership and chair of the event said: ‘This symposium helped us start to consider together many issues which the church as a whole needs to reflect on, including the theology of church and state, and our mission to bring hope in crisis. The discussion included a wide range of views and the forum was genuinely a space for differences to be voiced and heard.

'We may need to be ready to repent where we have acted wrongly during the pandemic and to forgive one another. Forgiveness is a profoundly Christian virtue and it is desperately needed in our wider society as the Covid Inquiry continues its work and some seem intent on merely blaming others.’