Poll: Most in U.S. back curbing in-person worship amid virus

WASHINGTON — While the White House looks ahead to reopening houses of worship, most Americans think in-person religious services should be barred or allowed only with limits during the coronavirus pandemic — and only about a third say that prohibiting in-person services violates religious freedom, a new poll finds.

States have taken different approaches to resuming gatherings as the coronavirus continues to spread, raising tough questions for religious leaders and the faithful about the appropriate time to return. But the findings of the new poll by The University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggest that, even as President Donald Trump projects eagerness to reopen, many religious Americans are fine with waiting longer to return to their churches, synagogues and mosques.

Among that group is 54-year-old Andre Harris of Chicago, a onetime Sunday school teacher who has shifted his routine from physical worship to the conference calls his church is holding during the pandemic.

Harris, a Methodist, said that until “either there’s a vaccine, or if we know that things have calmed down, I am not comfortable going back to the actual building.”

Just 9 percent of Americans think in-person religious services should be permitted without restrictions, while 42 percent think they should be allowed with restrictions, and 48 percent think they should not be allowed at all, the poll shows. Even among Americans who identify with a religion, 45 percent say in-person services shouldn’t be allowed at all.

White evangelical Protestants, however, are particularly likely to think that in-person services should be allowed in some form, with just 35 percent saying they should be completely prohibited. Close to half — 46 percent — also say they think prohibiting those services violates religious freedom.

That constituency’s support for some form of inperson worship underscores the political importance of Trump’s public calls to restore religious gatherings as a symbol of national recovery from the virus, as energizing evangelical voters remains a key element of the president’s reelection strategy. Trump won praise from some evangelical leaders for citing the aspirational ideal of “packed churches” on

Easter during the first weeks of the pandemic, though his goal didn’t materialize on Christianity’s holiest day.

Trump has since consulted with religious leaders on a phased-in return to inperson worship.

“It’s wonderful to watch people over a laptop, but it’s not like being at a church,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall on Sunday. “And we have to get our people back to churches, and we’re going to start doing it soon.”

Vice President Mike Pence met with faith leaders Friday in Iowa to talk about their reopening of worship, describing the constraints on worship assemblies as “a source of heartache” for the faithful.

Iowa is one of several states, including Tennessee and Montana, where restrictions on in-person services are starting to ease as stay-home orders imposed to stop the virus run their course.

That’s in line with the preference of Patrick Gideons, 63, of Alvin, Texas, who said worshippers “should be able to do what they want.”

“If they want to be able to hold church the way they normally do, they should be able to do that,” said Gideons, a self-described bornagain Baptist.

As houses of worship wrestle with when to reopen, draft guidance by a team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that offered recommendations for faith gatherings has been shelved by the Trump administration. While those guidelines aimed to help religious organizations use best practices to protect people from the virus, leaders in various denominations have already initiated their own discussions.