For many, the novel coronavirus pandemic has closed the physical doors of their virtual church, synagogue or mosque, but not the virtual ones. So, dot.LA asked, how does one keep the faith when the pandemic disrupts the entire world's religious activities?

Tuesday's interfaith virtual roundtable on "Religion's New Faith inTech" opened a window into how different religious leaders are approaching the coronavirus crisis as it begins to intersect with major holidays such as Passover, Ramadan, and Easter. Many are turning to digital communications methodsto maintain their communities.

At Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, Southern California's largest Conservative synagogue, the shul will host a virtual Seder using Zoom on Wednesday night that features two of its rabbis, who happen to be married, and then that Seder can also be replayed for the second night.

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Wolpe described a Saturday Shabbat service this past week where their cantor sang from his home in the Valley via Zoom, other rabbis led the service from their homes down the street, and Wolpe gave the sermon from his home.

It's a scenario that has played itself out in community after community, faith after faith, in different ways across the country and world.

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Among Muslims, scholars have said there is no longer a religious obligation to attend services in person, "in fact, it's your obligation to stay home because the social welfare takes precedence over the religious obligation," said Imam Jihad Turk, founding President of Bayan Claremont Islamic Graduate School.

"But it won't count towards a congregational obligation, which is no longer required anyway under the current circumstances. So it's very convoluted and very much in the weeds, but these are the kinds of conversations that are taking place around Muslim communities around the country and around the world."

In Jewish and Muslim communities, religious laws that require in-person congregating have made a move toward technology and livestreaming a little more difficult. Evangelical Christians have found in technology an easy way to get the message of Jesus out further and faster.

Evangelical Christians are more familiar with religious uses of technology, going back to the early days of television. Over the last decade, churches have been steadily moving online and into the digital world. Pastor Adam Mesa is the lead pastor of Abundant Living Family Church in Rancho Cucamonga and a member of the Global Leadership Board for Silicon Valley's first faith-based app, pray.com, which has seen a surge in participation. He said the church has roughly 6,300 people participating via the virtual platform pray.com.

"When you put people alone, they start wondering more and more what's out there, where's God in all this? It's created a hunger in the absence of being able to go out and get lost at the football game, or go to the gym and just get your mind out," Mesa said. "Now people are at home actually having to introspect, and now it's creating curiosity. And so churches, by and large, we're all talking with one another, and everyone's very excited about what this has taken us through in this process."

Faith leaders tend to be involved in the highest and lowest points of peoples' lives, from coming-of-age ceremonies to marriages and funerals.

Wolpe said he's done a few final confessions using virtual technology instead of being there in person and has also participated in virtual funerals.

Imam Jihad Turk previously served as the director of religious affairs at the Islamic Center of Southern California, L.A.'s oldest and largest mosque

He said Islamic scholars have weighed in and said it's OK to waive some of the obligations for washing the body after death due to the danger it may cause community members who volunteer for the ritual.

Turk has also officiated at two weddings and will do a third, virtually, this coming Sunday using Zoom. One of those he did in the Westwood area of Los Angeles in person, with just the bride and groom and Turk himself at a distance. Meanwhile, dozens of people who had planned to fly in from all over the country Zoomed in instead.

Mesa lost his father-in-law two weeks ago as the order to stay home was announced. The family planned a virtual ceremony with only the immediate family members in the church. The funeral was live streamed on YouTube and emailed privately to guests. Roughly 1600 people ended up watching the funeral.

"My mother-in-law remarked, 'I actually liked this,'" Mesa said. "Because, number one, the family was really there for one another, and then she also said, and more people gathered for the funeral online than would have actually come to the building."

The technology can be intimidating for those who didn't grow up with it. Meanwhile, younger people worry they're missing out on finding the one, the religious leaders say.

"For some people it is (even more) isolating" because of their lack of tech savvy, Wolpe said. "They feel cut off from their community, and they even feel cut off from the virtual community that all of us are participating in, and that's very hard."

Mesa's church has created its own version of "Love is Blind" that it's calling "Christian Zoom mates" where they're going to take 10 singles and have them turn their cameras off and respond to some fun Bible trivia. At the end, everyone will turn their cameras on and meet each other for the first time.

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