Southern Baptist leaders, meanwhile, encouraged public officials to treat worship services the same as similar events while they loosen restrictions resulting from the pandemic.

“It’s time for religious conservatives to bring forward the best of our ideas on every policy affecting this nation,” Hawley said. “We should be out in the forefront leading on economics, on trade, on race, on class, on every subject that matters for what our founders called the ‘general welfare,’ because we have a lot to offer, not just to protect our own rights, but for the good of all of our fellow citizens.”