October 7, 2024 • 41 mins
A podcast to help believers renew their minds and reform their hearts.
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Episode Transcript
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Welcome to the thinking tree, a podcast, help believers renew their minds and
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reform their hearts. I'm Adam Sanchez. And I'm Jeff No. And today we are
discussing COVID-19.
We're just hitting all the hot button. We are. Topics from the last few years.
Leave no stone unturned on these. So COVID-19, that was. What a time.
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What a time, right? There was probably the most unique season in our modern era of the whole world,
having shut down and so much that we can say we're going to talk about some of it.
But it was fascinating to see how Christians responded. And that's the main
emphasis of our episode today. So I know you have a lot to say, but here's the question.
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We'll start it off here. How should Christians think about that unique season of COVID-19?
And what does that mean for Christians in the future?
Ooh. Yeah, I'll go on record and say that this was, in my lifetime, this was really the first,
I think, big thing that Christians were tested with. And what a failure. In so many ways.
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Yeah, division, disunity, arguments, you know, Christian against Christian.
Yeah, we didn't handle it well. I think we did at Oak Hill, but that's a whole other thing.
But I think overall, I think it was a time of great confusion. And I think a lot of people,
a lot of people who are churchgoers were tested. You know, what do I really believe?
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And how much does the gathering of the saints matter? And am I fearful?
I think a lot of people were tested with fear, like, wow, could I catch this? Could I die?
And it was so, I think it was a hard time. I think we all struggled. I mean, I know some folks lost
friends and family. So I don't want to make light of it at all, because it was serious.
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But boy, we were tested. I just don't think we came through very well. So your question about the future
is a big one and a good one, because if something were to happen like that again, we need to do better.
We need to be better prepared. We need to learn. Yeah. Right.
Yeah, I think we could talk so much. We're trying to narrow it in to Christians.
There was this dynamic of how do we understand freedoms? How do we understand?
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And at a bigger picture, even beyond Christendom, how do we understand freedoms as people under a government?
How do we understand what government's reach is supposed to be? What their rules should be?
How far they should reach and where should they stop? And many societies were wrestling with this around the world.
Ours was unique, and that's where we're zeroed in on is what was it like for us here in the US?
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Other societies had different dynamics. But for us here, we had that playing in the background,
where everyone's trying to figure out what is the thing to do? What are my fears?
Believer and unbeliever wrestling with all of that. Right.
But then in the Christian world, like you're mentioning now, there's this extra layer,
this extra component of our Christian worldview that was put to the test. And you said we failed.
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Yes, many Christians, many churches failed the test of who they trust and who they love.
And not because we're trying to judge people, but just that general test, I think even well-meaning Christians
came through the time saying, wow, you know, when this started, I did not trust God the way I should have.
But by the time it finished, I trust him a lot more now. Yeah, that's great.
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And so I think saying that there were failures is not trying to say we had it figured out and we had
everything perfect. It's saying, no, I think a lot of people were tested and were scared on the front end.
Yes. And they, as Christians, we have to grow. There's only one way. Christians grow into the likeness of Christ.
Or they're not Christians. There's only one way. But the degree to which we grow, the pace that we grow,
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all of those things are unique. There were a lot of division during that time. I mean, speaking to
the pace of things, there were some Christians that arrived at a particular conviction very early on
and were saying we need to trust God. Even some songs we sing actually came out of that time
of trusting God even when things seemed to be wasting away. There's that dynamic though of some
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arrived early, some maybe arrived later, and then some never arrived. And this is why we need some
reflection about, well, how should we think about that time? If we were to look back down the
corridor of time, where were some of the errors? What were some of the difficulties? What are some
of the things we could give grace in? And then what would we advocate down the line? Because we look
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forward probably more government overreach, not less. That's what I'm imagining as the world
continues to grow and things really shrink border, shrink all of that. Just the nature of the world
and technological age, those kinds of things. I think looking back, here's how I would analyze it.
You could not ignore the early reports of what was happening, right? Because there was a lot of
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things happening before our eyes and we felt the weight of that, right? People were dying. We were
told all kinds of things by media. And the reality is discovering what's true and what are lies, it
does sometimes take time to let those things play out. So I think it's a good lesson for Christians.
We don't jump to conclusions, but we, so I thought for us, it was wise to be cautious at front.
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Ask the questions, what's really happening out there? Don't be blind. Search for data, look for
truth. Don't trust everything the government tells you, right? Because there's often agendas in that.
So, and by the way, use some common sense as well. That was one of the things that came out too, is
like, hold on a second. I mean, there's so many things, as the logic began to break down on what
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the government was asking us to do, that's when we started going, okay, we're starting to see what's
happening here. Yes, people are dying. Yes, it's more than just a flu bug. For people who are
compromised, for the elderly, this is a dangerous thing. So we should take it seriously. But the
mask thing and the thing for me was, you know, so do you remember going to restaurants? Yeah.
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Yeah. So you got to wear the mask when you check in and then you got to wear the mask when you order.
No, but when you get off, when you get to the table, you can take it off because the germs know
at that point, right? At some point you're like, okay, this is silly. The fact that the government
was saying, don't go outside. Don't go exercise outside. So if somebody goes out and paddle
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boards on a lake, we arrest them. Like that didn't make sense when only select businesses were being
closed, but not others, right? Or the government giving approval to go out and protest. Right? Do
you remember that? But you can't go to work, but you can go protest. So again, this was something
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that Christians probably could have done a better job at discerning. If you're just going to listen
to the authorities and all things, then you're lacking common sense. You're lacking biblical
discernment. So the logic began to break down. But look, I saw problems with both sides on this,
on both extremes. I saw some Christians saying, oh, it's nothing. Let's just get to…
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Be very dismissive.
Let's just gather. We're just going to gather. This is not, this is again, this is a cold. This
is the flu. And I thought that showed a lack of wisdom, especially if they were doing it early on.
Then there was more on the other side that we're saying we can, basically we can never get together
again. We just have to live stream for years and years and years and that's fine. So, you know,
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and the idea of that we don't need really the gathering so much. We don't need spiritual care.
We just need to stay locked in our homes because the government says so. So there was a lot of,
I think, lack of discernment and lack of strong sense of searching for data and truth and using
common sense. And again, I thought at Oak Hill, we thought about it a lot. We communicated well
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with our church family. We were, I think, cautious enough on the front end to try to figure out what
was going on, but then we weren't blindly just receiving all the government input. So it's a
tough thing, but we should learn. So if it happens again, we should do better than this.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting time in reflection where even today, you know, I'm
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pay attention to a bit of the psychological world, those kinds of things, just in the nature of
bill counseling and whatnot. And today it's very interesting. And I think this is this connects to
COVID-19 in the season we had the constant theme was trust the science, trust the science, trust
science, trust science. That was the mantra that they kept pushing down our throats, whether we
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wanted to or not. And I don't hate science as a thing. I don't think science is inherently wicked
and evil. I think some of it can be when it's used maliciously to try to promote a worldview and not
actually promote truth. It's like that can happen, but that kind of anything can do that to a degree.
But that was a constant mantra, trust the science that they kept telling us. But like you mentioned,
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there was this wrestle match we were having with common sense. So there's this, you know, trust the
data, trust the science, but we're not testing by what is just rational and reasonable. What is common,
you know, but as a joke goes, you know, common sense, you know, it really should be common,
but it really is uncommon, right? Right. Not very common. So there is that dynamic where science
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didn't in the corridor of time, it did not prove to be what they thought it meant to be.
And today, just connecting that to something in psychiatry and psychology in general today,
there's a great pushback currently from people that are secular psychologists and psychiatrists,
and even professing believers who have been in that world saying, you know what, everything,
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not everything that we promoted to be scientific and true is actually measurable and verifiable.
