How COVID-19 will Affect Christmas According to Study

 

More spiritual reflection, fewer gifts and less in-person church attendance are among several ways in which a majority of Americans say the new coronavirus has changed the way they will celebrate Christmas in 2020, a new study shows.

The data culled from a LifeWay Research online survey of 1,200 Americans, conducted Sept. 9-23, using a national pre-recruited panel, show that 65% Americans will make at least one change to their Christmas plans as a result of the pandemic.

“Some Americans are reacting to the effects of COVID-19 by doubling down with plans to celebrate more,” Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, said in a statement. “Other Americans will scale back their traditions likely due to safety, finances or their state of mind.”

As a result of health restrictions in effect across much of the country, some 35% of Americans said they will spend less time visiting with family this Christmas. Just under half, 47%, said family gatherings will remain the same while 13% plan to visit with their loved ones even more.

Older adults 50 and over and individuals who are more vulnerable to contracting the virus were more likely to say they plan on spending less time visiting with family than younger adults aged 18- 34.

Twenty percent of Americans also expect lower gift giving due to the economic downturn triggered by the virus but 67% said their gift giving will remain the same, while 9% plan on giving more.

When it comes to attending a Christmas church service, 25% of survey respondents said they are less likely to do so this year. Only 11% said they are more likely to attend a Christmas service while 37% said their decision to attend or not attend was not changed from the previous year.

While churches may be less crowded this Christmas, more Americans reported plans to spend more time in spiritual reflection on the significance of Christmas.

“Almost 9 in 10 Americans typically do some spiritual reflection at Christmas,” McConnell said. “Personal time considering why God would come in the flesh isn’t affected by health or financial concerns, so it’s not surprising that about twice as many Americans will do more of this than less for Christmas this year.”

While 59% of respondents said their spiritual reflections this year will stay the same, 19% said they expect it to increase. The survey shows that even among the religiously unaffiliated, 10% of respondents said the pandemic has made them more likely to spend time in spiritual reflection during the holidays this year.

African Americans and evangelicals were the most likely to say the pandemic has led them to be more spiritually reflective this Christmas.

Notably, compared with other Americans, evangelicals were found more likely to say they are going to visit family more, give more gifts, and have spiritual reflections, the study shows. They were also more likely to say COVID-19 made them more likely to attend church services this Christmas.

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49,000 doctors and scientists worldwide call for an end to COVID lockdowns

 

Doctors and scientists from around the world have signed a document calling for an end to COVID-19 lockdowns because of “grave concerns” over public health.

The Great Barrington Declaration argues that continued lockdowns cause health issues that outweigh the dangers of the coronavirus and calls for "focused protection." So far, 671,731 concerned citizens, 37,198 doctors and 12,512 medical and public health scientists from around the world have signed the document.

“Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice,” the document, first published in October by Drs. Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta and Martin Kulldorff, reads.

“Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.”

Because evidence now shows the virus has a minimal impact on people who are not old or infirm, governments should reopen society, the doctors argue. Old and vulnerable people should self-quarantine, and others who are not vulnerable should study, work and live life as usual.

Locking down nations has a terrible impact on the developing world, the paper’s FAQ section states. The U.N. estimates that 130 million people around the world will face starvation and an additional 400,000 will die by tuberculosis as a consequence of lockdowns. Because of COVID-19 fears, doctors have stopped worldwide vaccination campaigns for other lethal diseases.

It also argues, “Basic epidemiological theory indicates that lockdowns do not reduce the total number of cases in the long run and have never in history led to the eradication of a disease. At best, lockdowns delay the increase of cases for a finite period and at great cost." 

Reopening society will allow “herd immunity” to develop, the declaration says. By allowing healthy people who have low death risks to catch the virus and keeping the vulnerable safe, nations will prevent deaths. When enough people have caught it, the virus’ rates of transmission will decrease.

“For COVID-19, all strategies lead to herd immunity, making it nonsensical to denote one specific approach as a herd immunity strategy just as it does not make sense for airplane pilots to talk about a 'gravity strategy' for safely landing a plane,” the FAQ reads.

The suggested plan doesn’t mean letting the virus spread uncontrolled and it does not advocate for people to get deliberately infected.

Retirement homes should use staff who have immunity to the virus, minimize staff rotation and test non-immune staff as well as visitors. Older people at home should have essential goods delivered and should meet with family outside. And workplace disability laws should require employers to provide reasonable accommodations to protect high COVID-19 risk workers without losing their jobs, the declaration recommends.

