With Coronavirus Infections Linked to Religious Gatherings, Debate Rages over Worship

(RNS) — In mid-March, Pastor Howard-Browne, head of the River at Tampa Bay Church, declared before his packed congregation: “I’ve got news for you: This church will never close.”

A little over two weeks later, he was under arrest.

It was the first chapter in an ongoing drama playing out in Florida, where the Hillsborough County pastor was arrested on Monday (March 30) for continuing to hold worship services at his church despite local regulations prohibiting large gatherings amid the ongoing pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus.

Experts say it may be a sign of things to come. Although most faith groups have stopped meeting and shifted to virtual services, some continue to gather, and reports abound of Americans inadvertently spreading the novel coronavirus through religious events. Lawmakers, religious leaders and health experts across the U.S. are wrestling with the question: Does religious freedom mean the freedom to risk infecting your fellow believers — not to mention neighbors — with a deadly virus?

For Mat Staver, head of the conservative advocacy group Liberty Counsel, the question is at the heart of a federal lawsuit he threatened to file this week against officials in Hillsborough County. Staver argued that the county-level regulations restricting large gatherings that led to the arrest of Howard-Browne violated the church’s First Amendment…