And so that pushback of saying, hey, can we really measure this and what really is true and where is
the line? And can we be okay with some form of we don't know, that we don't know everything,
we're going to do our best, but we don't know everything. I've actually been very encouraged
by some unbelievers, crazy thing enough, but encouraged by some unbelievers who are questioning
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their whole learning system and not throwing away, you know, I'd love them to trust in Jesus,
not to trust in science or other things, but they're not buying everything hook, line and
sinker. And I do think that it goes along with this season. So I think there's a
meritable outcome where we look back and say, huh, it's good that we were told trust the science,
but now we can say, huh, should we have trusted everything? I think there's goodness even in God's
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providence for us to look back now and say, don't take everything. Yeah. And you know what? One of
the things that was exposed, and I think you and I knew this before COVID, but more people saw,
was that science has a bias and there's money to be made in pushing certain sciences, right? And
anybody that knows the university system knows that that's true. You get funding based on what
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your positions are and are they going to line up with the right people? So it's always been that
way. So yeah, so maybe an unbeliever might look at that and go, oh gosh, let me think about this.
So wait, evolution was pushed down my throat and I was told I can't question it, huh? I wonder why
I wonder why that is. Maybe I should think about that. Maybe I should rethink that. So, you know,
they call this being red-pilled, right? I got red-pilled on science. You know, maybe, you know
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what, maybe scientists aren't always, maybe just because they're wearing a lab coat doesn't mean I
should trust them. Right. And I do think that that's healthy. Yeah. I think the danger in our modern
society has been that we've taken anyone with a title and said everything they say must be right.
Now, the funny thing is we never do that with pastors. And I don't say that to be self-serving.
That's really personal. Thank you.
That's the reality, right? We don't say they said this therefore must be true.
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And especially when we say, but God's word says it, right? It's not my word, it's God's word.
But they do that with, you know, doctors in lab coats, right? They have the white coat,
therefore they must be trusted. They have the MD after their name, the PhD after their name.
There's, there's, and obviously the PhD is not a medical degree, but just something, it's a title.
It's something that's important. And people listen to those supposed titles. Our last episode was on
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the nature of popularity, whether they're popular because they have a platform or popular because
they have a title. You know, they have, they have the education, you know, to go back on,
not to delegitimize the nature of education, but I think we should,
we talked about this last time, be Bereans. That's right.
Test things by the word. Yeah.
Just because someone has MD after their name or they've been a scientist for 30 years. Bill Nye,
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right? The science guy. I grew up watching him when I was a kid. That guy is a, is an unbeliever.
All right. He is rampantly hating God all the time,
advocates for, for nothing other than nihilism. Like he's a crazy guy. He's not a scientist,
right? And then there's that. He was entertaining as a kid, you know, watch some of those experiments.
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When we think about that, man, should we really follow someone like that?
Yeah. Anyways, so we don't need to go down the rabbit hole. Let's talk about
the biblical responses to government mandates because there were Christian leaders who were
divided. You mentioned this division and last time we talked about kind of popular Christian
leaders and how their voices can be used. At times there were Christian leaders who were divided
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publicly and advocated publicly for different positions and even guilted people. We're going
to get to that in just a second. Yeah. But let us talk about this principle really quick.
Sure. Because I know we agree on this and this is what our elder team agreed on
wholeheartedly during the season. We agreed that we should always seek to obey the government
unless they encourage us to disobey God. Correct. That's the point at which we separate. We say,
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hey, if the government says don't obey God, we're going to say, sorry, we're going to obey God,
not man. Yeah. Paul's clear about that. We should strive to be a good citizen of the country that
we live in and obey the government if we possibly can. But that doesn't mean check your brain at
the door. Correct. Or don't doubt people who you know may not be on the up and up. They may have
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an agenda. There may be something else going on. We start with the position of saying, hey, we want
to follow. We don't want to be this thorn in the side. If you're not asking me to disobey God,
I'm going to consider it. But then like you noted, we're still going to think critically.
As believers, we're going to think critically because we're recognizing this is a secular
government who does not trust God like we do. Right. This is a secular government that doesn't
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know Jesus Christ. Right. This is a secular government that's just looking out for a very
humanistic approach to life that has no concern for eternal things. Right. So we're not going to
just do whatever they say. Right. But we're going to test what they say and say, how can I do this
to the glory of God? Right. And if I can't, then that's going to be the distinction point.
But like you said, we don't just do a tacit endorsement of anything that they say as long as,
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oh, it's not compromising my Christian testimony. No, we're still going to take it critically and
think through it so that we're not just mindless robots doing whatever government says as long as
it doesn't break one of the 10 commandments. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And especially
when policies affect the church, we've got to weigh things very, very carefully. Yeah. When
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things are being said, and they were during COVID. They were. That's why we're talking about this.
Yeah. They were saying churches can't meet things of that nature. And so we look at those things with
even more scrutiny. And then we look at the example that we have of Peter and John in Acts 5, where
they said, sorry, we have to obey God rather than men. Yeah. But that's going to be a fairly rare
situation because most of the time they're not weighing into church things. But when they do,
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we have got to, we can't just go, oh, yes, sir, whatever you say, sir, because no, God says no,
you need to gather. And that was the issue, right? Yeah. During this time. So here was the rub. We
had these government mandates that were telling us we couldn't gather. Right. That it was unsafe.
You go to Home Depot, hundreds of people can be there. You can go to Sam's Club, you can be there.
But you cannot go to church. Right. You can't hang out with church together. Even if you're
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distanced, you can't do it. Right. And that was part of the insanity. Yeah. That we said, whoa,
you can't be saying yes to these other things. Right. And no to this. Yeah. And then we're
hearing the yes to protest, but you can't go out and exercise by yourself when you're 100 yards
away from the nearest human. So there was a lot of things like that. But where it really became a
rub, and you talked about us failing the test, is when we had Christian leaders. So these are people
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that had some kind of a voice, a platform, who promoted this government mandate as a biblical
imperative. Yes. What we mean by that, and I know you have thoughts on this, but that imperative
is a command. And so they said, whatever the government is mandating here, this is part of
your love your neighbor mandate from the Lord. Right. Yeah. And if for the audience, this is
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really what we want to hone in on. Because this was, for you and I, as guys who pay attention
to what the so-called Christian leaders out there say, this was really disappointing and hard for us.
Because when you have guys that are clearly twisting Scripture and putting out a message that,
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you know, looking back on was absolutely wrong, by the way. But at the time, they said it with
great conviction and passion. And then we find out in this book that we're talking about,
Shepherd for Sale, that some of them were actually getting paid to take these positions,
which means they wrote these things. They took Scripture, applied it to it, twisted the meaning
of Scripture, and tried to make a biblical case for something that they knew was the company line
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that the government wanted them to promote. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You talk about your… And it's sad.
You talk about your compromise. So Romans 13 was being thrown at us, right? Always obey the
authorities. Love your neighbor was the big thing. They said, if you don't get vaxxed and then
boosted and boosted and boosted, you weren't loving your neighbor. That was the line. And
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what they were not taking into consideration at all was a freedom, freedom of conviction.
And I know we'll talk about that as well, but that's, that is a, an incredible, incredibly
important foundation for the Christian life. I know we'll get to that, but the idea that they
never thought to themselves, you know what? This vaccine got rushed through pretty quickly,
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hasn't really been tested. Most vaccines, you want a 10 year, you know, look at this thing.
And this thing got thrown through. Could it maybe not be the best for everybody? Right. And that
became the issue. Are we vaccine two and three year olds? Are we vaccine, uh, healthy young
athletes? Really? Is this, does this make sense? And maybe just maybe I would say to them that this
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vax was for some people was going to cause more harm than do good. And yet you're still pushing
it as love forcing them. Yeah. As, and the keyword is mandate. Yeah. Let's make sure we say that
really clearly. This wasn't them saying, Hey, think strongly about taking this. Cause this would be
loving your neighbor. They were saying, obey the government. We need a hundred percent compliance.
This is a mandate. Governments to mandating it. You must do it. This is how you love your neighbor.
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If you don't, you are in sin and that right there, right? Yeah. Because that's the logical end of a
mandate from, from on high is that if you're not following through, then it must be sin. Right.
