Global Church and Home Church in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints


Jennifer C. Lane is Dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University–Hawaii.

As a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had attended three-hour Sunday Church meetings for most of my life (a year ago these became two-hour meetings). As an adult, I had worshiped in and officiated in nearby temples almost weekly. Then the prophet asked me to stop.

In March 2020 around the world, our centralized Church, headquartered in Salt Lake City sent out the word that no one was to attend Sunday meetings, temple service, or any in-person Church activities. And we all stopped. Many are commenting on the degree of centralization that characterizes our faith. We meet together in geographically organized “wards” and those who have attended our Sunday meetings in different countries are struck by the shared structure and curriculum of the meetings.

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Covid-19, Religion and FoRB: 2020 Vision – Looking Backwards and Seeing the Way Forward. Reflections upon the Completion of the Covid-19 & FoRB Webinar Series

 

Since its launch in April 2020, our Covid-19, Religion and Belief webinar series has offered hundreds of academics, civil society, government, and religious leaders a space to reflect upon some of the consequences of the pandemic and its effects on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). Using a cross-cutting approach, we looked at the impact of the pandemic at the intersection of religiosity, religious freedom, civil rights, the economy, and humanitarian aid.

The aim of our concluding webinar was to take stock of good practices and lessons learned and try to imagine what the world will look like six months from now. To accomplish this, this episode was slightly different from the others. We wanted this to be truly a participatory exercise. To this end, listeners were invited to respond to the question, ‘How has Covid-19 impacted your region, what you have learned from this experience, and what you will do (or think should be done) moving forward?’

To capture this final webinar, and review the entire series, we have compiled the posts by Brett Scharffs, Pasquale Annicchino, Judd Birdsall, and Marco Ventura.
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Judd Birdsall: Reflections upon the Completion of the Covid-19 & FoRB Webinar Series

Judd Birdsall is Director of the Cambridge Institute on Religion & International Studies at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University

Dramatic moments and extreme cases often help to clarify issues, expose boundaries, and create opportunities for fresh thinking. The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of those moments for a whole range of issues, including issues related to religion.

As I reflect on the past several months of the pandemic and on the 14 weeks of our webinar series exploring the religious dimensions and religious freedom implications of the lockdown, I am struck by three main observations.

First, the lockdown has provided a civics lesson on the permissible limitations on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). Second, the varied religious responses to the pandemic have reminded us of the “ambivalence of the sacred.” Third, the lockdown has had significant—and divergent—impacts on levels of religiosity. Let’s explore each of these observations in turn. (more…)

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