Should churches enforce mask-wearing?

In the United Kingdom it is legally mandatory to wear masks (if medically possible) whilst at a worship service inside a church. Should churches enforce this mandate?

 

Let me quickly set aside the first two ways of interpreting this question most people will go for: (1) I do not believe the Church of God is under any obligation to modify its worship to please the state, and I believe that church authority subsists in the individual congregation; if a congregation believed wearing masks modified worship, I would at a principle level support them in ignoring the rule; (2) I am not making any comment on whether masks are effective or not in containing the spread of Covid; it may be sensible or it may not be sensible to wear a mask, but that is not my topic. In a sense, this is not an important question – one line of argument, after all, would say that it is right for people to wear masks in church because the law says so, even if masks are ineffective at containing Covid.

 

What I want to talk about is whether churches ought to exercise spiritual authority to enforce mask-wearing. This might sound strange – surely a church can enforce whatever rules it wants? Well, actually...when you put it like that...hmm. No, we don’t generally believe churches can enforce any rules they want in their church life, as long as those rules don’t break the law. What if a church required complete control over family finances, all managed directly by the Pastor? It’s free association, right? Well, of course not. We’d think that was cultish and immoral. Spiritual authority has its limits.

 

What rules can a church enforce in gathered worship, based on its spiritual authority? Well, what is gathered worship? We have several descriptions of ordinary and even necessary components of the Christian gathering. There is the classic summary in Acts 2.42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”. These are the ordinary means of grace, those ways in which believers come into contact with God in His sacred assembly. There is that further description of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 10.17: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” The congregation of God is a place of praise: “Bless God in the great congregation, the LORD, O you who are of Israel’s fountain!” (Psalm 68.26). He is to be praised from His sanctuary up to the heavens with voice and musical instrument (Psalm 150). It is a place of mutual encouragement (Hebrews 10.24-25).

 

Many more such verses could be adduced, of course, but let that suffice. It is notable how clothing codes scarcely make an appearance in the New Testament descriptions of church (we will return to that point). What argument, then, is there for adding requirements not found in Scripture?

 

I think we come closest to a principle allowing this when we look at 1 Corinthians 14. Paul is talking about the orderly management of Pneumatic contributions to the gathered worship. In verse 33a, Paul explains why order is necessary: “For God is not a confusion, but of peace.” He summarises the whole section in verse 40: “But all things should be done decently and in order.” We might say we generally discourage nudism in church, or ecstatic screaming, or gossiping during the sermon – all of this to honour God, and impress unbelievers with our sobriety – so why not require masks?

 

Before we address whether these categories match, we must consider the counter-principle Paul adduces in 1 Corinthians 10 – counter-balancing, not contradictory. Paul encourages believers to forego eating meat sacrificed to idols if it would cause spiritual confusion in a newer/less wise believer – even though the meat is pure, it might be seen as validating idol worship to eat it. This is how he puts the whole subject in 10.28-30: “But if someone says to you, ‘this has been offered in sacrifice’, then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience – I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?”

 

Paul encourages a kindness in the “strong” believer, but carefully demarcates the authority of the “weak” believer – they cannot bully the strong believer into giving up a good because of their tender conscience. Tenderness is acceptable, but weaponising it as tool of control is illicit. This is part of the wider concept of the impropriety of “binding the conscience” on indifferent matters. The church can condemn sin in its midst, but it cannot condemn things it simply doesn’t like. If God gives liberty in an area, no-one can take it away. The burden and yoke of the Pharisees, with their enormous multiplication of rules and standards, was unbearable; it caused the little ones to stumble. Jesus’ burden was easy, His yoke light; but to topple a little one, whether by inducement to sin or by proud religiosity (as in the story in Luke which comes before Jesus’ warning), is damning sin.

 

It might be said that this is Paul instructing someone to forego a freedom for the sake of others – and yet it is not Paul using the authority of the church. Paul repeatedly in his Corinthian correspondence emphasizes the authority of the congregation in disciplinary matters, even where he has a preference (he wants an incestuous man expelled in 1 Corinthians, but hands that over to the church; he wants one of his erstwhile opponents forgiven in 2 Corinthians, but leaves that in the hands of the church, referencing the majority vote). Paul is not, in 1 Corinthians 10, laying down rules for meat-eating – he is articulating a principle for private use.

 

How do these two principles bear upon mask-wearing? No-one will claim that mask-wearing is generically required by God as a prerequisite to worship Him –with the dividing veil torn in two in Jesus’ flesh, there is no justification for ritual requirements for entry. Nor can it be claimed that this is the only way to prevent spread, and therefore a refusal to wear a mask is tantamount to breaching the commandment against murder (in intent, at least) – I have seen this offered as an argument, and can only dismiss it with contempt.

 

There therefore must be a strong “order-keeping” reason for requiring mask-wearing, which matches Paul’s standards in 1 Corinthians 14. Church order must be breached by a lack of mask-wearing. Again, I think it is generally clear that mask-wearing cannot be said to cause active disorder – it is not disruptive like multiple people loudly speaking in tongues at once, it is not blasphemous like the feasting taking place before and during the Lord’s Supper (cf 1 Corinthians 11).

 

The category of disorder that non-mask-wearing could be said to fall into is that of leading nonbelievers into confusion or contempt (14.16-17,23). This is a stretch, but you can see a logic – if nonbelievers enter and see everybody maskless, they might conclude the believers are insane or cruel. Yet the same goal (of removing an obstacle) can be accomplished without binding any individual believers to non-Biblical prerequisites for worship. My church has erected Perspex barriers between pews, which function as a very visible and very effective droplet barrier. This binds no individual – it is a decision of the institution in its management of building space.

 

One final trump card may be brought out in favour of mask-wearing. There is one clothing code I can think of in the New Testament – 1 Corinthians 11.2-16, on head coverings. Women are to wear head-coverings in church, and to keep long hair, whilst men are to keep their hair short. One line of argument goes that this is all mere cultural adjustment. One could then say – well, mask-wearing is cultural adjustment. Yet the whole passage in 1 Corinthians 11 grounds the subject in Creational anthropology – because man is the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man (verse 7), there is some connection with the angels (verse 10), and so forth. We may find this objectional, of course; or we may accept it as Creational, but consider the specific requirements culturally conditioned (i.e., a specific iteration of a general principle) – we cannot really look at the passage and think that Paul would use the same logic for masks. There is nothing Creationally ordered about mask-wearing (fig leaves hide our sinful shame, yes, but God wants the “fruit of lips”!); it is a matter of legitimate public health policy, but not of ontological reality.

 

Finally, we may quickly address the concern that masklessness is disordering because it permits crime in the congregation. If this was the standard required prior to attending church, we would expel known fugitives, rather than preaching them the Gospel; we would cease meeting when a regime barred meeting for Christian worship. We surely ought not act so in those cases; the church is its own city, an embassy of sovereign land in another nation. We do not disqualify on the basis of what the City of the World demands.

 

With all that said, it may be said there is a grey area – what if we can conceive of situations where masklessness might lead to disorder? What if we cannot come up with any alternative safety measures? These are legitimate concerns, to be answered locally – but if we leap to them to justify our binding of consciences, to satiate the bureaucratic impulse so strong in British churches, then we are in sin. Be cautious of your motives for obeying a law restrictive of worship.

 

Do I have any counsel, then? Only this: it is quite legitimate to remind people of the rules about mask-wearing, and even to encourage it in a private capacity (“I think it’s sensible, and helpful”) – but it must be a rare situation where mask-wearing can be legitimately required by pastoral authority.