And this is where, you know, this is where our bro, our blood begins to boil on this issue,
because there were Christian leaders who were putting people in a spot to say you do it this
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way or else, right. Or else God will judge you and you are in sin. And this is an issue of repentance.
That's a heavy thing to lay on people. Very, very, especially over an issue that is not in
the Bible, the way that they defined it to be. That's right. And we're not naming names here.
I'm going to name names, but we're not naming names for the sake of defaming people and
slandering them. We're naming names because these are things that they wrote and they have not backed
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off on. That's the thing. They haven't repented of this. Correct. Even though the data has shown
them to be dead wrong. Correct. Yeah. They have not come forward and said, you know what, I got this
wrong. This was not helpful to accuse other Christians of this. This was not the right take
on God's word, anything, not even a hint of remorse or regret. No humility at all. On that.
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So there's no sense of repentance there. And that's why we're naming names. It is not slander at this
point. These are positions that they took. And this is, I think, one of those clear moments,
we were talking last time about Christian leaders in media, one of those clear moments when you know
them by their fruit. And so when you see the bad smelling fruit, don't listen. Right. And for these
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ones here, I would say that, don't listen. So here's some of the names of individuals, Christian
leaders who said that it is a biblical imperative from scripture that you must either get vaccinated
or follow every rule of the government during COVID-19 the whole time, all the way till the end.
Lockdowns everything. Yeah. And so Ed Stetzer was one of them and he's been a prominent evangelical
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leader for decades. You know where he's at now, right? Well, I know where he's been. He's the new
president at Biola. Oh, fantastic. There you go. Yeah. I mean, I don't follow all the latest news,
but that's fun. You know, there's another story about somebody from Biola somewhere else, but
that's for another time. Another one is the current head of Christianity Today, the former head of the
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Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission from the SBC, Russell Moore. Russell Moore has,
he's written prolifically actually about this and was one of those, you mentioned, people who took
money for different things. He was funded in several different ways for several different
initiatives, including at Christianity Today over this issue. Another Moore, but not related,
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is Beth Moore. Beth Moore, prominent female professing Christian author who has been decades
teaching women and leading conferences, who has unapologetically said this was the right call to
love your neighbor and has held that line of saying that it absolutely would be sinful and that she
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can't see it any other way. And another one, you mentioned this guy's name in our last episode
about Christian leaders, but David French. David French, who's written a lot. He's an author. He's
not really known for being anything else. He's not known for being a pastor or anything like that,
but an author, Christian, professing Christian author who writes pretty fiercely most of the time.
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He rarely takes a position that is either A, non-controversial, or B, kind. He's known for
being snarky and sarcastic in the way that he writes and very vindictive. And so even during
this time was writing in a very snarky way towards believers with a different conviction
on the issue. So they had these hardline positions. So those are some of those who
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had the hardline positions. We do know that there were some, as Jeff noted, on the other end who had
more of a laissez-faire attitude, if we'll call it that, and may be unhelpful even at times
to have that kind of position. But within this camp, I do want to zero in because they were
writing more about this and there was funding there. Here's the one distinction on the other
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side, even if it wasn't the most helpful thing. And I would advocate that yes, there were times
when people were so, I hate all this, so there's devil may care attitude. That's not Christ-like
either. So that's an extreme that's not helpful, but there wasn't money behind it. That's true.
That's one big distinction is that that may be a position that there's some foolishness involved
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in being hardheaded that way, but it wasn't influenced by power and money. And so I do
think that there's a distinction there, not to split hairs, but just to point out the difference
on leaders who even promote such things getting some kind of benefit. There were churches at
segregated Redeemer Church actually in New York was one of the churches that segregated congregants
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according to vaccine status. And I use that word specifically segregation. They advocated for it.
Absolute violation of James 2 of favoritism. I mean, the sin of partiality, stunning to me
that they would do that. And publicly it wasn't something that they said quietly. They put it on
their website. They were shaming people. That's what they were doing. Yes. Saying if you're one
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of us, you're down here in the main area. If you're not, go up to the second story in the
mezzanine and you can be up there. There was a really hard situation. And I noted this one,
because I knew it before the book, but the IMB, so it's the missionary board from the SBC. So it's
their branch. They were forcing missionaries and family members who were 16 years and older
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to be vaccinated or to come off the field and lose their support. Oh, wow. So every,
every missionary family was impacted by this during that time that was sent out by the IMB.
And that was horrific to see this forced onto teens. And you mentioned young, healthy men,
young guys who were athletic and they're fit, and they're not the ones who are at risk.
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They're not the ones with the comorbidities and the other things they kept telling us about.
And yet they were forced to either do that. And then the parents had to consider, are we going
to do this to our children or are we going to come off the field and lose our support?
Yeah, it's terrible.
So these hardline positions, they created a lot of divisions. It wasn't just even a matter of
accusing sin, which it was bad enough, but then segregating believers and creating this kind of
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coercion and guilt tripping, and then even questioning, people, can we even serve God
where we've been 10, 20 years, but now we've got to make a decision. Or do we have a different
conscience position on this? And we would say that there were a lot of conscience issues. I mean,
for example, we talked about the vaccine. It was pushed through really quick, but fetal tissue,
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the dynamic of fetal tissue being used, there are so many questions. People didn't know how things
work. People didn't know how the vaccine was working, how it was made. So many questions
that were involved. One seemed to be okay. One wasn't. There were so many questions and the
information was not available. So for Christians to say, whoa, slow down, hold on, that's not a bad
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thing. But they were being forced to make a decision or lose a job, make a decision or lose
some kind of benefit. And wow, what a time. Terrible. I mean, just looking back, it's
mind boggling. Did we learn from it? That's going to be the key, right? Because this is not going
to be the last thing that we face. That's for sure. No, not even in America. So let's talk about what
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we can learn moving forward. And you have a lot of thoughts on this one. We talked about that
loving your neighbor principle that was brought for us. It was not defined biblically by those other
church leaders, supposed church leaders who were writing on it. They were writing on it based on
the math and science. We talked earlier about trust the science on those things and even the forcing
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of that vaccine. It was not biblical. Right. You know, God's Word talks a lot about using our
freedoms for the sake of righteousness. Right. God's Word is really clear about that. But God's Word
doesn't say you must do it exactly this way and this is what equals righteousness. Right. There's
actually a lot of freedom to do righteousness. That's the nature of righteousness. And so my
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thought, and I shared this with you when we were prepping for the episode, my thought is when it
comes to mandates, mandates that force you to do something, that is not Christ and Paul. Right.
Mandates to say you must do this. But things that encourage you to give up freedom, to say, hey,
I'm going to choose not to do something. That's different. So choosing to do something and being
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forced to do it this exact way that doesn't have, that doesn't pass the smell test for me. Right.
On the front end. I'm going to have questions. I got questions. I'm going to have questions about
that. But if the encouragement is, will you consider giving up this freedom? Yeah. Will you
consider not doing this? Yeah. Now that's something where I'm going to listen and say,
okay, let me think about this. Let me consider what that is. Those are some of my thoughts on
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the front end. Well, yeah. I mean, again, considering the position of these so-called Christian leaders
who were writing articles and really, again, you have people that are looking to them for guidance.
And so they're going to, they're, they're going to listen, right? The difference between saying, look,
here's what we suggest, humble yourself, sacrifice for the sake of others and do this to love them.
(28:36):
Okay, go ahead and you can build that case. I may still say, I don't agree. Right. Right. But you
can defend that, build, build that case and I'll look at it. I'm happy to look at that and then
talk to my congregation and give them my opinion and we can bat that around. It's a different thing
from saying, I am, get this, I am repping government coercion. That's what they were doing.
