I was wondering when we are going to move up to Level 1 and be given more freedom. As it is now we are living under conditions that you’d expect in China or some other dictatorship.
I see that lounges and restaurants have more leeway when it comes to restrictions than churches. Churches cannot serve food, period, and most churches don’t serve food anyway, only on special occasions — maybe three or four times a year. Churches are only allowed 50 people regardless of capacity, so if the church can seat 500, that is only 10 per cent of capacity. Lounges and restaurants are allowed 50 per cent capacity. So, they are allowed 250 people if their capacity is 500. Of course they can serve food and drinks, that is their business model.
Spiritual food and fellowship are as important to a segment of society as regular food and fellowship are to the rest of society.
Most churches are only open one or two days a week for services or prayer meetings, which accounts for maybe three or four hours a week, while restaurants and lounges are open 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, I believe, so where is the greatest risk of spread of the virus?
But what surprises me is that I don’t hear of churches complaining of the discrepancy in unfair treatment. I’m not knocking restaurants and lounges — they have businesses to run — but churches, not being businesses as such, have a place of importance within society that seems to be ignored by government, even discarded by government and treated as unimportant.
Spiritual food and fellowship are as important to a segment of society as regular food and fellowship are to the rest of society.
When will they see this and let God’s people go?
Everett Adams
Wooddale
