Perhaps no Christian should have taken the vaccine.
Paul's passage about food sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians 8.
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, she is known by God.
Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. 1Cor. 8:1 -13
In the Christian churches the issue of Covid vaccination / anti-Covid vaccination became a stumbling block and a point of division for many people.
One of the accusations levelled against so-called anti-vaxxers, many of whom were fully in favour of vaccination until the mRNA vaccines came along, was that they were being superstitious or irrational. This is perhaps because one of the arguments used particularly by some Pentecostals and many indigenous Christians in Western Australia was that the mRNA vaccines were a form of Satanic idol worship.
This argument in the minds of many people was also conflated with the different argument that the mRNA vaccines were new technology and that it was superstitious Luddite behaviour to refuse to use technology that had been proven to be safe; i.e. you can trust the government, don’t be anti-Science, etc, as if we were saying man will never be able to fly like the bishop who happened to be the uncle of the Wright Brothers.
For many more educated Christians, though, it became an issue of conscience. For me, the issue that we were being coerced into taking the vaccine, “medical conscription” being something that is expressly against the Australian Constitution, made this into an issue of conscience.
“Well, why don’t you take it to keep your job?” people would say. “It’s only a shot in the arm.” “Don’t be afraid.” Though I might have found it hard to articulate at the time, my answer in the end was, “It’s against my conscience.”
A common answer the pro-shot Christians made was, “Why make a stand on this hill? Why die on this hill? It’s not the gospel.” Sadly, some of the people who said this to me are now disabled by myocarditis or other side effects, and can no longer do the jobs and ministries they valued so highly they were willing to take a jab they didn’t want to take, that they were coerced into taking.
The section I quoted above about food offered to idols makes it clear that the Christians who were worried about compromising their conscience in order to operate normally in the highly pagan and idolatrous Graeco-Roman society of the First Century were the ‘weaker’ Christians.
This appears to me to be analogous in some ways to the situation of those who wanted to refuse the vaccine on the grounds of conscience. If this analogy is correct, then just as no Christian ought to have eaten meat offered to idols, so also, no Christian ought to have taken the vaccine, on the grounds that their actions might tempt a ‘weaker’ Christian to take the vaccine against their conscience.
But here is how ingenious the evil worldly authorities were, in the end, and how well they deceived even the elect: for they made taking the vaccine into an issue of conscience also. People were told, if you don’t take the vaccine, then you are doing the wrong thing - we have to protect the elderly, by taking the shot (never mind that the average age of death for the coronavirus was 84, higher than the average life expectancy in Australia) And here we see the necessity of knowing the facts. When pastors don’t know the scientific facts, they are in danger of simply swallowing the propaganda (John Piper comes to mind. Facts are not irrelevant when it comes to spiritual matters - we are not gnostics). So we were told, we need to protect people by taking it, you’re socially irresponsible if you don’t take it.
To me this was analogous to being told, just do this one thing: offer incense and a prayer to the Emperor, it’s the socially responsible thing to do. Join in with the group.
And some people at church said and still say, “Well it’s your choice to take it or not to take it,” but I in my naivety I tended to take that statement at face value.
But I realise now from the cryptic little underhanded comments that the unspoken message from some of those people was and still is, “It’s your choice, but you are being selfish and superstitious and antisocial and you don’t value Science, and you’re really refusing a little shot in the arm because you’re really just afraid of a little pain and actually you don’t care about spreading the virus to the old people in the church, and that’s what forced us to stay home from church for six months. For it’s your fault the elderly had to stay home, because you unclean unvaccinated people were going to spread the virus to us. So you deserved it when you lost three months of income. All your scientific objections are just self-justification for refusing a few seconds of pain.” Well I took the flu shot last year, so I could visit my friend in a nursing home, so that’s not true.
And this is the very point where taking the vaccine really was idolatrous, I believe; for many frail and old people in our churches were more concerned about their own safety than about obeying the Biblical injunction to meet together. The Zoom calls were a poor substitute. They were fearful of catching the virus from the unvaccinated - and it turns out the vaccinated spread the virus just as much, in the end. All that was really necessary was for people to stay home if they had symptoms.
And I don’t know any old people who died from the virus. But I did know several people at least who died from the vaccine, and quite a lot more who are injured.
It also became an issue of trusting the government, trusting the State, indeed, I was explicitly told, “It’s our duty as Christians to trust the government.” If anyone can tell me where it says this in the Bible, I will be amazed, because actually the Bible says, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God” Psalm 146:3-5. And to a large degree I trusted Jesus to save me from the Coronavirus, though let’s face it, I also trusted the peer-reviewed medical science that says Ivermectin plus Zinc, Vitamin D and Vitamin C is a good treatment.
More so, I trusted Jesus to deliver me from the consequences of not taking the shot, and he did indeed do that. Indeed, I was far more worried and fearful of the overreach of government and the consequences for my freedom of resisting this injustice.
Do I have it backwards, though?
Looking at the Corinthians passage, someone might argue, though, that those who were in favour of taking the vaccines were the ‘weak in conscience’ because they felt bound by their conscience and their duty to take the vaccine. But if that is the case I know of no person at all who refused the vaccine despite feeling conscience bound to take it because of someone else’s example (as per someone who eats food offered to idols) and who then suffered pangs of conscience (as if they had done something idolatrous by not taking the vaccine.)
Well, no one except for me. I found it incredibly difficult to trust God that I was making the right decision, particularly when so many others were making the opposite decision; and then there is the pastor who once said to me that Christians should be ‘sheep to slaughter’ - if the vaccine kills us and the government commands us to take it, we should take it.
What seemed wrong about this attitude at the time, though, was that it seemed far easier to take the vaccine than not to take it. To frame the easier path, the world-friendly path, as the sacrificial path, seemed wrong then, and seems wrong now. At least those on the other side should acknowledge that choosing not to take the vaccine was a sacrificial, world-denying path; but here we see the clever bind the State put us into, of forcing us to choose between significant competing obligations.
So why as a whole church were we not fasting and praying about this?
The people I knew whose consciences were offended and who eventually folded, were always those who were coerced into taking the shot by the threats the State was making against our income, our ability to move freely, and so forth; something that is more serious, in fact, than simply choosing not to eat meat out of an issue of conscience.
And this coercion was often framed by government rhetoric as an issue of free choice, which was a complete lie and when our Christian Prime Minister Scott Morrison spouted this opinion I was completely disgusted at his unChristian dishonesty. Indeed, I know many Christians whose consciences told them not to take the vaccine, and who then took it against their conscience, while being encouraged to do so by other Christians to save their jobs, etc. In which cases, Paul seems to say, their souls were in danger. It seems that, to Paul, to follow one’s conscience is more important than the facts: even if we were wrong about the vaccine and the coercion being evil, it was more important in God’s sight for us to follow our consciences in this matter, even if we were wrong.
Going back to my first point, though: one of the accusations levelled against so called anti-vaxxers, many of whom were fully in favour of vaccination until the mRNA vaccines came along, was that they were being superstitious or irrational. And this is precisely the accusation levelled against those who refused to eat meat sacrificed to idols; they were being irrational, we have superior knowledge now, the idols don’t exist, you don’t have to worry, come and join us at the meat market in the temple.
I submit this point for consideration: following St Paul’s advice, no Christian, therefore, ought to have gotten vaccinated, lest they offend the consciences of their ‘weaker’ brethren, who might therefore have been tempted to offend against their conscience. Instead, these Christians who had tender consciences were overtly pressured by other Christians into taking the shot.
Kindness from the deceived.
Yet moments of strange kindness come to mind as well - a pro-vax friend from church and offered to go with me to get vaccinated, to hold my hand effectively, out of genuine kindness, actually, because he thought I was motivated simply by fear of a jab.
He was completely deceived, and completely genuine in his love and kindness. So might a Jew in World War II have offered to hold the hand of someone going in to the gas chambers, saying, “Don’t worry, they’re just going to give us a treatment for the lice epidemic in the camp.” And, “Don’t worry, the government has our best interests at heart.”