They were repping government coercion with, with a heavy thumb. Yeah. And look, so coming back to
(29:03):
what I just mentioned. Publicly, publicly, this was not even a private thing that they said, I feel,
I feel convicted about it. Yes. They were accusing other believers. Yeah. Coming back to the idea of,
of, of conscience, of freedom, the read Romans 14, right after Romans 13 obey the government,
the obey the authorities. You have Romans 14, which is this amazing chapter on the principles
(29:24):
of conscience. And it says, who are you to judge the servant of another to his own master? He stands
or falls. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. You, why do you judge your brother?
Why do you regard your brother with contempt, with contempt? And that's what was coming across
in a lot of those articles. I am judging you. Yeah. It was very snarky. I'm judging you with
(29:46):
great contempt if you don't do this. Really? Really? Without any cautions. I mean, that was
the thing, right? Without any cautions, without any data to back that up, without any sense of,
you know, common sense, do it. The government says so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, within that,
(30:06):
you talk about the coercion issue. I think about Christian leaders who made this an
essential issue. Right. Because that goes hand in hand with coercion. Right. They made a tertiary
issue or a secondary issue, an issue that's not salvific. Yeah. They made it a matter of first
importance. Yeah. So much so that they would even make fun of others, that they would be really
(30:26):
vicious online. Right. I mean, there was a lot of rough things that were written by some of these
authors that we just named. Right. They were very rude, you know, saying even Karen Swallow Pyer is
another one actually. I didn't name her, but now I did. She's another one who wrote very snarky
things about how she couldn't believe that there were, you know, these supposed Christians who
(30:48):
would not love their neighbor in such a way. Such viciousness. And I'm not using all the words that
they used. Right. They used words that were a lot less kind. But there was a lot of coercion
and pushing this issue as essential. But you gotta think, if something needs to be threatened to
pursue, then is it really that good? And we think about in terms of righteousness, and I think about
(31:09):
this in a counseling session when I'm with somebody, if I need to threaten them to pursue
goodness, something's wrong. Because instead, the motivation should be God's love. The motivation
should be thankfulness. The motivation should be caring for others because we've been cared for.
The motivation has to be beyond us. Right. But if the motivation is, well, I'm scared that I might
lose my job. I'm scared that I might lose my business license. I'm scared that I might lose
(31:32):
my insurance. I'm scared. If the motivation is fear, fear is a terrible motivator. Right. Right.
Now, let me see if I can connect a dot with something I said last episode. We talked about
the winsome movement, and people may have heard that and go, I'm not sure I know what that means.
They haven't listened to previous episodes because we've talked about it. But they're like,
what's wrong with being winsome? Here's where, if Karen Swallow prior were here, she'd probably say,
(31:56):
well, look, here's why I said those things. Because I want the church to be winsome for the world.
And if it's Christians that aren't getting vaxxed, well, then the world's going to look at us and say,
well, those aren't the good people. Those aren't the nice people. So she would force you and I
to compromise our principles, compromise our conscience, and take a shot that may not be good
for me so that we can appear to the world, who hates us, by the way, but we might appear winsome.
(32:22):
But the world, she thinks she's winning, she thinks she's winning the approval of the world.
Now, I don't know if she's a believer or not. I mean, that's the thing. But, but in her mind,
that's probably how she or David French would defend this. They say, well, we're trying to
come off as winsome. And again, it almost gets into this whole idea of sovereignty, right? They
really believe that somehow if we're just super nice to the world, the world will love us. But
(32:45):
we just talked about this in our last episode. The world hated Jesus. They're going to hate us. Now,
doesn't mean we want to be hateful people or we want to push people away, but we don't compromise
so that we can somehow win the approval of a world that hates us to begin with.
Yeah. But see, that's, that's, that's sort of the mind. And again, it's a different mindset than you
(33:05):
and I and those of us at Oak Hill, we approach every, everything in life. Well, it even brings
up that exact point brings up another issue biblically that is right next to this issue of
the world hates the world hates God, the world hates Jesus, the world hates us. Right next to
that is, is this principle where we know that in our messaging, because this is the nature of
(33:27):
Winston and our messaging, they're not supposed to love us because of our message. Right. Right.
They're supposed to love us because they are really come to know the love of God because they see
our love for one another. Right. That's what Jesus says. Right. They will know that you are mine.
Right. By your love for one another. Right. And yet these are the same supposed Christian leaders
who were biting and devouring other believers. Yeah. They weren't writing against unbelievers.
(33:51):
Right. They weren't writing against the world. They were writing against other brothers and
sisters, people that they probably imagined even in their congregations growing up in other churches,
they were writing against them believers. And so even in that principle, if you're going to be
winsome, I'm using my air quotes here, you're going to be winsome to that end. You're supposed
to be winsome by your love for other brothers. Right. Not by being critical. Appeasing to the
(34:15):
world and then hating your brother. Right. Right. It just is so backwards and there's so such a lack
of biblical integrity in all of it that it is frustrating that all of that continues to be
promoted. And I mean, to that end, there's a quote here from the author of this book,
Shepherds for Sale, and I thought it'd be pertinent for us to read because we're talking about
the nature of how we reflect and what this means for us in the future. But this is what the author
(34:38):
said in regards to the same things we're talking about, those Christian leaders who proposed and
pushed forward the government mandate agenda without apology, without regret. She said this,
I believe if those who use their positions of influence to unjustly burden and malign other
evangelicals would acknowledge the hurt they caused, they'd be surprised to discover how many of their
(34:59):
brothers and sisters are eager to at last put away resentment and anger. These leaders acted with
utmost certainty, yet they know now that they were wrong while those they were accusing of being
unloving were right. Refusing to say so suggests they have learned nothing and would do it all
over again. Yep. Yeah, that's a great quote. Yeah, they know now, looking back, they were wrong. And
(35:27):
all of us who were trying to be discerning and making good decisions for our family and not
jumping to just, you know, wrong conclusions, we were accused of things. But in the end, we were
right. Yeah, right to hold the position, right? Right to hold the line. To stand firm. It doesn't
mean that those who chose willingly in their own conscience and their own conviction to get the
(35:51):
vaccine were wicked and evil. We had the freedom. We had the freedom to choose. And in that choosing,
we weren't to judge. You mentioned the Romans 14 passage. We were not to hold each other in contempt
in that. But even if any of us made a mistake in it, we had the freedom to make the mistake,
to make the decision to go either way. But it wasn't a matter of us judging one another in it.
(36:14):
Right. That was the big thing. And that's what we see in hindsight. So, I mean, as I look forward
about what this means down the line, I see a lot of ditches. You know, oftentimes you talk about a
ditch to the left and the right. This one, I see a bunch of holes. It's not just the left or the
right. It's front and back and it's at every which side because I think it's really shaky ground
that we're on moving forward now as Christians. I don't just mean as the world. The world, yes,
(36:36):
the world buys a lot of things hook, line and sinker. But as Christians, we've bought some
lines from Christian leaders that have put us in a rough spot. And I'm not saying we did at Oak Hill
or necessarily the listeners did, but I mean, as a whole evangelicalism, whoo, it is, there's a
reason why we joke about it being evangelical-y fish. Right. Because it is shaky. And why we don't
even like the term anymore. We don't even buy the term. We're not even part of that whole movement.
(37:01):
Exactly. Yeah. That doesn't really have any bearing on us. But I think about a couple of ditches that
are here. One, I think about that hardliner who might be so discouraged by everything that occurred
by all of the accusations and all of the uncertainty and all of the trust the science that ended up
being false that they may say, you know what? I just don't want to do anything that they,
that they quote unquote government or Christian leaders ask me to do. I just want to be a rebel
(37:26):
for the sake of pushing against that because I can't trust it. So I think that's one ditch,
that's one danger and that moving forward. Yeah. And if you're spending too much time on social
media or watching Fox news or, you know, you're, you're, you're in an echo chamber where now
everything is a conspiracy and you're so cynical that, yeah, you're going to put yourself in a bad
(37:48):
spot. So be careful not to do that. Don't go into that ditch. Yeah. It's a dangerous spot to be.
Right. So yeah, don't be in that echo chamber. You need some other people that are going to bounce
you back and say, Hey, it's okay. Right. You know, yes, they may be crazy, but you don't need to be.
