Today's Bible Lesson: "You Reap What You Sow."

[monstro]

@RTFirefly

Where this digression seems to have started was with monstro’s suggested ways to get a good ole churching-up in the absence of being physically present at church services, and my objection that they were basically irrelevant to the essential attribute of church - participation in a faith community - and as such weren’t good or bad replacements for church, but not replacements in the least.

This is your opinion about what makes church “essential”. Plenty of other people would disagree with you that participation in the faith community requires a physical presence in a specific facility.

This was not intended as an argument that church services should continue: just a few posts earlier, I’d posted that:
By the same logic as in my reply to monstro, I wouldn’t expect you or your friends to react kindly to suggestions that you watch videos of yoga classes or contra-dancing events, or the notion that doing that would even partly fill the void of not being able to do such things oneself. But such reactions wouldn’t in any way constitute an argument that contra-dancing and yoga classes should be exempt from limits on gatherings during the present health emergency.

I did yoga for several years at a yoga studio. I can easily imagine my yoga instructor recommending to the class a yoga app to help us keep practicing during a lockdown. And you know what? I would accept this recommendation without a negative kneejerk reaction, because I would recognize that she wasn’t implying that a yoga app is a complete substitute for a real-live yoga class in a real-live yoga studio. I would understand that she was only presenting the yoga app as a tool. Plenty of yogis maintain their practice with similar tools, so why would I take offense to that kind of suggestion?

For lots of people, yoga is both a form of exercise and spiritual journey. But as susan pointed out, you don’t see yogis storming state capitals and declaring yoga an essential business. None of the yoga enthusiasts I know are flouting social distancing out of a belief that they will be protected from the virus through supernatural intervention. Plenty of churchgoers are doing these things. So forgive me for not being convinced that these folks are all being driven by an innocent need to participate in their respective faith communities. I really do think some of them are ignorant blowhards who don’t like a bunch of scientists telling them what to do.