Is your local church prepared for Pandemic 2.0? Do you trust your pastors to handle it with godly wisdom, uncompromising commitment to the truth, and the courage to stand against the pressures and pulls of the godless and foolish? Have you ever wondered what went wrong and led to the great COVID Con of 2020-2022?

Join us at the Illinois Family Institute’s Forum at New Hope Community Church in Palatine TONIGHT at 7PM and wonder no more.

At this forum, Drs. Crevier and Zumhagen will share more about this important topic that most would like us to forget. You might think, “Please don’t take us back to COVID days! I don’t want to relive that!” I have heard this common complaint and, in some ways, can sympathize with it. Indeed, most of us want to move on, but this is the truth: many evangelical leaders —even some of the most faithful — utterly failed during this time (watch this documentary for more). Until there is sincere repentance and full ownership for the foolish sins they committed during COVID (without excuse), these evangelical pastors and leaders should not be trusted. That’s right—no matter how nice they are or how much you like your church’s children’s ministry or women’s Bible study, they are in sin and need to repent. A true Christian who loves the Lord has no business supporting them or standing by them until they do so. By staying with them, you support and are complicit in those sins.

In Christ, God offers us true freedom, full forgiveness, and the promise of a cleansed conscience. When you are in sin, you can humbly say you are sorry, are committed to honoring God, and move forward. It will glorify God foremost and also galvanize your local church. The best way to love someone in their sins is to call them to repent. Don’t do so arrogantly but prayerfully, gently, and lovingly. Explain their sins from the Word and call them to turn away from them posthaste. If your pastors ignored the wisdom of the Word during COVID and took dogmatic stances that bound consciences far beyond the clarity of the sufficient Word of God, they were and are guilty of sin. Consider honestly and look back on what happened:

• Did your pastors mishandle and abuse God’s holy Word, offering shallow, unproved assertions that were more of a verbal clubbing with passages like Romans 13 (see instead Pastor Matthew Trewhella’s excellent examination of Romans 13 here)? Were they derelict in their duty and lording over you during the pandemic with their extra-biblical, burdensome requirements (contrary to Ezekiel 34:4 and 1 Peter 5:3)? Or were your pastors strong and courageous able to discern the times? Did they faithfully resist reckless, truth-rejecting, lawless tyrants, understanding this was an act of love (As Dr. David Shrock put it here)? If not, their actions were sinful, and pastors who did this need to publicly repent.

• Did your pastors claim to love others but end up twisting God’s Word when it came to their calls to “love your neighbor as yourself” (see Stephen Wellum’s excellent article on this here)? Specifically, how did your pastors treat those who disagreed with their hot take on COVID-19 (Leviticus 19:15-19 )? Did they demonize you or other church members who questioned or disagreed with them when you said you could not in good conscience go along with every point of the official COVID narrative? Did any of your fellow church members leave, and were they wronged, hurt, and pushed away? Do you even know where some of these former members are? Is there division now in the body of Christ because your pastors refused to love their neighbors God’s way (1 Cor. 13:1-7)? This is sinful, and pastors who did this need to repent publicly.

• Did your pastors partner with evil by promoting fear-mongering lies and half-truths from many “leaders” of the godless state (2 Corinthians 6:14)? Did your church leaders and pastors shut down your church’s gatherings and did they agree churches could not and should not meet per the “health mandates” of the state, all while murder mills slaughtering preborn girls and boys (AKA abortion clinics), as well as communist/godless anti-God, ethnically prejudice thugs (AKA Black Lives Matter) and houses of sexually immoral fornication, adultery, and drunkenness (AKA strip clubs) were open (Leviticus 19:11; Proverbs 6:16-19)? Did they mock or belittle those with concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine (despite loads of troubling and growing evidence of harms)? This is sinful, and pastors who did this need to repent publicly.

• Did your pastors refuse counter-evidence, judging and speaking emotionally and recklessly and injecting fear in your congregation about the lethality of COVID, the important “life-saving abilities,” and the vital necessity for all to be masked and vaxxed at your Lord’s Day gathering (despite loads of obvious evidence and study upon study upon study upon study to the contrary)? Did your pastors and leaders celebrate, push for, and require the COVID vaccine and masks in a way that wrongly bound Christian consciences and trampled on Christian liberty, thereby ignoring God’s clear Word (Proverbs 18:17; John 7:24; Acts 5:29; Romans 13:3-4; Romans 14:4-15; Hebrews 10:19-25; James 4:17)? This is sinful, and pastors who did this need to publicly repent.

Look back at what your local church and, specifically, your pastors did during the pandemic. Look at your church’s social media posts, church-wide emails, texts, and recorded messages. Ask friends from your church. Are you okay staying in a local church where so much unrepentant foolishness, heavy-handed legalism, and man-centered fear rather than sober-minded and God-honoring wisdom gripped and governed the leadership? To be sure, some ought to repent more than others. But regardless of how “small” or “insignificant” saying “I’m sorry” seems, God is always glorified when His people humbly repent for getting it wrong.

If your church leaders repent, praise God, and be grateful. But if your pastors refuse to see this as a problem, that is a major red flag. If they refuse to humbly repent or even simply say, “Yes, I overspoke or was too aggressive on that. I am sorry,” that is a red flag. If they refuse to even see their shallow leadership and embrace of inconsistent, contradictory foolishness (at best) and outright sin (at worst) as a problem, it is more than likely time to prayerfully leave and find a faithful, humble, God-fearing, local church family you can join and follow as they follow Christ.

Whenever any of us go beyond or ignore God’s sufficient, clear, and unerring Word, disaster awaits. The church of Christ must think far more biblically and thoughtfully about the relationship between the church and the state. One very accessible and excellent introductory resource is Chapel Library’s Church and State Resource. We must prepare wisely for Pandemic 2.0 (read Aaron O’Kelley’s excellent words on this here) and cannot afford to be caught off guard. We hope you can join us in Palatine at New Hope Community Church on Thursday, November 14^th, at 7:00 p.m. for our discussion on The Great Covid Con.