A note - after sending this post out I received an email criticising its absurd dreariness - I admit this post does seem to be rather dreary - may be an indication of my mood at the moment - in any case while I don’t disagree with anything I have written, it is possibly on the whole on the negative side, and may require to be taken with a grain of salt….!
Covid vaccination was a false grace and a false salvation: a deception that masquerades still today as salvation on government websites and in official propaganda pronouncements in Australia and the Western world.
And still some people are boasting about their ‘rational’ reasons for not refusing it, when they ought to simply be honest with themselves that their resolve crumbled in the face of enormous pressure and they gave in to unjust coercion. No one who believed the coercion was wrong took the shot against their own conscience because they were motivated by God’s grace.
It’s no merit to have stood firm, only grace, but to not have stood firm is nothing to boast about.
One man’s liver cancer (some months after his 2nd shot which had to be Pfizer; a well known side effect which maybe results from the alteration of the immune response to IgG4, plus presence of LNPs in liver) and another man’s depression (which started the very day he took the shot) were the consequences. The second man took it because he didn’t want to lose his job; the consequence was after taking the shot he no longer loved his job but loathed it, and is now losing it.
A common refrain is: “I ended up taking the vaccine because…” these people should examine these reasons, because those things were the idols in their lives. That they are still justifying their decision shows they are suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Many if not most of those who violated their conscience have subsequently lost the thing for which they suffered the violation.
We can only boast in the cross of Christ.
The government in directly attacking the Christian’s conscience was in fact abusing their citizens: why was the vax not voluntary? There was no reason it should not be voluntary. Instead it was coerced, directly infringing the Nuremberg code. The Pfizer directors statement that “no one was forced to take it” is a lie, that depends on an unnaturally rigorous legal interpretation of the word “forced” - most would understand it as meaning “coerced”.
Romans 14:23
“It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”
Taking the vax did not proceed from faith in the vast majority of instances: it proceeded from the fear of loss of employment, ministry, freedom, comforts: very few people trusted God enough to provide these things where the State took them away, consequently they disobeyed their conscience in doing what really amounted to an act of civil worship: the acceptance of a violation of bodily integrity functionally analogous to circumcision or receiving a tattoo.
That the reasons for which people took the vax were idols for Christians is shown in the fact that many were willing to disobey their own conscience for the sake of their idol: the consequence of such an idolatrous act of worship is that people find afterwards that they hate and loathe the thing for which they sacrificed their conscience: they become slaves to an idol, in a sense, instead of servants of the living God.
This effect then was compounded by the neurological injuries caused by the vax, which appear to be extremely widespread in fact, and the physical injuries to the heart, which were probably universal. (I’m not saying this without there being evidence it is so)
The Christian church leadership in Australia of every denomination proved itself completely unworthy in not discerning this situation of the violation of conscience and offering support. Most of the church leaders were just as traumatised by fear I suppose: but what does this say about the real tenor of their faith ? It should have been gold tested in the fire; in many cases it was dross, that disappeared when the going was tough.
Few Christians I know of declined the vax on the grounds that it might hurt the conscience of another not to take it, which seems to be the tenor of Paul’s argument in Romans 14 (actually - this was one reason I didn’t take it, that it might influence others to take it. There is no great virtue in this: my terror of disobeying God was simply greater than my fear of disobeying the government or displeasing men. )
What was also immediately obvious was the self justification that took place following the decision: science has shown, apparently, that people do not make decisions for the reasons they think they do, but are motivated by a mixture of unknown motivations, and then justify the decision they have taken by inventing reasons afterwards. Many people I knew had one perspective on everything then completely changed their minds after taking the shot: this was not because evidence or facts changed, but because the act of compliance had caused a psychological necessity of self justification. Self justification is not justification by faith, by the way. And the revising of facts that took place after submission can be seen as a very similar phenomenon to Stockholm syndrome: the victim’s identification with the perpetrator in cases of kidnapping.
Also corporate prayer about: the wisdom of taking the vax, obeying the lockdowns, not having communion for a year and a half, etc etc, was conspicuous in its lack.
Paul in Galatians speaks of circumcision for the sake of acceptability in Jewish- Christian circles (the majority in the early church it seems) as something harmful to submit to, when Gentiles should simply rely on faith in Jesus.
This was directly analogous to vaccination in the Covid era, when vaccination directly conferred social and economic benefits on people of employment, freedom, ability to do ministries, public acceptability, go outside and exercise, go to the pub, visit relatives in old people’s homes, etc etc.
Where were the Christians willing to join those on the outskirts of society, who were vilified and hated and called every kind of evil name under the sun because of their obedience to conscience? There were not many.
That the vaccination was also analogous to the mark of the beast in Revelation 13:15-18 in conferring economic benefits that are otherwise taken away should be obvious to everyone. What is not so obvious is that those who didn’t submit to this act of worship (taking the vaccine) were often killed, if they ended up in a hospital with Covid; this corresponds exactly to Revelation 13:15. However that there was no moving image of the first beast that could talk etc (something that sounds like an AI in fact) means that this was probably a precursor and preparation, not the actual event.
Of course on the other hand the ubiquitous presence of digital media and AI and those little phrases repeated by lots of reporters might qualify as the moving image of the beast; the miracle of modern communications could to a first century mind appear in this way, particularly when one considers the ubiquitous use of AI bots by western governments on the Twitter and Facebook in this era.
If vaccination was indeed the mark of the beast, submitting to it needs to be repented of and renounced, for the sake of the soul. (Revelation 9:21 sorceries= φαρμακειῶν pharmakeiwn)
Even if it was not the mark of the beast, the fact that the reason people took it was not rational but bowing down to a bullying government that broke the Nuremberg code and coerced their citizens to take experimental medicines against their own consciences still needs to be faced and repented of by Christians, I believe, if psychological and physical healing in those who bowed down to this idol is to take place. (Note: that Astra Zeneca too was experimental is proven by the fact that it was still under EUA approval in the US, the side effects were not known and were far worse than anybody expected, and that the vaccine had not gone through the six to seven years of rigorous testing normally required for a new variety of traditional vaccine)
Just as one must renounce past submission to an abuser in cases of abuse, I believe Christians who took the vaccine against their conscience must repent fully of the decision to take the vaccine against their consciences, in order to rebuild their faith on the rock to Whom we all should have clung, as a church, at the time, that is, Jesus Christ, instead of putting our trust in princes and the sons of men.
As Christians the only thing we have to boast in, is the cross of Christ. Our ministries, our employment, our income, our freedom, are not grounds for boasting, but are the skubalon (sh*t) Paul talks of in Philippians 3:8 - in other words, everything apart from the cross - these things were not worth condemning the cross of Christ for by submitting to a public ceremony of State righteousness allowing access to the ability to buy and sell. We must not sacrifice our consciences, in other words: this is not the true sacrifice of the cross of Christ.
Did no one think God would provide ministries, employment, income, and freedom to replace those things that were lost? This whole episode is yet another disgrace on the face of Christ, that the church in the West has put there by cowardice and compliance when courage and conviction were called for.
Thank you.