Yes. You don't need to be crazy. I think on, on the other side, we, we still may not have learned
(38:09):
and we may say, Oh yeah, but they were well-meaning. You mentioned the, the potential
swallow prior rebuttal, you know, what could have been said on her end. They may say, but shouldn't
we be loving? Couldn't that be the most loving thing? Couldn't that have been the best thing?
And again, we just want to give the caution, test it, test it. Does God's word say thou must
(38:33):
vaccinate? It doesn't. And I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm just saying God's word doesn't say that.
Right. But nor am I a vac. I'm neither. I'm, I'm a Christian. Sometimes I may choose that. I want
something. Sometimes I may say it's not the best thing. We have the freedom to choose that. It's
not an all or nothing kind of deal. My grandfather actually, this is a little quick story time.
(38:54):
My grandfather had polio. He's one of the last humans in America who had polio because the
vaccine, you know, came through and most kids, it just, it disappeared, but he had polio. He was in
a wheelchair for most of his life and, you know, emaciated, you know, arms and legs and all of that.
Uh, and his, his life was, was wrought with that. So it hit home for me, like the nature of a vaccine,
(39:18):
but that doesn't mean that I'm going to take every vaccine because when they even use a polio vaccine,
there were, there were dangers that were involved. And those are risks that parents took back then.
And I'm not going to look back and say you were right or wrong for doing it. My grandfather had
polio, the vaccine he didn't get, and he suffered through that. But you know, what he also did is
(39:39):
he taught my mom a lot of good lessons that she passed on to me. And so even in that hardship,
you know, I learned a lot. Like he was the type of guy who, even though he had the placard for,
uh, for, uh, the handicap sign, he said, well, yeah, but other people could be more immobile
than me. So I'm going to park further away because other people might need it more. That's cool.
And that was a great lesson that I learned growing up. So even through that hardship,
(40:02):
see, we can trust God with whatever choice we make in faith. We make the choice in faith and
then we can go that way. And what I would say to the Christian listening is no matter what choice
you make in anything, and this is anything, not just a vaccine, this is whether the government
says to do one thing or not, a mandate, we need to be biblically convicted. Our, our,
our convictions need to come from God's word. And then we need to be okay with whatever the
(40:24):
consequences are. And that's the thing we got to wrestle with is we need to be prepared.
If we stand our ground on something, we're not sinning in the midst of it, that we're not sinning
and standing our ground or not sinning in anger and all those things, but we take whatever
consequence comes when we're convicted. I must do this to honor God. Then we say, I must do this,
whatever, whatever comes. That's right. Yeah. So be prepared again for the next round, the next
(40:50):
challenge, the next test that comes, look back. That's why I think we're, we wanted to do this
episode because it does behove us to look back and say, okay, what do we mess up? What do we do?
What do we do right? And what have we learned? So the next round comes around, we get it right
this time. And I'm not looking forward to that. I know, right? But crazier things have happened
(41:11):
and the way that the world is oriented is very likely. So God willing, we will learn and we'll
probably talk more about this if something else comes up. Yeah. If something else comes up, we're
going to, you know, assuming we're able to record all of that, you know, we'll be back here. Body
will come together again. We'll shepherd them through it. Exactly. With God's power and strength
and the spirit will shepherd people through and we'll be okay. Cause God sovereign. Amen. Lord
(41:34):
willing will be lights, you know, a city set on a hill. That's right. Lights in the darkness.
All right. Well, it's been good talking on this hard subject listeners. We prayed this conversation
has helped you to renew your minds and reform your hearts and we'll catch you next time on the
thingy tree.
Welcome to the thinking tree, a podcast, help believers renew their minds and
(00:03):
reform their hearts. I'm Adam Sanchez. And I'm Jeff No. And today we are
discussing COVID-19.
We're just hitting all the hot button. We are. Topics from the last few years.
Leave no stone unturned on these. So COVID-19, that was. What a time.
(00:28):
What a time, right? There was probably the most unique season in our modern era of the whole world,
having shut down and so much that we can say we're going to talk about some of it.
But it was fascinating to see how Christians responded. And that's the main
emphasis of our episode today. So I know you have a lot to say, but here's the question.
(00:52):
We'll start it off here. How should Christians think about that unique season of COVID-19?
And what does that mean for Christians in the future?
Ooh. Yeah, I'll go on record and say that this was, in my lifetime, this was really the first,
I think, big thing that Christians were tested with. And what a failure. In so many ways.
(01:16):
Yeah, division, disunity, arguments, you know, Christian against Christian.
Yeah, we didn't handle it well. I think we did at Oak Hill, but that's a whole other thing.
But I think overall, I think it was a time of great confusion. And I think a lot of people,
a lot of people who are churchgoers were tested. You know, what do I really believe?
(01:41):
And how much does the gathering of the saints matter? And am I fearful?
I think a lot of people were tested with fear, like, wow, could I catch this? Could I die?
And it was so, I think it was a hard time. I think we all struggled. I mean, I know some folks lost
friends and family. So I don't want to make light of it at all, because it was serious.
(02:06):
But boy, we were tested. I just don't think we came through very well. So your question about the future
is a big one and a good one, because if something were to happen like that again, we need to do better.
We need to be better prepared. We need to learn. Yeah. Right.
Yeah, I think we could talk so much. We're trying to narrow it in to Christians.
There was this dynamic of how do we understand freedoms? How do we understand?
(02:33):
And at a bigger picture, even beyond Christendom, how do we understand freedoms as people under a government?
How do we understand what government's reach is supposed to be? What their rules should be?
How far they should reach and where should they stop? And many societies were wrestling with this around the world.
Ours was unique, and that's where we're zeroed in on is what was it like for us here in the US?
(02:54):
Other societies had different dynamics. But for us here, we had that playing in the background,
where everyone's trying to figure out what is the thing to do? What are my fears?
Believer and unbeliever wrestling with all of that. Right.
But then in the Christian world, like you're mentioning now, there's this extra layer,
this extra component of our Christian worldview that was put to the test. And you said we failed.
(03:15):
Yes, many Christians, many churches failed the test of who they trust and who they love.
And not because we're trying to judge people, but just that general test, I think even well-meaning Christians
came through the time saying, wow, you know, when this started, I did not trust God the way I should have.
But by the time it finished, I trust him a lot more now. Yeah, that's great.
(03:36):
And so I think saying that there were failures is not trying to say we had it figured out and we had
everything perfect. It's saying, no, I think a lot of people were tested and were scared on the front end.
Yes. And they, as Christians, we have to grow. There's only one way. Christians grow into the likeness of Christ.
Or they're not Christians. There's only one way. But the degree to which we grow, the pace that we grow,
(03:58):
all of those things are unique. There were a lot of division during that time. I mean, speaking to
the pace of things, there were some Christians that arrived at a particular conviction very early on
and were saying we need to trust God. Even some songs we sing actually came out of that time
of trusting God even when things seemed to be wasting away. There's that dynamic though of some
(04:21):
arrived early, some maybe arrived later, and then some never arrived. And this is why we need some
reflection about, well, how should we think about that time? If we were to look back down the
corridor of time, where were some of the errors? What were some of the difficulties? What are some
of the things we could give grace in? And then what would we advocate down the line? Because we look
(04:41):
forward probably more government overreach, not less. That's what I'm imagining as the world
continues to grow and things really shrink border, shrink all of that. Just the nature of the world
and technological age, those kinds of things. I think looking back, here's how I would analyze it.
You could not ignore the early reports of what was happening, right? Because there was a lot of
(05:05):
things happening before our eyes and we felt the weight of that, right? People were dying. We were
told all kinds of things by media. And the reality is discovering what's true and what are lies, it
does sometimes take time to let those things play out. So I think it's a good lesson for Christians.
We don't jump to conclusions, but we, so I thought for us, it was wise to be cautious at front.
(05:27):
Ask the questions, what's really happening out there? Don't be blind. Search for data, look for
truth. Don't trust everything the government tells you, right? Because there's often agendas in that.
