To state the matter bluntly, the question of the day is: Who went to church-temple-mosque this past weekend and who did not?
The related question: “Why?” Why did believers make the decisions that they made?
This is one of those cases in which it is impossible to write a story that captures the whole picture, since we are talking about one of the ultimate local, regional, state, national and international stories of our news lifetimes.
Journalists can try to produce a news-you-can-use list that hints at the whole. Check out this Religion News Service feature: “Coronavirus shutdowns disrupt America’s soul, closing houses of worship.” That list of bullets is so limited, because producing a representative national list would be impossible.
Thus, others will focus on the larger story by looking at the symbolic details. With the resources of The New York Times, that looks like this: “A Sunday Without Church: In Crisis, a Nation Asks, ‘What is Community?’ “ This is a fine story, although, yes, its anecdotes and examples seem mainline and limited. But, again, the true picture is too big to capture.
Journalists do what they can do. Here is the thesis statement, in magisterial Times voice, free of attributions:
This week, as the coronavirus has spread, one American ritual after another has vanished. March Madness is gone. No more morning gym workouts or lunches with co-workers. No more visits to grandparents in nursing homes. The Boston Marathon, held through war and weather since 1897, was postponed.
And now it was a Sunday without church. Governors from Kentucky to Maryland to North Carolina moved to shut down services, hoping to slow the disease’s spread. Catholic dioceses stopped public Mass, and some parishes limited attendance at funerals and weddings to immediate family. On Sunday morning the Vatican closed the coming Holy Week services to the public.
The number of Americans who regularly attend a church service has been steadily declining in recent years. Many have left the traditions of their childhood, finding solace and identity in new ways. But for the one in three adults who attend religious services weekly, the cancellations have meant a life rhythm disrupted. And for the broader country, canceled services were another symbol of a lost chance to be still, to breathe and to gather together in one of the oldest ways humans know, just when such things were needed most.
For a similar take from a smaller newsroom, consult this multi-source National Catholic Reporter piece: “Worshippers go online, those at services keep a distance.”
My friend Rod “Benedict Option” Dreher stayed home (as I did) and watched a live stream of the Divine Liturgy from his Orthodox Church in America parish in urban Baton Rouge, La. In other words, one computer screen stands for legions of screens elsewhere. See: “View From Your Pandemic Online Church.”
But I was haunted by one passage in one story — another example of how The Age of Donald Trump has infected everything, when it comes to news. The fact that the story was valid only made it worse.
