Churches fighting government over vaccine mandate?

This morning the Sydney Morning Herald reported on opposition to proof of vacination mandates by a number of church leaders including the Catholic Archbiship of Sydney and Anglican Archbiship of Sydney.

I think this exposes some stark differences over how different people define “church”. If you define “church” in terms of community, as I and many others do, then it can happen anywhere, including outdoors and over zoom. So it never really stopped, and while the proposed mandate may create a few challenges they are far from insurmountable. If however, you define “church” in terms of a building, well, yes I can see how the proposed mandate sounds like “turning people away from church”. But I’d suggest the bigger concern should be the likely consequences to your community of failing to exercise basic risk management in the midst of a pandemic. Isn’t caring for the vulnerable part of our mission? I’d suggest some self-reflection before Christians jump on the bandwagon here.