So, and by the way, use some common sense as well. That was one of the things that came out too, is
like, hold on a second. I mean, there's so many things, as the logic began to break down on what
(05:51):
the government was asking us to do, that's when we started going, okay, we're starting to see what's
happening here. Yes, people are dying. Yes, it's more than just a flu bug. For people who are
compromised, for the elderly, this is a dangerous thing. So we should take it seriously. But the
mask thing and the thing for me was, you know, so do you remember going to restaurants? Yeah.
(06:13):
Yeah. So you got to wear the mask when you check in and then you got to wear the mask when you order.
No, but when you get off, when you get to the table, you can take it off because the germs know
at that point, right? At some point you're like, okay, this is silly. The fact that the government
was saying, don't go outside. Don't go exercise outside. So if somebody goes out and paddle
(06:34):
boards on a lake, we arrest them. Like that didn't make sense when only select businesses were being
closed, but not others, right? Or the government giving approval to go out and protest. Right? Do
you remember that? But you can't go to work, but you can go protest. So again, this was something
(06:54):
that Christians probably could have done a better job at discerning. If you're just going to listen
to the authorities and all things, then you're lacking common sense. You're lacking biblical
discernment. So the logic began to break down. But look, I saw problems with both sides on this,
on both extremes. I saw some Christians saying, oh, it's nothing. Let's just get to…
(07:20):
Be very dismissive.
Let's just gather. We're just going to gather. This is not, this is again, this is a cold. This
is the flu. And I thought that showed a lack of wisdom, especially if they were doing it early on.
Then there was more on the other side that we're saying we can, basically we can never get together
again. We just have to live stream for years and years and years and that's fine. So, you know,
(07:45):
and the idea of that we don't need really the gathering so much. We don't need spiritual care.
We just need to stay locked in our homes because the government says so. So there was a lot of,
I think, lack of discernment and lack of strong sense of searching for data and truth and using
common sense. And again, I thought at Oak Hill, we thought about it a lot. We communicated well
(08:07):
with our church family. We were, I think, cautious enough on the front end to try to figure out what
was going on, but then we weren't blindly just receiving all the government input. So it's a
tough thing, but we should learn. So if it happens again, we should do better than this.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting time in reflection where even today, you know, I'm
(08:28):
pay attention to a bit of the psychological world, those kinds of things, just in the nature of
bill counseling and whatnot. And today it's very interesting. And I think this is this connects to
COVID-19 in the season we had the constant theme was trust the science, trust the science, trust
science, trust science. That was the mantra that they kept pushing down our throats, whether we
(08:48):
wanted to or not. And I don't hate science as a thing. I don't think science is inherently wicked
and evil. I think some of it can be when it's used maliciously to try to promote a worldview and not
actually promote truth. It's like that can happen, but that kind of anything can do that to a degree.
But that was a constant mantra, trust the science that they kept telling us. But like you mentioned,
(09:11):
there was this wrestle match we were having with common sense. So there's this, you know, trust the
data, trust the science, but we're not testing by what is just rational and reasonable. What is common,
you know, but as a joke goes, you know, common sense, you know, it really should be common,
but it really is uncommon, right? Right. Not very common. So there is that dynamic where science
(09:35):
didn't in the corridor of time, it did not prove to be what they thought it meant to be.
And today, just connecting that to something in psychiatry and psychology in general today,
there's a great pushback currently from people that are secular psychologists and psychiatrists,
and even professing believers who have been in that world saying, you know what, everything,
(10:00):
not everything that we promoted to be scientific and true is actually measurable and verifiable.
And so that pushback of saying, hey, can we really measure this and what really is true and where is
the line? And can we be okay with some form of we don't know, that we don't know everything,
we're going to do our best, but we don't know everything. I've actually been very encouraged
by some unbelievers, crazy thing enough, but encouraged by some unbelievers who are questioning
(10:26):
their whole learning system and not throwing away, you know, I'd love them to trust in Jesus,
not to trust in science or other things, but they're not buying everything hook, line and
sinker. And I do think that it goes along with this season. So I think there's a
meritable outcome where we look back and say, huh, it's good that we were told trust the science,
but now we can say, huh, should we have trusted everything? I think there's goodness even in God's
(10:51):
providence for us to look back now and say, don't take everything. Yeah. And you know what? One of
the things that was exposed, and I think you and I knew this before COVID, but more people saw,
was that science has a bias and there's money to be made in pushing certain sciences, right? And
anybody that knows the university system knows that that's true. You get funding based on what
(11:15):
your positions are and are they going to line up with the right people? So it's always been that
way. So yeah, so maybe an unbeliever might look at that and go, oh gosh, let me think about this.
So wait, evolution was pushed down my throat and I was told I can't question it, huh? I wonder why
I wonder why that is. Maybe I should think about that. Maybe I should rethink that. So, you know,
they call this being red-pilled, right? I got red-pilled on science. You know, maybe, you know
(11:39):
what, maybe scientists aren't always, maybe just because they're wearing a lab coat doesn't mean I
should trust them. Right. And I do think that that's healthy. Yeah. I think the danger in our modern
society has been that we've taken anyone with a title and said everything they say must be right.
Now, the funny thing is we never do that with pastors. And I don't say that to be self-serving.
That's really personal. Thank you.
That's the reality, right? We don't say they said this therefore must be true.
(12:02):
And especially when we say, but God's word says it, right? It's not my word, it's God's word.
But they do that with, you know, doctors in lab coats, right? They have the white coat,
therefore they must be trusted. They have the MD after their name, the PhD after their name.
There's, there's, and obviously the PhD is not a medical degree, but just something, it's a title.
It's something that's important. And people listen to those supposed titles. Our last episode was on
(12:25):
the nature of popularity, whether they're popular because they have a platform or popular because
they have a title. You know, they have, they have the education, you know, to go back on,
not to delegitimize the nature of education, but I think we should,
we talked about this last time, be Bereans. That's right.
Test things by the word. Yeah.
Just because someone has MD after their name or they've been a scientist for 30 years. Bill Nye,
(12:48):
right? The science guy. I grew up watching him when I was a kid. That guy is a, is an unbeliever.
All right. He is rampantly hating God all the time,
advocates for, for nothing other than nihilism. Like he's a crazy guy. He's not a scientist,
right? And then there's that. He was entertaining as a kid, you know, watch some of those experiments.
(13:09):
When we think about that, man, should we really follow someone like that?
Yeah. Anyways, so we don't need to go down the rabbit hole. Let's talk about
the biblical responses to government mandates because there were Christian leaders who were
divided. You mentioned this division and last time we talked about kind of popular Christian
leaders and how their voices can be used. At times there were Christian leaders who were divided
(13:32):
publicly and advocated publicly for different positions and even guilted people. We're going
to get to that in just a second. Yeah. But let us talk about this principle really quick.
Sure. Because I know we agree on this and this is what our elder team agreed on
wholeheartedly during the season. We agreed that we should always seek to obey the government
unless they encourage us to disobey God. Correct. That's the point at which we separate. We say,
(13:58):
hey, if the government says don't obey God, we're going to say, sorry, we're going to obey God,
not man. Yeah. Paul's clear about that. We should strive to be a good citizen of the country that
we live in and obey the government if we possibly can. But that doesn't mean check your brain at
the door. Correct. Or don't doubt people who you know may not be on the up and up. They may have
(14:23):
an agenda. There may be something else going on. We start with the position of saying, hey, we want
to follow. We don't want to be this thorn in the side. If you're not asking me to disobey God,
I'm going to consider it. But then like you noted, we're still going to think critically.
As believers, we're going to think critically because we're recognizing this is a secular
government who does not trust God like we do. Right. This is a secular government that doesn't
(14:48):
know Jesus Christ. Right. This is a secular government that's just looking out for a very
humanistic approach to life that has no concern for eternal things. Right. So we're not going to
just do whatever they say. Right. But we're going to test what they say and say, how can I do this
to the glory of God? Right. And if I can't, then that's going to be the distinction point.
