News

“Pastors are concerned at the disproportionate presence of QAnon believers in their churches,” says Pastor Ed Stetzer, Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. “Pastors ask me regularly how do I address this in my church? We’ve all been taught in seminary not to politicize the pulpit.“

“People are being discipled by their cable news choices, spiritually shaped by their social media feed, and the result is they’re saying well if I believe this, I want to hear this on Sunday. The implications for the Christian Church and its witness are substantial.”

After fielding back-to-back complaints about masks in church—one regarding a fellow parishioner who had shirked a mask during a recent service and the other wondering whether our congregation had changed its policy from “strongly recommended” to “required,” because “everyone” was wearing them—I realized something surprising: Leading a church is harder now, in 2021, than it was in 2020, during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, state and diocesan mandates meant I could throw up my hands and respond, “Sorry, not up to me.” And anyway, the answer was, for the most part, a straightforward “no”—no, we can’t gather for services, and no, we can’t sing. Now it is up to me, the rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, and I am struggling to find a way forward. Read the full article in The Atlantic.