By Charles Jones
Baptist historian

Canceling services due to illness is not new to Baptist life. Pandemics, epidemics and weather have all been part of our collective experience. 

In musty old church minutes, it’s not uncommon to see statements like “services canceled due to cholera” — or typhus or smallpox. John Newton (1732-1790), an early Georgia Baptist pastor and physician, left diaries that included Indian uprisings along with illness as reasons for canceling services. 

Possibly the most feared epidemics were those of yellow fever, which periodically swept through the South, emptying cities, towns and villages. Three major outbreaks occurred in 1820, 1854 and 1876. 

None of the earlier epidemics had the impact of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. It began in the fall of 1918 near the end of World War I. This flu was especially fatal to young people. People woke up feeling fine in the morning only to be dead by nightfall.  [Read more…]

By DeAnna Gibson
Contributing columnist

As COVID-19 makes its way around our globe, our everyday patterns are in upheaval. The assurances of a few weeks ago have given way to questions of preparedness. Painful dilemmas we now face include school closings and paychecks. Social media is in full flourish with complainers, fear mongers, conspiracy theorists and toilet paper hoarders.

Hearing the term “social distancing” as an autism mom, I laughingly thought, “These are the days in which many are living like autism families.” Within a week, our church was streaming online. Sunday felt incredibly different for me, but for some of my dear friends it felt familiar. For many special needs families it may have felt like a fairly normal Sunday — home alone, behind a screen, looking in from the “socially distant” outside.

And, it made me sad. [Read more…]