But like you said, we don't just do a tacit endorsement of anything that they say as long as,
(15:12):
oh, it's not compromising my Christian testimony. No, we're still going to take it critically and
think through it so that we're not just mindless robots doing whatever government says as long as
it doesn't break one of the 10 commandments. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And especially
when policies affect the church, we've got to weigh things very, very carefully. Yeah. When
(15:33):
things are being said, and they were during COVID. They were. That's why we're talking about this.
Yeah. They were saying churches can't meet things of that nature. And so we look at those things with
even more scrutiny. And then we look at the example that we have of Peter and John in Acts 5, where
they said, sorry, we have to obey God rather than men. Yeah. But that's going to be a fairly rare
situation because most of the time they're not weighing into church things. But when they do,
(15:57):
we have got to, we can't just go, oh, yes, sir, whatever you say, sir, because no, God says no,
you need to gather. And that was the issue, right? Yeah. During this time. So here was the rub. We
had these government mandates that were telling us we couldn't gather. Right. That it was unsafe.
You go to Home Depot, hundreds of people can be there. You can go to Sam's Club, you can be there.
But you cannot go to church. Right. You can't hang out with church together. Even if you're
(16:20):
distanced, you can't do it. Right. And that was part of the insanity. Yeah. That we said, whoa,
you can't be saying yes to these other things. Right. And no to this. Yeah. And then we're
hearing the yes to protest, but you can't go out and exercise by yourself when you're 100 yards
away from the nearest human. So there was a lot of things like that. But where it really became a
rub, and you talked about us failing the test, is when we had Christian leaders. So these are people
(16:45):
that had some kind of a voice, a platform, who promoted this government mandate as a biblical
imperative. Yes. What we mean by that, and I know you have thoughts on this, but that imperative
is a command. And so they said, whatever the government is mandating here, this is part of
your love your neighbor mandate from the Lord. Right. Yeah. And if for the audience, this is
(17:07):
really what we want to hone in on. Because this was, for you and I, as guys who pay attention
to what the so-called Christian leaders out there say, this was really disappointing and hard for us.
Because when you have guys that are clearly twisting Scripture and putting out a message that,
(17:29):
you know, looking back on was absolutely wrong, by the way. But at the time, they said it with
great conviction and passion. And then we find out in this book that we're talking about,
Shepherd for Sale, that some of them were actually getting paid to take these positions,
which means they wrote these things. They took Scripture, applied it to it, twisted the meaning
of Scripture, and tried to make a biblical case for something that they knew was the company line
(17:53):
that the government wanted them to promote. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You talk about your… And it's sad.
You talk about your compromise. So Romans 13 was being thrown at us, right? Always obey the
authorities. Love your neighbor was the big thing. They said, if you don't get vaxxed and then
boosted and boosted and boosted, you weren't loving your neighbor. That was the line. And
(18:15):
what they were not taking into consideration at all was a freedom, freedom of conviction.
And I know we'll talk about that as well, but that's, that is a, an incredible, incredibly
important foundation for the Christian life. I know we'll get to that, but the idea that they
never thought to themselves, you know what? This vaccine got rushed through pretty quickly,
(18:38):
hasn't really been tested. Most vaccines, you want a 10 year, you know, look at this thing.
And this thing got thrown through. Could it maybe not be the best for everybody? Right. And that
became the issue. Are we vaccine two and three year olds? Are we vaccine, uh, healthy young
athletes? Really? Is this, does this make sense? And maybe just maybe I would say to them that this
(19:04):
vax was for some people was going to cause more harm than do good. And yet you're still pushing
it as love forcing them. Yeah. As, and the keyword is mandate. Yeah. Let's make sure we say that
really clearly. This wasn't them saying, Hey, think strongly about taking this. Cause this would be
loving your neighbor. They were saying, obey the government. We need a hundred percent compliance.
This is a mandate. Governments to mandating it. You must do it. This is how you love your neighbor.
(19:29):
If you don't, you are in sin and that right there, right? Yeah. Because that's the logical end of a
mandate from, from on high is that if you're not following through, then it must be sin. Right.
And this is where, you know, this is where our bro, our blood begins to boil on this issue,
because there were Christian leaders who were putting people in a spot to say you do it this
(19:51):
way or else, right. Or else God will judge you and you are in sin. And this is an issue of repentance.
That's a heavy thing to lay on people. Very, very, especially over an issue that is not in
the Bible, the way that they defined it to be. That's right. And we're not naming names here.
I'm going to name names, but we're not naming names for the sake of defaming people and
slandering them. We're naming names because these are things that they wrote and they have not backed
(20:13):
off on. That's the thing. They haven't repented of this. Correct. Even though the data has shown
them to be dead wrong. Correct. Yeah. They have not come forward and said, you know what, I got this
wrong. This was not helpful to accuse other Christians of this. This was not the right take
on God's word, anything, not even a hint of remorse or regret. No humility at all. On that.
(20:34):
So there's no sense of repentance there. And that's why we're naming names. It is not slander at this
point. These are positions that they took. And this is, I think, one of those clear moments,
we were talking last time about Christian leaders in media, one of those clear moments when you know
them by their fruit. And so when you see the bad smelling fruit, don't listen. Right. And for these
(20:55):
ones here, I would say that, don't listen. So here's some of the names of individuals, Christian
leaders who said that it is a biblical imperative from scripture that you must either get vaccinated
or follow every rule of the government during COVID-19 the whole time, all the way till the end.
Lockdowns everything. Yeah. And so Ed Stetzer was one of them and he's been a prominent evangelical
(21:17):
leader for decades. You know where he's at now, right? Well, I know where he's been. He's the new
president at Biola. Oh, fantastic. There you go. Yeah. I mean, I don't follow all the latest news,
but that's fun. You know, there's another story about somebody from Biola somewhere else, but
that's for another time. Another one is the current head of Christianity Today, the former head of the
(21:41):
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission from the SBC, Russell Moore. Russell Moore has,
he's written prolifically actually about this and was one of those, you mentioned, people who took
money for different things. He was funded in several different ways for several different
initiatives, including at Christianity Today over this issue. Another Moore, but not related,
(22:02):
is Beth Moore. Beth Moore, prominent female professing Christian author who has been decades
teaching women and leading conferences, who has unapologetically said this was the right call to
love your neighbor and has held that line of saying that it absolutely would be sinful and that she
(22:24):
can't see it any other way. And another one, you mentioned this guy's name in our last episode
about Christian leaders, but David French. David French, who's written a lot. He's an author. He's
not really known for being anything else. He's not known for being a pastor or anything like that,
but an author, Christian, professing Christian author who writes pretty fiercely most of the time.
(22:46):
He rarely takes a position that is either A, non-controversial, or B, kind. He's known for
being snarky and sarcastic in the way that he writes and very vindictive. And so even during
this time was writing in a very snarky way towards believers with a different conviction
on the issue. So they had these hardline positions. So those are some of those who
(23:07):
had the hardline positions. We do know that there were some, as Jeff noted, on the other end who had
more of a laissez-faire attitude, if we'll call it that, and may be unhelpful even at times
to have that kind of position. But within this camp, I do want to zero in because they were
writing more about this and there was funding there. Here's the one distinction on the other
(23:28):
side, even if it wasn't the most helpful thing. And I would advocate that yes, there were times
when people were so, I hate all this, so there's devil may care attitude. That's not Christ-like
either. So that's an extreme that's not helpful, but there wasn't money behind it. That's true.
That's one big distinction is that that may be a position that there's some foolishness involved
(23:49):
in being hardheaded that way, but it wasn't influenced by power and money. And so I do
think that there's a distinction there, not to split hairs, but just to point out the difference
on leaders who even promote such things getting some kind of benefit. There were churches at
segregated Redeemer Church actually in New York was one of the churches that segregated congregants
(24:10):
according to vaccine status. And I use that word specifically segregation. They advocated for it.