This man was the best example of the pro-vaxxer, and his Christian character in my opinion is unimpeachable. He is in no way to blame for being deceived.
Stubborn anti-social tendencies.
Refusing the shot was a gut instinct for me - I have been in situations in the past where I was pressured and have never regretted saying no.
It felt like the time when a friend of mine who was a drug addict tried to pressure me into being guarantor for his loan; I refused, but in that moment I found his arguments highly compelling that I should do this out of friendship. It felt like the time a salesman was putting the hard word on me for some purchase or other, and I refused and eventually threw him out of my house.
It felt like the time in Primary School when everyone in the class was picking on some poor weak kid who had become the latest scapegoat of the group, and they tried to pressure me into joining in on the persecution, because it was my duty to join in with the group - nobody said this, of course, but it was an implicit, unstated fact, that I was being disloyal to the group by not joining in on the mockery and bullying.
Yes, this was what it was like.
This social pressure was not, however, something that went on for a few minutes or a few hours. It went on for six months. When people tell us that it’s time to go back to normal, I think they might consider this fact. It was highly traumatising to feel that one is being disloyal to the group.
C.S.Lewis’ statement comes to mind; “When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.”
Anyhow, what I did say at the time was something like: “They have never made mRNA shots work in the past. This vaccine could not have passed the safety checks because it is an experimental medical technology and it normally takes twelve years and three phases of trials to approve such medicines; and the third trial should be a longitudinal study - this trial could not have been done in one year. And the government has suppressed ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, both cheap medicines for which there is plenty of scientific evidence that they work. And the vaccine seems to be causing myocarditis, and does not seem to be protecting people anyway from catching or passing on the virus. And there are many apparent side effects and in testing an experimental medication every side effect is normally assumed to be caused by the medication.”
And every single one of these assertions was proven true.
And I was very concerned about it all, not for my own safety, but for everyone’s safety. I really believed it was incredibly dangerous to take the vaccine, and I tried to warn them, but so few people listened. I refused to take it in the end because I realised someone had to refuse it, so that everyone else knew that they could refuse it.
In other words, my main point was, “We are being coerced into taking an experimental medication.”
It was clear at the time that the whole debacle was against the Nuremberg protocols and the Australian constitution, whatever two or three pathetically short-sighted judges might still be saying, who, like the Nazi lawmakers in the 1930s, concentrate on the narrow letter of the law and the right of the state to make such evil laws, and not the larger picture of human rights. And whatever some clergy may say, who appear to be more afraid of being labelled luddites or being accused of being against the Science than they are of offending God’s majesty. For Science is indeed the great idol of our age. (Thank God the Science is retiring in December.)
Where are we at now?
I wondered briefly if we are now in the phase following Shadrach, Meshach and Abednago’s refusal to worship the statue? Who knows how the rest of the Jewish community in Babylon reacted to their deliverance? God had delivered these three faithful Jews from the consequences of disobeying the government, and thereby put the seal of his approval on their refusal to disobey their own conscience.
God delivered the unvaccinated from having no income, despite no one in the church services praying for those who refused the vaccine or helping them financially (apart from in the group of un-vaxxed people). No one prayed for the un-vaxxed at the time in the general church service; the implication was that we deserved to lose our income because we were doing the wrong thing.
Still today the church community does not pray for those doctors and nurses who are still out of work because of refusing to recommend the vaccine against their conscience. The church prays for those who have been injured by the vaccines, individually, but not as a group.
I remember a minister once said to me, “I feel like the people who are refusing the vaccine think they’re better than the rest of us.”
They probably said that about Shadrach Meshach and Abednago, too.
I suppose the other Jews at the time might have said, why do we feel our prayers are going nowhere? Why is there no revival? Why are there no visions? Well at this point, if they wanted to have their prayers answered and their fellowship renewed with God, the Jewish community in the time of Daniel probably had to examine themselves, to ask themselves, maybe we should have refused to worship the statue too? Do we need to repent? Were we deceived?
