Document Type
Honors Thesis
Abstract
The months following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 saw global confusion from individuals, organizations, and governments alike. Religious institutions, able to influence the attitudes of mass congregations, were not excluded. This research studies how Christian churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex navigated the pandemic in vastly different ways, following widely opposing lockdown procedures and holding conflicting views on COVID-19 vaccines. After Texas’s initial restrictions on in person gatherings in March 2020, the 101 churches in this study relied on social media to communicate to their congregations about their responses to COVID-19. These social media pages, acting as paper trails for each church’s specific pandemic procedures, show churches often followed trends based on surrounding demographics. These results shed light on the differences within the Christian church, and they could be used to anticipate how diverse communities of faith respond to disasters.
Publication Date
5-1-2024
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Shaw, Steven Andrew, "Christianity and COVID-19: Comparing Dallas-Fort Worth Churches' Conflicting Pandemic Responses" (2024). 2024 Spring Honors Capstone Projects. 9.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/honors_spring2024/9