Drive-in Easter church service in Tacoma raises hard questions for Jay Inslee, and all of us

Editor’s note: Organizers of this community drive-in Easter church service announced Friday that the event was canceled.

My cousin recently sent me a text message with photos from an Easter Sunday long ago. A preacher — my cousin’s dad, my late Uncle Bill — is leading a community sunrise service from the roof of a drive-in movie theater.

“Social distance preaching before it was cool!” my cousin texted.

This week I looked at those Kodak-era family photos and reflected on how things have changed more than 60 years later. And how they stay the same.

Who could’ve predicted a pandemic named COVID-19 would shut down society for weeks, maybe months, or that Easter gatherings would be canceled worldwide?

Who would’ve guessed the lengths that pastors would go to — and the technology they’d have at their fingertips —to provide spiritual sustenance during a national emergency?

And who could’ve known that people of faith would be so desperate to celebrate Easter as a community, they’d plan to meet up in Tacoma, throwback drive-in style?

So desperate, in fact, that some may risk defying Gov. Jay Inslee’s “stay home” order, which he recently extended at least through May 4.

Sunday at 11 am, a handful of local churches have scheduled a nondenominational Easter service in the parking lot at Tacoma’s Emerald Queen Casino. With windows rolled up and other precautions in place, anyone is welcome to park their car and tune their radio to 107.9 FM.

“The ability to gather together in worship this Easter Sunday, which many around the world have long taken for granted, is not possible for most,” said Dean Curry, pastor of OURchurch 253 in University Place,“but we must not give up trying to find new ways to build community and fight social isolation, even while obeying common-sense rules around social distancing.”

Weekly drive-in services have already been happening at Curry’s church during the coronavirus shutdown. This week he’s determined to do it on a greater scale.

“While some may not consider religious gatherings to be essential, they are a protected right of each person, and a sacred one,” said Curry, former lead pastor at Life Center in Tacoma, who stepped down in 2018 amid complaints of sexual misconduct.

Part of me is tempted to say “amen.” The other part is mindful that some pastors around the country have grossly abused the right, refusing to cancel in-person services and other events. They’re complicit in COVID-19 cases that have sickened and killed churchgoers in several states.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens,” it says in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. That includes “a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.”

There’s no doubt what time it is now.

Inslee has an unenviable task as he weighs urgent public-health concerns against the fundamental freedom (and need) to be together in person in difficult times. Doesn’t a closely monitored drive-in Easter service strike a reasonable balance?

An Inslee spokeswoman told me no, because a “parking lot convention” would violate the stay-home guidelines. But the normal rules don’t apply here, she added, because the Easter event is planned for sovereign Puyallup Tribe land.

For me, all this feels like a ride in a “Back to the Future” time machine.

In my cousin’s photos, a youthful Uncle Bill leads a sunrise service at a drive-in theater in Pasadena, Texas. He was part of a plucky generation of post-war Lutheran ministers that included my late father, Wallace Misterek.

Wearing a buzz cut, he stands at a pulpit on the ticket-office roof. Below him, classic American gas guzzlers fill the parking area, tailfins and chrome everywhere.

The year was 1957. My cousin and I hadn’t been born. Neither had the internet, of course, nor all the other instant-communication tools that pastors use today to lead their faith families from a distance.

There’s much to admire about how local pastors are keeping their churches active, relevant and safe during this crisis. Whether by pre-recording or livestream technology, they’ve gone fully online to connect with believers through song, prayer, scripture and public service.

Other faiths are adapting, too. Tacoma’s Temple Beth El is holding a virtual Passover service and seder meal this week. Tacoma Buddhist Temple has a YouTube channel.

When Inslee set forth “essential workforce” members under his shutdown orders, I thought it strange that religious leaders weren’t included. Like mental health providers who are listed, they help Washingtonians cope with anxiety and grief.

The governor partly made up for the oversight later. “Religious institutions can have, under our order, a certain number of people present at places of worship to ensure that online, remote services can be afforded to their flocks,” he said March 26.

On any other Sunday this spring, remote services will do just fine. But Easter deserves special consideration —not only because it’s the most important Christian holiday of the year, but because it falls at a grim crossroads in a pandemic that as of Wednesday had killed more than 400 Washingtonians and nearly 15,000 Americans. Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned this will be “our saddest week” and “our 9/11 moment.”

Remember what Americans did immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks? We came together, held vigil and prayed.

On Easter Sunday 2020, several local churches hope a similar spirit of unity will fill a casino parking lot in Tacoma. Among the highlights are a recorded greeting by Seattle Seahawks receiver Tyler Lockett, a children’s message, an opportunity to donate food to Tacoma Rescue Mission by popping your trunk, even a no-contact photobooth (i.e., a photographer taking pictures of families inside their cars).

Chances are, there will be historic, once-in-a lifetime memories worth preserving for posterity — the kind that cousins will share 60 years from now.

News Tribune editorial page editor Matt Misterek can be reached at (253) 597-8472 or matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com

This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM.