Recently, a New York Times story carried this sensationalist headline: “Churches Were Eager to Reopen. Now They are a Major Source of Coronavirus Cases.”

Hmmm? A “major source”?  The very data included in the article fell far short of backing up that claim: roughly 650 Coronavirus cases have been traced to 40 or so churches across the U.S.

That’s point-zero-two percent of all confirmed cases in the U.S., traced to point-zero-one percent of the estimated 350-thousand churches in America.  A few days after the story ran, the Times quietly changed the headline. Still, this kind of click-baiting mis-representation of the facts, especially in what seems like an obvious attempt to malign the Church, will not engender trust in the nation’s “paper of record.”

The only true part of the headline is that Christians are eager to return to Church, and the vast majority are being thoughtful, careful, and measured, not to mention serving their communities, as they work to re-open.