These SLO County religious leaders say they don’t need sanctuary status during COVID pandemic

District Attorney Dan Dow has declared “sanctuary” status for religious communities in our county that want to worship in ways that defy public health directives.

As clergy members, we offer a different perspective. In Abrahamic tradition, religious freedom depends upon God, not on any state order for or against routine religious practices, let alone those meant to safeguard us. Yes, houses of worship are struggling as we resist our need to gather and sing. Chronic emergency and social distance is taking its toll. We cannot marry, bury, praise and mourn as we ought.

Nonetheless, we must not reinforce the temptation to believe faith is dependent upon external factors. People of faith have always been called upon in times of crisis to worship differently. Religious devotion is no stranger to plague. In past disruptions, we have had to wait out passing diseases in isolation and forgo our worship needs. It has always been this way in human history and this is our day for such sacrifice.

It also must be said that freedom is contingent upon the freedom of our neighbors. Our freedom cannot cost another their well-being or it is no freedom at all. It is not freedom if we get to sing but as a result, someone else loses their business, their children’s education, or worse, their very life.

Our worshiping communities do not need sanctuary status. Sanctuary work is immigration work to protect immigrants from the dangers of torture, gang violence, murder or exile from their children. We need to lift up our endurance, not risk enabling entitlement. As leaders, we must not encourage people of faith to imagine themselves as under-served, persecuted, or criminalized during COVID-19.

For worshiping communities to survive — and survive we will — we need a robust understanding of freedom, faith and resilience. We agree that our DA should not prosecute faith communities. But we do not need to encourage defiance or conflict, either. As leaders, we want to make these hard decisions without being politicized.

Submitted by Rev. Amy Beveridge, North County Clergy Group and Dean of the Central CA Coast Conference, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on behalf our SLO County congregations; Rev. Barbara Miller, St. James Episcopal Church, Paso Robles; Rabbi Janice Mehring, Congregation Ohr Tzafon; Rev. Heather Branton; Community Church of Atascadero, UCC; Rev. W. Merritt Greenwood, interim rector St. Matthews Episcopal Church, Atascadero; Rev. Steve Marshall, Atascadero United Methodist Church; Rev. Russ Gordon, Hope Lutheran Church, Atascadero; Rev. Dr. Robyn Provis, Calvary Lutheran Church Morro Bay; Rev. Richard Rollefson, Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church, San Luis Obispo.