With all of the talk of systemic racism throughout the woke church, one disparity that carries more eternal significance (compared to income, education, etc.) is that black Americans who attend church are more disproportionately impacted by churches locking down.
This Lifeway data was reported by Ed Stetzer‘s blog at Christianity Today. The article was titled “Churchgoers Proud of Church’s COVID-19 Response” but the headline was clickbait as the data presented in the article does not detail congregant satisfaction. Furthermore, it’s oxymoronic to label people as churchgoers when they are not attending church. The headline for this post only does so because Evangelical Dark Web generally does not assume people who attend church are Christians. Still there were two paragraphs that really stood out in this article
African American churchgoers are most likely to say their church stopped in-person services many months ago and have not resumed (40%). That matches the responses of African American pastors during the pandemic, who have been among the most likely to say their churches were not gathering in person and have been suffering during COVID-19.
In a previous Lifeway Research study, they were the most likely to say the economy is negatively impacting their church and giving has decreased. In a September study, African American pastors were also the most likely to say they had to cut staff pay or benefits (21%) and delete a staff position (18%).
This data was released around the same time Barna released it’s lockdown and the church survey in which only 11% of churches were back to normal. Big Eva loves to lament about churches being segregated. However when this general practice leads to disparate responses that contains actual harm to black Christians and the communities they live in, Big Eva does not seem to care. This finding is rather disheartening to read.
The assembly of the saints provides nourishment to the believers, for the lone wolf Christian is easy prey. The woke posturing is nothing more than virtue signaling. It does not care about people’s souls, nor does it believe black churches are essential.
