Former. There are genuine people in the bunch, but also hucksters. Remember Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, etc...? And there are many smaller names you would not recognize. People need to be more warry.
True. What is your faith now?
I object to the covidiocy. A days long in-church revival during a pandemic shutdown? Not a smart move. And then you say "Nobody was hospitalized and nobody died" so that makes it OK right? Well think about it. How many people did those church members then go out into the community and infect? No one knows, but common sense says it was more than zero. That church revival became a super-spreader event in that community. No one in the church may have been hospitalized, but others outside of the church who came into contact with church members may have been infected, hospitalized, and even died as a result. And then the virus spread from them, and so on...
They shut it down pretty quickly when they found out. In matters of faith, and need to rely on God, the virus hit with little warning and little idea of planning. I support men's free decisions and agree with them we collectively cannot babysit grown adults.
Talking point? Not that they were 'covidiots' but that they made a decision and consequences follow our decisions. It is the same with alcohol, and drugs, and driving without insurance. Likely we could start threads on all those too. I think I get you a little better: It isn't so much about 'making fun' as a reaction from your own life within these walls. I did, for a short while, attend an Assembly church. The worship portion of the service had a brass band backing up the songs. I was in college and didn't have time to 'get involved' so I needed a place where I could just 'attend.' The pastor's messages could have been preached in a Baptist or other conservative church. He wasn't overtly charismatic and had a genuine love for his congregation.
That would help.
Just yesterday, my brother-in-law's godfather, a man of about 40 years of age with no "comorbidities" died of covid-induced pneumonia. He was unvaccinated.
For the most part, we know these are the exceptions, but the only way to get 'the exceptions' to get a shot, is to encourage all to get the shot. I can't stop a game of Russian Roulette. Many games of it play out in our society and most miss the various incarnations of the bullet and hit the empty chamber. I was pretty reckless as a kid. We jumped our sister's bike over ramps we'd made and piled blankets and pillows in the event we'd crash. We landed so hard the bike broke. Two days later, a neighbor kid, watching us, made his own jump and landed on the handlebars and punctured his stomach, almost died. I blame Evel Knieval, he inspired a lot of our 'idiocy.'