“Letting children and young adults live their lives without lockdown restrictions does not mean that we are letting them die from the virus, just like we do not accuse politicians for letting people die in car accidents when a new road is built,” it says. “On the contrary, the GBD reduces the considerable collateral damage for less vulnerable people who face more danger from lockdown than they do from COVID-19 infection.”

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Pastors Convert their Churches to 'Temporary Strip Clubs' so they can have In-Person Services

 

Two megachurch pastors have decided to rebrand their churches into “strip clubs” in protest against a San Diego judge who recently ruled that strip clubs can reopen while churches remain closed.

Last month, as Christian Headlines reported, San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel R. Wohlfeil said that the state of California should cease any actions preventing the strip clubs from “being allowed to provide live adult entertainment.”

Churches, however, were still restricted from holding indoor services despite several pastors who have defied the state’s lockdown restrictions on religious gatherings.

Last Sunday, Pastor Rob McCoy of Godspeak Calvary Chapel decided to outsmart the state’s closing of churches by turning his church into a “strip club” of his own, The Greg Jarret reports.

McCoy has previously dealt with a filing of contempt after continuing indoor services despite a court injunction.

Prior to delivering his sermon, McCoy played a Fox News clip of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who quipped that churches should reopen as a “temporary strip club.”

“I don’t have a lot of experience with the strip clubs,” Huckabee joked. “I do have quite a bit of experience with churches…and I would think it’s ridiculous to say that people are safer in a strip club than they are at church.”

Huckabee continued quipping that churches must “announce their pastor will remove his tie during the sermon, and therefore he will take off an article of clothing making it a temporary strip club so that people will be able to go to church.”

In response to the clip, McCoy had music played as he broke out in a clean version of a “striptease” before removing his tie. Meanwhile, the congregation raised $1 bills and cheered him on.

“This is insane!” McCoy said afterward. “Cannot America see the hypocrisy and the stupidity of all this?” You’re being lied to.”

“We are finished with your tyranny and we are going to enjoy Thanksgiving and we’re going to worship God. Open your churches!” he declared as the church applauded.

In a similar fashion, senior pastor of Awaken Church Jurgen Matthesius did a “striptease” before his sermon in response to the ruling by the San Diego judge.

“STRIP CLUBS (Not Churches) are exempt from the COVID lockdowns, and are deemed essential by our governor!” he wrote on Instagram.

“Soooooo... we decided we are NOW AWAKEN FAMILY FRIENDLY STRIP CLUB! (Where we strip the devil of his hold, power & authority over people’s lives!),” he quipped. “Enjoy the intro to the preach today!”

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Abortions Increased Slightly in 2018 after Steady Decline since 2009

 

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control found that the number of abortions conducted in the United States rose slightly from 2017 to 2018, reversing a consistent decline that began in 2009.

The CDC’s annual Abortion Surveillance Report was released Friday. The most recent installment of the Abortion Surveillance Report, which documents “the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions and number of abortion-related deaths in the United States,” includes data from 2018. Based on data collected from 47 states and New York City, the CDC found that a total of 614,820 abortions were performed in 2018.

This number represents a slight increase from the 609,095 abortions performed in the reporting areas in 2017. Adding in data from the District of Columbia brought the number of abortions performed in 2018 up to 619,591. In both 2017 and 2018, data from California, Maryland and New Hampshire was not included.

As explained in the report, “In 2017, the most recent year for which data are available through the Guttmacher Institute’s national survey of abortion-providing facilities, abortions performed in California, Maryland, and New Hampshire accounted for approximately 19% of all abortions in the United States.” Because reporting abortion data to the CDC is voluntary, the figures included in the report might not reflect the actual number of abortions performed in the U.S. in 2018.

Nationwide, the abortion rate, the number of abortions per 1,000 women, was measured at 11.3 in 2018. This represents a slight increase from 2017, when the abortion rate was 11.2. The abortion ratio, the number of abortions per 1,000 live births, was 189 in 2018, a slight increase from the abortion ratio of 185 in 2017.

Despite the increases in the number of abortions, the abortion rate and the abortion ratio , the numbers have declined overall since 2009. “From 2009 to 2018, the total number of reported abortions, abortion rate, and abortion ratio decreased 22% (from 786,621), 24% (from 14.9 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years), and 16% (from 224 abortions per 1,000 live births,) respectively,” the report noted.

