"This is censorship": Google suspends evangelical church's app for violating coronavirus "Sensitive Events policy"

An app used by an evangelical church in Idaho to stream Bible lessons and sermons was suspended by Google when the tech giant deemed its content insensitive.

The ministers and staff at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, a college town about 80 miles south of Spokane, Washington, are weighing their options after Google refused to budge on its decision that the church's app violates the company's "Sensitive Events policy" amid the coronavirus outbreak.

"@GooglePlay suspended our app today," the church tweeted on Good Friday. Speculating that pastoral calls for repentance during the pandemic and "short lessons on responding faithfully to the COVID-19 crisis" could have singled them out, the church added a photo of the Google notification informing them, "We don't allow apps that lack reasonable sensitivity towards or capitalize on a natural disaster, atrocity, conflict, death, or other tragic event." The Christ Church app was then scrubbed from the Google Play store, which leaves Android users unable to download it.

Christ Church received a response to the appeal on Thursday, which reiterated that their app was deemed in violation of the Sensitive Events policy and would not be reinstated until all references to COVID-19 were removed. Google then directed them to a webpage offering examples of "common violations."

Ben Zornes, who has been an executive minister at Christ Church for four years, told the Washington Examiner, "So, essentially, merely referencing COVID-19 is putting us out of compliance with their 'Sensitive Events' policy. We are now evaluating the best way forward as we believe this is censorship, and wrong-headed. We are not purporting to present any medical advice or information on the virus, we are simply presenting what we believe Scripture teaches in regards to how to face such crises in faith and love to our neighbor."

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