For more resources related to COVID-19, visit our new site: COVID-19 & The Church. You can read Caleb’s earlier article on the subject here: “How DC Churches Responded When the Government Banned Public Gatherings During the Spanish Flu of 1918.”
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For four long weeks, as Washington D.C.’s church bells and congregations remained silent, a deadly sickness took its toll: 23,000 infected, 1,500 dead.
During that same time, Christians across the District waited for the Department of Health’s ban on gatherings to be lifted.[1] Finally, that day came. On Tuesday, October 26, 1918, the commissioners announced that theaters, moving picture houses, and dance halls would be permitted to re-open on Monday, November 4, and that churches would be permitted to gather again on Thursday, October 31.[2]
According to the Saturday edition of The Washington Times, “Pastor and congregation will meet again tomorrow, after having been separated for four weeks by the ‘flu.’ Some of the churches will have special services to celebrate the abatement of the epidemic and the reopening of their services.”[3] For instance, Rev. Gove Griffith-Johnson preached on “The Great Epidemic and Its Cure” at Immanuel Baptist Church.[4] Most pastors, however, preached sermons on the
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