For many years, there was a daily COVID death tracker on essentially all major news outlets and the world over was inundated with phrases such as “two weeks to flatten the curve,” “six feet apart,” “stay home, save lives,” “do your part,” “together we can do this,” and the list goes on. Most importantly, everyone was told numerous times to “trust the science” and to “follow the science,” and anyone who questioned was openly mocked as a conspiracy theorist. Misinformation must, of course, be stifled in the interests of the greater good.
More important: brethren, based on this information, condemned one
another of the sin of not loving one another.
One prominent preacher and teacher openly advocated for “trusting the
experts” over asking questions and proceeding with Scripturally based
caution. If, some asserted, you do not
follow the masking procedures, social distance, and receive the vaccine, then
you do not love your brethren and you were not obeying the government. If you object to any of these things, you
MIGHT turn someone who believes in all of them off to the gospel, and the Bible
says not to offend.
Pause for a second and think about all the brethren that were
falsely accused of sin during the pandemic: “Whoever hates his brother is a
murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1
John 3:15). Is this a serious
accusation? Consider also: “In this the children of God and the children of the
devil are manifest: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor
is he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10) and “We know that we have
passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in
death” (1 John 3:14). As a Christian, we
should take accusations of not loving our brethren to be very serious indeed;
is it offensive to be falsely accused of this? Is this discouraging?
The assertion was, of course, to “trust the science:” “Anthony
Fauci has never struggled to speak his mind.
But now that he has left government, he is finally speaking at least
some of the truth about government policies and Covid. For instance, the six-feet rule for social
distancing ‘sort of just appeared’ without solid scientific basis. That’s one of the many admissions that
Members of Congress say the former National Institutes of Health potentate made
this week in two days of closed-door testimony to the House Select Subcommittee
on the Coronavirus Pandemic” (Editorial Board, WSJ, 2024)[1]. Trust the experts or you do not love your
brethren? Trust the science because you are not a scientist? You do not have a
peer-reviewed study showing your disagreement with COVID strategies, so that is
just a conspiracy theory?
But people are dying, right? It is being reported on the news how
many people are dying due to COVID, and questioning how those statistics are
ascertained is anti-science, especially if you are not a scientist: “The
official number [COVID deaths] is probably an exaggeration because it includes
some people who had the virus when they died even though it was not the
underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C.
data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen
into his category. A study published in
the journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions” (Leonhardt,
2023)[2].
Again, some might say, “Stop listening to FOX News,” but these two
sources were purposely chosen because they formerly advocated for the very same
policies that they were (at the time of publishing) questioning or attempting
to distance themselves from. In fact,
within the WSJ article, they attempted to hold onto reasons why it was acceptable that they had not previous questioned the validity of Fauci's claims.
The purpose of discussing this is not to do some sort of “I told you so.” No, all of us were thrown into mix of
something that we had never navigated before and we all made mistakes (there
are certainly things that I did or allowed to happen around me that I would not
do again). However, there are cautions
that we should take moving forward:
1.)
This is a prime example of “These people draw near to Me with
their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as
doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:8-9 NKJV). Many Christians had good intentions by
following the “guidelines” set before them and that should not be broadly
called into question (specific instances may be very different), but condemning
one another as being unloving based solely upon the whims of mankind should not
happen. Hopefully we will each be more
careful in the future and guide our responses on the word of God rather than
the word of men.
2.)
During the COVID response, many Christians believed that God had
left us without a guide, which was manifested either in word and/or in
action. The Apostle Paul wrote, “All
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God
may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17
NKJV). Either this is true or it is not
– there are not some things in which we may be “complete,” and some things in
which we are not. Will we have to work
through the Scriptures in order to come to a better understanding of God’s
goals? Absolutely, and that also means that mistakes are likely to be made
along the way (therefore, grace one way or the other should be given).
If we took the approach that our brethren were unloving because
they came to a different conclusion than we did, then we need to think that
through. Did we make accusations of sin
based not on the Word, but on the obviously fallible word of mankind? Did we
offend and discourage our brethren? We can take one of three courses of action:
1.)
We can pretend like it never happened and never bring it up or fix
it.
2.)
We can continue to hold onto and defend our previous actions
because we’re too prideful to realize that we were played (continuing to call
people “conspiracy theorists,” “science deniers,” and “anvi-vaxxers” would fall
under this category).
3.)
We can realize that mistakes were made and that in our haste not
to offend those of the world, our actions offended our brethren (see Galatians
6:9-10).
Again, this is not all written to be offensive or to be an “I told
you so” in any way. Instead, it is meant
to show that a great many Christians were discouraged because of how they were
treated by their brethren over manmade issues.
Satan seeks to divide us, and by doing so, he can pick off many
souls. Bearing with one another and
helping one another will helps us…remember: “These were more fair-minded than
those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and
searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts
17:11). We need to be Bereans.
[1]
Editorial Board (2024, January 11). Anthony
Fauci Fesses Up: It Turns Out the Six-Feet Social-Distancing Rule Had No
Scientific Basis. https://www.wsj.com/articles/anthony-fauci-covid-social-distancing-six-feet-rule-house-subcommittee-hearing-44289850
[2]
Leonhardt, D. (2023, July 17). A
Positive Covid Milestone. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/briefing/covid.html
