US
Christian leaders criticise Trump's Easter coronavirus deadline
The Rev Al
Sharpton said ‘a premature resurrection will lead to a disaster’ as Rev William
Barber called it ‘the height of hypocrisy’
Miranda
Bryant in New York and Oliver Laughland in New Orleans
Wed 25 Mar
2020 21.36 GMTLast modified on Wed 25 Mar 2020 21.51 GMT
US
Christian leaders have criticised Donald Trump’s Easter coronavirus deadline –
by which he wants to see much of the country reopened and churches full. One
described it as the “height of hypocrisy”.
As US
coronavirus cases and deaths continued to soar, the president said on Tuesday
he wanted to reopen “large sections of the country” by Easter Sunday – 12 April
– when there would be “packed churches all over our country”.
His
comments came despite warnings from White House taskforce members Anthony Fauci
and Deborah Birx, the latter saying she was “deeply concerned” about New York
and its surrounding area.
On
Wednesday the number of confirmed US cases rose to 54,453 and 737 deaths,
according to figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC).
“It is the
height of hypocrisy for Trump to suggest that Easter is a time to defy public
health recommendations and ‘reopen’ America,” said pastor and activist the Rev
William J Barber II.
“Jesus challenged oppression and cared for the
poor, while Trump ignored the pandemic of poverty and tragically dismissed
intelligence about the coronavirus. We need a resurrection of Jesus’s concern
for the most vulnerable, not a capitulation to corporate greed that could cost
millions of lives.”
The Rev Al
Sharpton said that if Trump was going to use biblical language, the president
“needs to know the whole Easter story”.
“You cannot
get to Easter Sunday without first going through the crucifixion on Friday. A
crucifixion precedes the resurrection, Mr President, and we have not even got
up Calvary’s mountain yet to the crucifixion, we just have the cross on our
back,” he told MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Sharpton
said New York – currently on lockdown with more than 30,000 cases across the
state – would undergo a “real crucifixion” at the height of the pandemic, which
will then go around the US “before we can get to resurrection Sunday”.
He added:
“A premature resurrection will lead to a disaster and we need to understand
that, deal with it head on.”
The Rev
Laura Everett, a pastor and executive director of Massachusetts Council of
Churches, told of her anger with Trump.
“Still
fuming about Trump co-opting Easter for capitalism,” she tweeted.
“Are his
Christian followers going to follow him down this path? Do you not remember how
Lent begins, when the devil takes Jesus to the heights of the city and shows
him all the glittery things ‘if you but worship me?’”
Christianity
Today published a critical editorial following Trump’s comments in which it
warned that even with good hygiene and physical distancing, congregating during
a pandemic “mars our witness”.
It said:
“Rather than looking courageous and faithful, we come off looking callous and
even foolish, not unlike the snake handlers who insisted on playing with poison
as a proof of true faith.”
In the Catholic
church, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles tweeted on Tuesday night, after the
president’s announcement, that all its churches would remain closed until “at
least” 19 April – a week after Trump’s suggested deadline.
In newly
updated guidelines, it encouraged priests to continue celebrating mass without
a congregation and live-streaming instead.
The
Archdiocese of New York, which includes St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan,
said it would celebrate Holy Week and Easter Sunday via live stream or broadcast.
Bishop
Michael Curry, who gave the sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan
Markle, has recommended the suspension of in-person public services in the
Episcopal church – including during Holy Week – and encouraged people to
worship online.
The
president’s Easter deadline goes against the predictions of experts and
political figures like New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, who has said the
battle against the virus will take several months.
“I hope we
can do this by Easter,” Trump told Tuesday’s White House briefing. “I think
that would be a great thing for our country.”
Asked if
that was realistic, he said: “We’re going to look at it. We’ll only do it if
it’s good and maybe we do sections of the country, we do large sections of the
country.”
He said he
chose Easter because “I just thought it was a beautiful time, a beautiful
timeline, it’s a great day”.
He told Fox
News: “You’ll have packed churches all over our country. I think it’ll
be a beautiful time.”
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