But they probably didn’t think this way.
They probably said, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednago just think they’re better than we are.
The time of the Holocaust
But maybe the Daniel analogy is wrong.
A better analogy is probably with the Jews in the time of the holocaust. The Jewish communities were completely deceived into collaborating with their persecutors. Many Jewish people thought it was for the best, and criticised those who failed to obey the government.
Perhaps I should not blame my Christian brothers and sisters who have been deceived by this whole debacle. It’s not their fault that the science that was once trustworthy because of the actions of many scientists in a more conscientious age who cared about the minutae of honest experimentation and self-doubting examination of real world data and the careful application of peer review under the auspices of a university system that supported pure research has now turned into the Faucian Science that is the manipulation and lies of the trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry and the eugenically driven foundations and forums and a university system that is driven by the necessity of getting grants and financial support from those very organisations.
It’s not my brothers’ and sisters’ fault that they have been lied to and manipulated and deceived.
Praying Together for Unity
In any case, I think a sign that the issue of vaccine mandates and coercion is the most important issue for church unity at this time in history in Western countries, is precisely that we are being told not to bring it up, not to talk about it, and even not to pray about it in group settings, because it causes division. It causes even more division than the issue of gay clergy, in the Anglican church.
I think it’s time for us to pray, despite our differences in opinion, for unity and healing of the divisions this issue has brought into our fellowship, for healing of those who were injured by the vaccines and the mandates, for those who lost their jobs for refusing to get vaccinated, and particularly to pray those who were fired by their Christian employers, because these employers feared a fine, for repentance and forgiveness, and specifically for God’s guidance and for Jesus to free the Body of Christ from the deception of the world. And, an addendum that I added later, for those who got vaccinated and then were rejected by their families who were anti-vaccine; yes, this happened, I know one person that this happened to.
All the corporate prayers thus far that I have heard have been, “help the nurses and doctors and the hospitals” (who are killing people) and not once have I heard, “help the nurses and doctors who are out of their jobs by reason of their conscience.” (i.e. the ones who are not killing people.)
The prayers have been, “help the government,” (and rightly so) but not once have I heard, “help those who are opposing the government.” If the anti-vaxxers are zealots, at least pray for them to be shown the truth and come to Christ - but in fact, most of them are already Christians. If they were not, they would have taken up arms, I think. I suppose the churches in the time of slavery did not pray for the anti-slavery campaigners either.
And to those Christians who refuse to pray for those who lost their jobs for refusing to get vaccinated, may I suggest you ask yourself why not? You would pray for those in prison, you would pray for someone who defrauded people, you would even pray for a convicted murderer, but somehow someone who lost their job for refusing to get vaccinated is unworthy of your prayers, because they are so wrong? Maybe what is wrong here is not what is wrong with them.
Perhaps it is time for our churches to fast and pray about this issue specifically, in order to seek the Lord’s will, even this late in the piece, because if there is anything that we as Christians are not able to pray about or talk about together, might that not be because it is actually an issue that is very important? Might not the fact that we are not praying about it together be a sign that certain powers are specifically trying to keep us from praying about it?
Might it not be because certain powers are specifically trying to prevent us from having the unity of Christ in this issue?
Great testimony, personally I ask people to define what they think a "Vaccine" is and if they are aware that the medical definition was changed in Aug/Sep last year(2021) after they promised that this drug treatment would 'stop the virus in its tracks' and 'keep Grandma safe' and after a few short months the true realisation that neither of these things were in fact true and hence a new line of deception wa used "if you take the jab you and you get the virus it won't be as severe" (really how do they test that).
The more correct term would be 'Drug Treatment', it MIGHT reduce symptoms (like the advertising for the multi billion dollar cold/flu remedies) as your article point to the deception by many the word play on vaccine to induce fear bound choices, not informed ones.
I was more impacted by the choice that God the Father gave me when He adopted me as a Son, that "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7