Churches in the UK are currently slated to open back up in July as part of the government’s reopening strategy.

Last week, the UK government published a 60-page recovery strategy titled, “Our Plan to Rebuild” which featured a 3-step program for reopening the UK while continuing to monitor the spread of COVID-19.

Churches alongside hairdressers, beauty salons, pubs and restaurants all under step 3 of the government’s reopening plan.

At the time of this writing, the above-mentioned businesses and entities are expected to reopen “no earlier than the 4 of July,” provided that COVID-19 infection rates continue to decline, and social distancing measures are followed, the plan asserts.

Venues that provoke large crowds, however, may only open in part as it “may prove difficult to enact distancing.”

“Nevertheless the Government will wish to open as many businesses and public places as the data and information at the time allows,” the statement continues.

“In order to facilitate the fastest possible re-opening of these types of higher-risk businesses and public places, the Government will carefully phase and pilot re-openings to test their ability to adopt the new COVID-19 Secure guidelines,” it adds.

Furthermore, five ministerially-led taskforces will be established for the following sectors in meeting secure COVID-19 guidelines: pubs and restaurants, non-essential retail stores,…

More than eight in 10 Americans say they believe in God, and a majority of them say they think “God is telling humanity to change how we are living” amid the coronavirus outbreak, according to a new survey.

A total of 82 percent of Americans confess a belief in God, with most of them (80 percent) saying they believed in God before the pandemic and 2 percent saying their belief in God developed after the pandemic, according to the survey by the University of Chicago Divinity School and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Among Americans who believe in God, 63 percent agree with the statement that “God is telling humanity to change how we are living” (31 percent agree strongly and 31 percent say they “somewhat” agree with the statement).

Additionally, 55 percent of those who believe in God say they think “God will protect me from being infected.”

Only 9 percent of those who believe in God think “God has abandoned humanity.”

Seventeen percent of Americans say they don’t believe in God.

Among all Americans – not just those who believe in God – about 52 percent say, “God is telling humanity to change how we are living.”

Meanwhile, 26 percent of Americans say the outbreak has made their “sense of religious faith or spirituality” stronger, while 1 percent say it’s now weaker. Most Americans (73 percent) say…

A federal judge on Saturday handed North Carolina churches a victory by allowing them to meet indoors despite an order from the state’s governor limiting such gatherings to 10 people.

The order by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, required worship services of 10 or more people to be conducted outdoors unless it was decided it was “impossible” to do so. If law enforcement determined the church was wrong to meet indoors, the leaders of the congregation could be served with a misdemeanor.

A pair of churches and a Christian organization, Return America, filed suit against Cooper.

U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III, in his Saturday decision, issued a statewide injunction against Cooper’s order, saying the plaintiffs had demonstrated a likelihood to win the case.

“There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution of the United States or the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” wrote Dever, who was nominated by President George W. Bush.

The churches, Dever wrote, “have pledged to practice social distancing and other public health guidelines.”

Dever criticized Cooper’s order for exempting businesses and companies but not carving out an exception for churches. Restrictions “inexplicably applied to one group and exempted from another do little to further” the goal of stopping the spread of COVID-19 “and do much to burden religious…

(RNS) — They are words the Rev. John Witvliet, an expert on Christian worship, never thought he would hear himself say.

“Based on the science that we are learning about this week, we are urging and I am personally urging extreme caution,” said Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a Wednesday (May 13) interview.

“Singing together in congregations is a practice that we dearly love and are eager to promote, but loving our neighbor is job one here and so the time for fasting from this wonderful practice may be longer than any of us would like.”

His unprecedented words of warning come as religious leaders have received jarring predictions from scientists well-versed in virology as well as vocal practices. Webinars, videos and texts are circulating across the globe as scientists reveal their studies, and clergy must consider what to do with the results of those reports. Some church leaders aren’t yet sure what to do when they reopen, others are designing multiphase plans, and still others are moving ahead with their traditional practices of praise.

But, more than halfway across the country, Dr. Howard Leibrand, public health officer for Skagit County, Washington, appears to be in Witvliet’s amen corner.

“I would recommend that until we get a vaccine, we don’t do congregational singing,” he said, adding…

The Central Baptist Church in New York, which stopped its drive-in worship services after facing the possibility of a fine from the Massena Police Department, is challenging the claim that its drive-in services violate Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order.

The church’s representation, The Rutherford Institute, wrote a letter to the police chief saying the church is within their rights to hold the drive-in services, the Christian Post reports.

“You are mistaken in your assertion that church ‘drive-in’ worship services are prohibited under New York’s current emergency orders and could result in fines,” wrote The Rutherford Institute, a national, nonprofit civil liberties organization, to police chief Adam J. Love last week.

In early May, Love told Pastor Samson Ryman that the church violated the state executive order in its May 3 drive-in worship service, which included 23 people in 18 cars. Love told the pastor that the church could face a $1,000 fine.

But The Rutherford Institute says the “threats” could violate the church’s rights.

“Although federal and state governments have adopted specific restrictive measures in an effort to decelerate the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the current public health situation has not resulted in the suspension of fundamental constitutional rights such as religious freedom, freedom of speech and the right of…

(RNS) — Were 2020 going as planned, United Methodists from around the world would be wrapping up a two-week meeting in Minneapolis, where they were expected to discuss a measure to split the denomination.

But, as it is, the coronavirus pandemic has forced people into their homes, closed businesses and canceled events well into the summer.

The quadrennial United Methodist General Conference has been postponed until next year — possibly until late August and early September 2021.

Many U.S. United Methodist leaders see the delay as a blessing, allowing more time and cooler heads to consider a split. But some have also expressed concern over continuing harm to many in the denomination eager to move on after decades of debate over the role of LGBTQ Christians in the church.

“Some people have said to me, ‘This gives us time to take our breath and see if there are new possibilities,’ and also there are some persons for whom the delay is continued injustice, and that’s harmful,” said the Rev. Kenneth Carter, resident bishop of the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church and past president of the denomination’s Council of Bishops.

“So to say the pandemic has become the agenda is not to suppress the need for justice and inclusion.”

Delegates to the General Conference were expected to take up a proposal to split the denomination, called “A Protocol of…

President Trump on Friday unveiled a goal of distributing a coronavirus vaccine to the American population by the end of the year as part of an “unprecedented” partnership between the federal government, the private sector and the military.

Dubbed “Operation Warp Speed,” it will involve the federal government manufacturing hundreds of millions of vaccine candidates before they are approved in order to save time. The U.S. military will help distribute the vaccine to the general population.

“It’s risky, it’s expensive, but we’ll be saving massive amounts of time,” Trump said in a Rose Garden press conference, alongside several federal officials, including the FDA commissioner, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and the director of the National Institute of Health (NIH).

“[O]ur task is so urgent that, under Operation Warp Speed, the federal government will invest in manufacturing all of the top vaccine candidates before they’re approved,” Trump said. “This will eliminate any unnecessary delay and enable us to begin providing Americans with a proven vaccine the day our scientists say, ‘We’re ready. We got it.’”

Once a vaccine is approved, the federal government will use the military to “deploy every plane, truck and soldier required to help distribute it to the American people as quickly as possible,” Trump said.

“With unrivaled…