‘God-given right.’ Sacramento clergy wrestle with conflicting orders on COVID shutdown

Pastor Sam Rodriguez says he doesn’t take the threat of COVID-19 lightly; he and his family survived a bout with the coronavirus in early July.

But the senior pastor at Sacramento’s New Season Christian Worship Center is adamant about holding in-person worship services — in spite of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest pandemic shutdown order. Rodriguez said he’s limiting attendance to about 100 people, in a sanctuary that holds 800, and insisting on temperature checks and other precautions.

“Church services are life-saving,” said Rodriguez, who was bombarded with calls from congregants suffering from depression, unemployment and other maladies while New Season was closed earlier in the pandemic. “I’m the one getting those calls, not the governor.”

With Hanukkah underway and Christmas looming, houses of worship are wrestling anew with COVID-19 restrictions and their desire to welcome congregants in person. The struggle is being waged in the pews — and the courts — as religious leaders try to sort out conflicting messages from Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

Newsom’s lockdown order, which affects 99% of California’s population, clearly forbids indoor worship services. But the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down less-restrictive rules imposed by New York state, and gave fresh life to a Pasadena evangelical church’s lawsuit seeking to overturn Newsom’s directives.

New York’s rules severely limited attendance but didn’t prohibit indoor services. Some church lawyers say California’s ban on indoor worship is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“It’s a validation of our God-given right to worship,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez called himself “a person of science” but said Newsom has gone too far. “I just can’t drink that Kool-Aid,” he said. The pastor is convinced the courts will rule in the Pasadena church’s favor and added: “My attorney is their attorney, by the way.”

‘Unnecessary scrutiny upon our ministry’

Some churches, like Rodriguez’s, haven’t been waiting for a green light from the courts.

Destiny Church, a large Pentecostal church in Rocklin, has been publicly defying Newsom’s restrictions for months, with Pastor Greg Fairrington regularly sermonizing about the governor’s wrongheadedness. Fairrington hosted prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk, of Turning Point USA, at Destiny during services last month.

Other churches are trying to fly under the radar. The pastor of Pioneer Baptist Church in Citrus Heights, which has been meeting indoors, urged members to contact the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors about a proposal to fine violators of COVID restrictions — but urged them to leave the church’s name out of the emails “as we do not wish to bring any unnecessary scrutiny upon our ministry.”

The pastor, Kyle Conley, said in an email that he doesn’t know how many congregants contacted the supervisors about the proposal, which was shelved in the wake of overwhelming opposition. As for his church’s indoor worship, he wrote: “I do trust that our members will make their own informed decisions when it comes to their health and well-being and day-to-day lives.”

One of the region’s biggest churches, Capital Christian Center, had its lawyers review the Supreme Court’s New York decision. But the church is maintaining its online-only stance.

“We are strictly online,” the church’s chief operations office Jason Batt said in a text. “We are fully complying with the stay-at-home order for our church services.”

Sacramento’s major synagogues remain closed, too. Mosaic Law Congregation, for instance, is advertising a major Hannukah celebration Tuesday night that includes music, candle-lighting and a standup comic — all of it on Zoom.

The Diocese of Sacramento has instructed its priests to keep their churches closed and conduct services virtually or through a “drive-in” setup that keeps parishioners safe. Diocese spokesman Bryan Visitacion said at least two churches, Holy Spirit in Sacramento’s Land Park neighborhood and St. Mel in Fair Oaks, have been holding drive-in Mass.

California defends COVID-19 rules in court

In the meantime, California officials are fighting off legal challenges to the governor’s orders.

Newsom has consistently defeated churches’ lawsuits over his pandemic directives. Earlier this month, however, just after it tossed out New York’s church restrictions, the Supreme Court then wiped out a lower-court ruling in Newsom’s favor against Harvest Rock Church of Pasadena.

That decision didn’t mean the church could legally hold services indoors, but gave Harvest Rock another chance to argue its case in light of the New York ruling. Harvest Rock’s lawyers immediately asked a federal judge in Riverside for an injunction to keep Newsom “from enforcing his unconstitutional prohibitions and restrictions on Plaintiffs’ religious worship services.”

Newsom’s lawyers argued that California’s rules are fair. “Like all of California’s restrictions, the restrictions imposed on worship services are based on — and proportional to — the risk of transmission posed by the activity.”

As religious leaders watch the litigation unfold, they’re largely following their own path. South Sacramento Christian Center, for example, closed in March and has no immediate plans to reopen, said Senior Pastor Les Simmons.

That has meant finding new ways to engage congregants at a church that would routinely host 1,000 people every Sunday. South Sacramento Christian developed a text-message program to provide links to services being streamed on Facebook or YouTube. It’s also hosted coronavirus testing on its Stockton Boulevard campus.

Christmas, though, is particularly challenging.

“It’s a time of hope, it’s a time of celebration,” Simmons said. “We need hope.”

To that end, a prerecorded Christmas gospel program will be aired three times later this month. Simmons said the church will reopen when it believes it’s safe, regardless of how Newsom fares in court.

“Whether he’s in the right ... or not, we felt it was important to close,” Simmons said. “Our people need leaders to be good stewards.”

This story was originally published December 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.