Indeed, private worship cannot replace public worship. It is important to emphasize that, especially (as you note) in the midst of American individualism, which permeates so much of our cultural milieu. I like your date night analogy; that helps brush off the dust of familiarity that diminishes the importance of the Lord’s Day, and our corporate involvement in it.
As to your COVID-19 comments, I have a couple gentle pushbacks. Saying the pandemic “wasn’t the bubonic plague,” while accurate, is misleading and dismissive. *Nothing* in recent history compares to the bubonic plague, with its death toll of over 50M people. In the last twenty or so years, we’ve seen these pandemics:
SARS (2002-2003): 770 deaths
Swine Flu (2009-2010): 280K deaths
Ebola (2014-2016): 11K deaths
COVID-19 (2019- ): 7M deaths
I understand that different groups within the body of Christ had different convictions regarding what the appropriate safeguards were. Those were, to a large degree, issues of conscience. There’s definitely a precedent in church history for *not* meeting on the Lord’s day in certain cases, as evidenced by these quotes:
“[T]he command to love your neighbor is equal to the greatest commandment to love God, and that what you do or fail to do for your neighbor means doing the same to God. . . . [Some] are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They…wish to prove how independent they are…[and when they] are so foolish as not to take precautions but aggravate the contagion, then the devil has a heyday and many will die. . . . [T]his is a grievous offense to God and to man.”
"If the magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety,) forbid church assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him."
“If the government tells us to stop worshiping, stop preaching, stop communicating the gospel, we don’t stop. We obey God rather than men. We don’t start a revolution about that; the apostles didn’t do that. If they put us in jail, we go to jail and we have a jail ministry. Like the apostle Paul said, 'My being in jail has fallen out to the furtherance of the gospel.' So we don’t rebel, we don’t protest. You don’t ever see Christians doing that in the book of Acts. If they were persecuted, they were faithful to proclaim the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ even if it took them to jail; and that’s been the pattern of true Christianity through all the centuries.
"But this [the COVID-19 pandemic] is not that. Might become that in the future. Might be overtones of that with some politicians. But this is the government saying, 'Please do this for the protection of this society.' This is for greater societal good, that’s their objective. This is not the persecution of Christianity. This is saying, 'Behave this way so that people don’t become ill and die.'"
Were all pastors who delayed corporate meetings for almost a year rebelling against God’s command? Maybe some of them were. But others were simply trying to follow the biblical wisdom espoused by the church leaders above. Asserting otherwise is uncharitable and unhelpful. It gives at least the appearance of falling into the partisan spirit of our age, which so readily divides culture into two extreme camps (in this case, those who knew COVID was no big deal, and those who used it as an opportunity for oppressive governmental overreach). There was genuine disagreement for quite some time, both within and outside the church, on the nature of the pandemic and the best way to address it.
Indeed, private worship cannot replace public worship. It is important to emphasize that, especially (as you note) in the midst of American individualism, which permeates so much of our cultural milieu. I like your date night analogy; that helps brush off the dust of familiarity that diminishes the importance of the Lord’s Day, and our corporate involvement in it.
As to your COVID-19 comments, I have a couple gentle pushbacks. Saying the pandemic “wasn’t the bubonic plague,” while accurate, is misleading and dismissive. *Nothing* in recent history compares to the bubonic plague, with its death toll of over 50M people. In the last twenty or so years, we’ve seen these pandemics:
SARS (2002-2003): 770 deaths
Swine Flu (2009-2010): 280K deaths
Ebola (2014-2016): 11K deaths
COVID-19 (2019- ): 7M deaths
I understand that different groups within the body of Christ had different convictions regarding what the appropriate safeguards were. Those were, to a large degree, issues of conscience. There’s definitely a precedent in church history for *not* meeting on the Lord’s day in certain cases, as evidenced by these quotes:
“[T]he command to love your neighbor is equal to the greatest commandment to love God, and that what you do or fail to do for your neighbor means doing the same to God. . . . [Some] are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They…wish to prove how independent they are…[and when they] are so foolish as not to take precautions but aggravate the contagion, then the devil has a heyday and many will die. . . . [T]his is a grievous offense to God and to man.”
Martin Luther, 1500s
(https://reporter.lcms.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Plague-blogLW.pdf)
"If the magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety,) forbid church assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him."
Richard Baxter, 1600s
(https://www.ethicsandculture.com/blog/2020/richard-baxter-on-churches-meeting-when-forbidden)
“If the government tells us to stop worshiping, stop preaching, stop communicating the gospel, we don’t stop. We obey God rather than men. We don’t start a revolution about that; the apostles didn’t do that. If they put us in jail, we go to jail and we have a jail ministry. Like the apostle Paul said, 'My being in jail has fallen out to the furtherance of the gospel.' So we don’t rebel, we don’t protest. You don’t ever see Christians doing that in the book of Acts. If they were persecuted, they were faithful to proclaim the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ even if it took them to jail; and that’s been the pattern of true Christianity through all the centuries.
"But this [the COVID-19 pandemic] is not that. Might become that in the future. Might be overtones of that with some politicians. But this is the government saying, 'Please do this for the protection of this society.' This is for greater societal good, that’s their objective. This is not the persecution of Christianity. This is saying, 'Behave this way so that people don’t become ill and die.'"
John MacArthur, April 19, 2020
(https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/70-48/bible-questions-and-answers-part-72)
Were all pastors who delayed corporate meetings for almost a year rebelling against God’s command? Maybe some of them were. But others were simply trying to follow the biblical wisdom espoused by the church leaders above. Asserting otherwise is uncharitable and unhelpful. It gives at least the appearance of falling into the partisan spirit of our age, which so readily divides culture into two extreme camps (in this case, those who knew COVID was no big deal, and those who used it as an opportunity for oppressive governmental overreach). There was genuine disagreement for quite some time, both within and outside the church, on the nature of the pandemic and the best way to address it.