“From 2009 to 2018, abortion rates decreased among all age groups, although the decreases for adolescents (64% and 55% for adolescents aged < 15 and 15–19 years, respectively) were greater than the decreases for women in all older age groups"

Only 31 of the reporting areas included information about the race and ethnicity of the women who had abortions. Based on the data available, the abortion rate was highest in the non-Hispanic black community, with 21.2 abortions per 1,000 women and 335 abortions per 1,000 live births. “In 2018, compared with non-Hispanic White women, abortion rates and ratios were 3.4 and 3.0 times higher among non-Hispanic Black women and 1.7 and 1.4 times higher among Hispanic women,” the report concluded.

The CDC report attributes the high abortion rate among non-Hispanic black women to “higher unintended pregnancy rates and a greater percentage of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion,” caused by inequitable “access to quality family planning services.”

Of all the reporting areas, the densely populated metropolis of New York City had the highest abortion rate, with 26.8 abortions per 1,000 women. The Big Apple also had the highest abortion ratio, with 457 abortions per 1,000 live births.

Sparsely populated South Dakota had the lowest abortion rate of the reporting areas, with 2.4 abortions per 1,000 women. South Dakota was also the reporting area with the lowest abortion ratio, with 32 abortions per 1,000 live births.

The report included data about abortion-related deaths dating back to 1973, when the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion nationwide. In 2017, the most recent year where such data is available, there were two abortion-related deaths reported to the CDC. Based on that figure, 2017 tied with 2011 as the year with the lowest number of abortion-related deaths.

The case-fatality rate, defined as “the number of legal induced abortion-related deaths per 100,000 reported legal induced abortions,” has also reached a record low. The report, which computed case-fatality rates for consecutive five-year periods between 1973 and 2017, found that the case-fatality rate was 0.44 from 2013 through 2017. In 1973-1977, by contrast, the case-fatality rate was 2.09.

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Supreme Court Backs Churches - Stops Enforcement of Pandemic Restrictions

 

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major victory to religious liberty advocates over the Thanksgiving holiday, preventing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from enforcing a restriction that limits houses of worship to 10 and 25 persons during the pandemic, no matter the size of the building.

It was the first time the nation’s highest court had sided with churches or synagogues during the pandemic. It also underscored the significance one justice – Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett – can make. She replaced the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had voted against houses of worship in a similar case earlier this year. That earlier decision was a 5-4 loss for religious liberty advocates. This one was a 5-4 victory.

The order, issued on the eve of Thanksgiving, was unsigned.

“Even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten,” the majority opinion ruled. “The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.”

At issue are restrictions by Cuomo that limit churches and synagogues to 10 persons in so-called “red zones” and 25 persons in orange zones. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America brought the suit.

The majority issued an injunction against Cuomo, saying the churches and synagogues in question likely will succeed in their lawsuit.

The regulations, the court ruled, “single out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment.”

“In a red zone, while a synagogue or church may not admit more than 10 persons, businesses categorized as ‘essential’ may admit as many people as they wish,” the court ruled. “And the list of ‘essential’ businesses includes things such as acupuncture facilities, campgrounds, garages, as well as many whose services are not limited to those that can be regarded as essential, such as all plants manufacturing chemicals and microelectronics and all transportation facilities. … The disparate treatment is even more striking in an orange zone. While attendance at houses of worship is limited to 25 persons, even non-essential businesses may decide for themselves how many persons to admit.”

But in a separate action Friday, the court indicated that some restrictions on churches are constitutional. As Christian Headlines previously reported, the court declined to get involved in the case of Louisiana pastor Tony Spell, who faces criminal charges for defying restrictions on mass gatherings in the early weeks of the pandemic. Spell held services with no social distancing. Samuel Alito, a member of the court’s conservative bloc who is assigned emergency requests from Louisiana and the Fifth Circuit, rejected Spell’s request.

Both the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America say their houses of worship have followed public health guidance and “operated at 25 percent or 33 percent capacity for months without a single outbreak,” the court ruled in its Wednesday decision.

The New York houses of worship that brought the lawsuit can seat between 400 and 1,000 individuals.

“It is hard to believe that admitting more than 10 people to a 1,000–seat church or 400–seat synagogue would create a more serious health risk than the many other activities that the State allows,” the majority ruled.

Barrett was joined in the majority opinion by Alito and Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberal bloc, arguing that an injunction was unnecessary because Cuomo had loosened the restrictions on the houses of worship since the suit had been filed. Still, Roberts acknowledged the restrictions “raise serious concerns under the Constitution” and “are distinguishable” from previous cases the court considered this year.

The majority said a virtual service is “not the same” as in-person attendance.

