A local preacher related recently during his Sunday church service via Facebook that more people were tuning in to the virtual services than normally attend church during non-coronavirus times.

That’s probably not so unusual. People return to faith during times of difficulty.

The virtual services are a good outreach tool for churches, although most people would prefer to go to their churches for the additional comfort of personal contact with fellow parishioners.

A television preacher said recently that church attendance doubles during crisis times – after 9-11, for instance. He cited definite figures at his church in Dallas.

He also commented wryly that it brings out the CEO’s (Christmas and Easter Only) attendees.

We enjoy the video church service because we can watch it in our overalls.

Pew Survey Cites Church Attendance Spike

Townhall Columnist Robert Charles, former member of the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations and spokesman for Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), cites a Pew Foundation (non-partisan) survey indicating a majority of Americans are turning to prayer during the current coronavirus crisis.

Pew Foundation reported in 2019, after surveying 35,000 Americans, that 63 percent were “absolutely certain” in their faith, 20 percent “fairly certain.” Of that group, the majority were Christians – not surprising in a nation where 70 percent identify as Christian. Still, parallel numbers appeared for other major faiths.

More surprising are Pew’s numbers from March 2020 – now. Despite an historic, multi-decade drift toward relative ambivalence, agnosticism and ambiguous connections to faith – especially for younger Americans – something striking is afoot. When mercy is at a premium, belief in God – and the overt turn to God for that mercy – spikes.

Here are the Pew numbers. For starters, more than half of all adults in the United States – 55 percent – say they are praying for an end to the pandemic. With families praying together, overall Americans praying may be considerably higher.

County’s Numbers Likely Higher

We would imagine the numbers are higher than the Pew survey in Kingfisher County – a community strong in faith that pulls together for good at all times.

Our personal prayer is for everyone to find strength to cope with the problems and to pull together for healing our divided nation.

Disease is no respecter of political alliance or, for that matter, religious belief. It would seem logical for all people to come together at such times but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Trump Derangement Syndrome continues unabated as opponents seek to blame the president for every step he takes to protect the nation.

We recall reading about a Christian seminary in New York City holding a Gaia (a name given to Nature as God) praise service, we suppose in the name of open-mindedness.

That reminds us of our first boss, Ed Burchfiel’s, admonition that we shouldn’t become so open-minded that our brains fall out.

But that’s another subject.

Believing in God Is Relatively New

Dennis Prager, a Jewish columnist-radio host we like to read, says maybe nature shouldn’t be worshipped after all, recalling British philosopher G.K. Chesterton’s observation that after people quit believing in God they don’t believe in nothing – they believe in anything. Prager observed that early in man’s development,

Prager observed that early in man’s development, the earth and natural phenomena were all included in religious beliefs.

They prayed to the sun, the moon, the sky, birds, animals, trees, maybe even to rocks.

Prager says the Bible provided a completely different – and radical – for that time – view, beginning with the first verse, of the Bible -- “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.”

It also teaches that man should dominate the earth and multiply, both teachings that many of our elite today disagree with.

Prager concluded this way:

“If the COVID-19 virus destroys the foolish veneration of nature and leads more people, especially the young, to a new respect for the Judeo-Christian worldview, it might be the one silver lining in this catastrophe.”

Praying for your Health and Well Being

We’ll continue praying for your health, especially those front line people – doctors, nurses, police officers and other first responders who put their lives on the line for all people all the time.