Politics shouldn’t enter into deciding to reopen churches

by Pastor Leonard Edlow – 

As things return to something that will never be the normal, the response of the church in our community will be very important. Church gatherings are probably the most intimate encounters, other than gathering in our homes.

The response, just like in so many other instances, will vary. My views do not express the views of every church, but of the one where I serve as pastor, and those views are based on the fact that I am also a pharmacist, and the son of a man whose father died in the 1918 pandemic. And that’s where I will start.

Whenever there were outbreaks of flu during my youth, my father would always bring up the pandemic of 1918. His family lived in Staunton and the family went to Baltimore looking for work. My father was 12 years old…

(The Rev. Leonard Edloe is pastor of New Hope Fellowship Church in Hartfield. His email address is leonard.edloe@gmail.com.)