What Emily Oster's attitude shows...

I’m looking at Emily Oster’s latest article in the Atlantic magazine (and by the way it’s not Melinda Gates, Bill Gates’ ex, who owns the magazine, as some were saying, but deceased Apple founder Steve Jobs’ wife Laurene Powell Jobs. Or at least as far as I can tell. Nevertheless it’s a small club and you ain’t in it; Bill and Melinda have both written articles for the Atlantic and have even made grants to the magazine in the realm of half a million).

Ms. Oster’s article is recommending that everyone should forgive the foolish things people said and did during the pandemic.

Ms. Oster begins her article by describing an embarrassing faux-pas committed by her 4-year old son, no one could possibly blame a child that age anyhow; an ingenuous rhetorical technique for deflecting responsibility from herself, although it was probably the many overheard conversations of the adults around him that would have implanted this attitude.

In April 2020, with nothing else to do, my family took an enormous number of hikes. We all wore cloth masks that I had made myself. We had a family hand signal, which the person in the front would use if someone was approaching on the trail and we needed to put on our masks.  Once, when another child got too close to my then-4-year-old son on a bridge, he yelled at her “SOCIAL DISTANCING!”

These precautions were totally misguided. In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking. Outdoor transmission was vanishingly rare. Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. But the thing is: We didn’t know.

Of course the boy may not thank her for this story when he’s in his twenties, which is also when the reckoning may well have already taken place that she fears.

But Emily Oster’s article, in my opinion, is taking the whole wrong approach.

Recommending that people forgive is a little insensitive, if you’re not the one who has been wronged. On the other hand, it is a very noble thing to ask everyone to forgive a wrongdoer, if you were the one who was harmed. And Ms. Oster seems at one stage to have suffered being labelled an anti-vaxxer for some perceived politically incorrect tweet or something.

But if you are the one who caused the harm, it comes across as slightly self-serving to recommend forgiveness after the fact. And unfortunately, she is not in a completely unambiguous position in that respect.

Considering this, let me suggest that there is a wiser approach Ms. Oster might take.

The attitude she might take is slightly more humble: “I’m sorry for what I said and did during the pandemic, that may have harmed or killed people, or unborn babies.”

Particularly when in January 2021, Emily Oster recommended pregnant women take the jab.

She began her interview in InStyle magazine by admitting that there really was no data about the mRNA injections’ effect on pregnant women.

But, economist Emily Oster, PhD, tells InStyle, "a lot of pregnant people have expressed to me that they don't want that decision to be on them. They just want their doctor to tell them what is safe." Without hard evidence, doctors are left with something more like 'it's most likely fine.'

But by the end of the article she was saying, well, actually that doesn’t matter really –in fact, rather comically, she says people should either 1) put off conceiving if you want and take the vaccine now if you feel like it or 2) take the vaccine now, if you’re eager not to miss your shot.

That’s your two choices, Ms. Oster said, in January 2021: 1) take the vaccine now or 2) take the vaccine now. It was a prime piece of clever rhetoric, when you examine it carefully, which was convincing people to do the right thing (assuming taking the vaccine was a divine imperative of some sort.) (I don’t see it in the Bible - I see, “Put not your trust in Princes.” Psalm 146:3 )

The data-minded Oster advises people to break down the decision and "articulate what you really see as the choice." When will you be eligible for the vaccine where you live? Does the type of work you do mean you're exposed to a lot of people, or is it easy to stay home and socially distance? Then, ultimately, what will waiting mean for your plans? If putting off trying to conceive six months doesn't matter, and getting the vaccine beforehand will give you peace of mind, do it. On the other hand, if you're eager to not miss your shot, well, you'd be in good company there, too.

And then there’s this evidence-free tweet:

Now I am in favour forgiving people - as I have said before - and I really believe that Christians in particular need to forgive those like Emily Oster, who misled pregnant women into taking a vaccine for which there was no evidence at all about safety. And we should pray that people like Emily Oster will be reassured that their sins are forgiven, and that they will turn to God, through Jesus Christ, who loves all of us with an eternal love.

But her article shows me only that she has not really repented – at this stage, she hasn’t really changed her mind or admitted that she was wrong about anything.

And at the end of the day, however much we might forgive and pray for her, until God has given her grace to truly repent, Emily will not feel forgiven. She will still be in that place of uncertainty, that place of anxiety and churning, viz. Isaiah 57:18-20.

Christians, pray for Emily Oster, that she finds the peace of knowing her sins are forgiven through Christ Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. And pray that God’s Spirit will enlighten Ms. Oster’s mind and heart, so that she can turn to God in true repentance, without which no one can be saved.

Change Log

3 Nov 2022 added tweet.