“Catholics who watch a Mass at home cannot receive communion, and there are important religious traditions in the Orthodox Jewish faith that require personal attendance,” the majority opinion read.

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Why I’m thankful for church now more than ever before

 

Pastor Jentezen Franklin's new book "Love Like You've Never Been Hurt" addresses forgiveness and healing from a broken heart. | Photo: Icon Media Group

The words of a familiar song echo in my head these days: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ‘till it’s gone.” It’s true isn’t it? Sometimes you don’t know how good you have it until something precious gets taken from you.

I know that’s how I felt when church as I knew it had the rug pulled out from under it. In the early days of the pandemic we closed the doors on in-person worship, unsure when we’d be able to safely gather together again.

As the weeks rolled on, I experienced an emptiness I hadn’t known before. It didn’t take long to discover what I had too often taken for granted: fellowship and community.

This Thanksgiving, I’m certainly thankful for a number of things — breath in my lungs, my wife and children, my network of unwavering friends and mentors, and financial provisions. But it’s what was missing for much of the year that I keep thanking God for over and over again these days.

We’ve always said it, in one way or another, how much we need community, encouragement, and connection — the critical elements of a church body. Yet it wasn’t until we felt its absence that we understood these aren’t simply ideals we pay lip service to. The church, and the numerous ways it feeds our spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing, is truly an essential part of life.

I’m thankful for the ways the church responded to help those most affected by our economy coming to a grinding halt earlier this year. Meals, transportation, and phone calls to those isolated and alone were just a few of the ways my friends at Free Chapel were able to be a blessing when things got messy. What’s more, many in our church found ways to continue the ministries we already had in place for the vulnerable in our neighborhoods, with complicated new rules and limitations to take into consideration. 

I’m thankful for fellowship with a common purpose. It’s refreshing to gather every Sunday — and other times throughout the week as well — and get some spiritual nourishment, learn from each other, pray with each other, and celebrate with each other. We build upon relationships that have roots far below the surface. We stand alongside (albeit a little more spaced out at the moment) close friends and family and lift our eyes off our problems and instead fix our gaze on the one who sees every tear and wraps us in unfailing love. There is no replacement for this fiercely loved and fiercely loving group of people.

There’s a reason we are told not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together” in the Book of Hebrews. It wasn’t simply a rule to follow out of obligation. It was instructed for our benefit. God knew we would need each other, and that we needed to make a good habit of physically being in each other’s presence.

I’m also thankful for the freedom to gather and worship without fear. And I’m thankful for those who see the value in this, who respect our convictions, and protect this most precious human right.

This pandemic caused a lot of pain and frustration to bubble to the surface; but it also brought out the best in my church family. Wherever you worship, and whoever you worship with, I hope you’ve found countless reasons to be thankful in this tumultuous year. And please, don’t ever take church for granted any longer. I promise I won’t either.

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Boko Haram kill at least 43 farm workers in North East Nigeria

 

Armed men on motorcycles, believed to be from the Boko Haram terrorist group, killed at least 43 farmworkers in rice fields in Nigeria’s conflict-hit Borno state. A United Nations official called it “the most violent direct attack against innocent civilians this year.”

“I am outraged and horrified by the gruesome attack against civilians,” Edward Kallon, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, said about the assault in the village of Koshobe and other rural communities near the northeast city of Maiduguri on Saturday, according to Bloomberg.

Kallon feared that several women may have been kidnapped.

“I call for the perpetrators of this heinous and senseless act to be brought to justice,” he added.

Boko Haram and its faction, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, are known to be active in the area.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the killing of “our hard-working farmers by terrorists in Borno state,” according to Al Jazeera.

“The entire country,” he said, “is hurt by these senseless killings.”

Dozens of the bodies were taken a little more than a mile away to Zabarmari village for burial on Sunday, a resident Mala Bunu, who took part in the search-and-rescue operation, told AFP.

Earlier this month, suspected Boko Haram men reportedly killed 12 Christians, including a pastor, and kidnapped nine women and young girls in an attack in the same state, Morning Star News, a nonprofit news organization that covers global Christian persecution, reported.

Boko Haram is one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups as it has engaged in its insurgency in northeast Nigeria and the Lake Chad region for over a decade. The group has killed and abducted thousands of people over the years.

The United Nations estimates that over 3.4 million people in Nigeria have been displaced due to the Islamic extremist violence in the northeast and violence in the country’s Middle Belt carried out by radicals from the herding community. The U.N.’s tally includes 2.7 million people who have been displaced because of extremist violence in the country’s northeast.

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