Absolute violation of James 2 of favoritism. I mean, the sin of partiality, stunning to me
that they would do that. And publicly it wasn't something that they said quietly. They put it on
their website. They were shaming people. That's what they were doing. Yes. Saying if you're one
(24:34):
of us, you're down here in the main area. If you're not, go up to the second story in the
mezzanine and you can be up there. There was a really hard situation. And I noted this one,
because I knew it before the book, but the IMB, so it's the missionary board from the SBC. So it's
their branch. They were forcing missionaries and family members who were 16 years and older
(24:59):
to be vaccinated or to come off the field and lose their support. Oh, wow. So every,
every missionary family was impacted by this during that time that was sent out by the IMB.
And that was horrific to see this forced onto teens. And you mentioned young, healthy men,
young guys who were athletic and they're fit, and they're not the ones who are at risk.
(25:23):
They're not the ones with the comorbidities and the other things they kept telling us about.
And yet they were forced to either do that. And then the parents had to consider, are we going
to do this to our children or are we going to come off the field and lose our support?
Yeah, it's terrible.
So these hardline positions, they created a lot of divisions. It wasn't just even a matter of
accusing sin, which it was bad enough, but then segregating believers and creating this kind of
(25:44):
coercion and guilt tripping, and then even questioning, people, can we even serve God
where we've been 10, 20 years, but now we've got to make a decision. Or do we have a different
conscience position on this? And we would say that there were a lot of conscience issues. I mean,
for example, we talked about the vaccine. It was pushed through really quick, but fetal tissue,
(26:05):
the dynamic of fetal tissue being used, there are so many questions. People didn't know how things
work. People didn't know how the vaccine was working, how it was made. So many questions
that were involved. One seemed to be okay. One wasn't. There were so many questions and the
information was not available. So for Christians to say, whoa, slow down, hold on, that's not a bad
(26:25):
thing. But they were being forced to make a decision or lose a job, make a decision or lose
some kind of benefit. And wow, what a time. Terrible. I mean, just looking back, it's
mind boggling. Did we learn from it? That's going to be the key, right? Because this is not going
to be the last thing that we face. That's for sure. No, not even in America. So let's talk about what
(26:47):
we can learn moving forward. And you have a lot of thoughts on this one. We talked about that
loving your neighbor principle that was brought for us. It was not defined biblically by those other
church leaders, supposed church leaders who were writing on it. They were writing on it based on
the math and science. We talked earlier about trust the science on those things and even the forcing
(27:08):
of that vaccine. It was not biblical. Right. You know, God's Word talks a lot about using our
freedoms for the sake of righteousness. Right. God's Word is really clear about that. But God's Word
doesn't say you must do it exactly this way and this is what equals righteousness. Right. There's
actually a lot of freedom to do righteousness. That's the nature of righteousness. And so my
(27:30):
thought, and I shared this with you when we were prepping for the episode, my thought is when it
comes to mandates, mandates that force you to do something, that is not Christ and Paul. Right.
Mandates to say you must do this. But things that encourage you to give up freedom, to say, hey,
I'm going to choose not to do something. That's different. So choosing to do something and being
(27:54):
forced to do it this exact way that doesn't have, that doesn't pass the smell test for me. Right.
On the front end. I'm going to have questions. I got questions. I'm going to have questions about
that. But if the encouragement is, will you consider giving up this freedom? Yeah. Will you
consider not doing this? Yeah. Now that's something where I'm going to listen and say,
okay, let me think about this. Let me consider what that is. Those are some of my thoughts on
(28:15):
the front end. Well, yeah. I mean, again, considering the position of these so-called Christian leaders
who were writing articles and really, again, you have people that are looking to them for guidance.
And so they're going to, they're, they're going to listen, right? The difference between saying, look,
here's what we suggest, humble yourself, sacrifice for the sake of others and do this to love them.
(28:36):
Okay, go ahead and you can build that case. I may still say, I don't agree. Right. Right. But you
can defend that, build, build that case and I'll look at it. I'm happy to look at that and then
talk to my congregation and give them my opinion and we can bat that around. It's a different thing
from saying, I am, get this, I am repping government coercion. That's what they were doing.
They were repping government coercion with, with a heavy thumb. Yeah. And look, so coming back to
(29:03):
what I just mentioned. Publicly, publicly, this was not even a private thing that they said, I feel,
I feel convicted about it. Yes. They were accusing other believers. Yeah. Coming back to the idea of,
of, of conscience, of freedom, the read Romans 14, right after Romans 13 obey the government,
the obey the authorities. You have Romans 14, which is this amazing chapter on the principles
(29:24):
of conscience. And it says, who are you to judge the servant of another to his own master? He stands
or falls. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. You, why do you judge your brother?
Why do you regard your brother with contempt, with contempt? And that's what was coming across
in a lot of those articles. I am judging you. Yeah. It was very snarky. I'm judging you with
(29:46):
great contempt if you don't do this. Really? Really? Without any cautions. I mean, that was
the thing, right? Without any cautions, without any data to back that up, without any sense of,
you know, common sense, do it. The government says so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, within that,
(30:06):
you talk about the coercion issue. I think about Christian leaders who made this an
essential issue. Right. Because that goes hand in hand with coercion. Right. They made a tertiary
issue or a secondary issue, an issue that's not salvific. Yeah. They made it a matter of first
importance. Yeah. So much so that they would even make fun of others, that they would be really
(30:26):
vicious online. Right. I mean, there was a lot of rough things that were written by some of these
authors that we just named. Right. They were very rude, you know, saying even Karen Swallow Pyer is
another one actually. I didn't name her, but now I did. She's another one who wrote very snarky
things about how she couldn't believe that there were, you know, these supposed Christians who
(30:48):
would not love their neighbor in such a way. Such viciousness. And I'm not using all the words that
they used. Right. They used words that were a lot less kind. But there was a lot of coercion
and pushing this issue as essential. But you gotta think, if something needs to be threatened to
pursue, then is it really that good? And we think about in terms of righteousness, and I think about
(31:09):
this in a counseling session when I'm with somebody, if I need to threaten them to pursue
goodness, something's wrong. Because instead, the motivation should be God's love. The motivation
should be thankfulness. The motivation should be caring for others because we've been cared for.
The motivation has to be beyond us. Right. But if the motivation is, well, I'm scared that I might
lose my job. I'm scared that I might lose my business license. I'm scared that I might lose
(31:32):
my insurance. I'm scared. If the motivation is fear, fear is a terrible motivator. Right. Right.
Now, let me see if I can connect a dot with something I said last episode. We talked about
the winsome movement, and people may have heard that and go, I'm not sure I know what that means.
They haven't listened to previous episodes because we've talked about it. But they're like,
what's wrong with being winsome? Here's where, if Karen Swallow prior were here, she'd probably say,
(31:56):
well, look, here's why I said those things. Because I want the church to be winsome for the world.
And if it's Christians that aren't getting vaxxed, well, then the world's going to look at us and say,
well, those aren't the good people. Those aren't the nice people. So she would force you and I
to compromise our principles, compromise our conscience, and take a shot that may not be good
for me so that we can appear to the world, who hates us, by the way, but we might appear winsome.
(32:22):
But the world, she thinks she's winning, she thinks she's winning the approval of the world.
Now, I don't know if she's a believer or not. I mean, that's the thing. But, but in her mind,
that's probably how she or David French would defend this. They say, well, we're trying to
come off as winsome. And again, it almost gets into this whole idea of sovereignty, right? They
really believe that somehow if we're just super nice to the world, the world will love us. But
(32:45):
we just talked about this in our last episode. The world hated Jesus. They're going to hate us. Now,
doesn't mean we want to be hateful people or we want to push people away, but we don't compromise
so that we can somehow win the approval of a world that hates us to begin with.
Yeah. But see, that's, that's, that's sort of the mind. And again, it's a different mindset than you
(33:05):
and I and those of us at Oak Hill, we approach every, everything in life. Well, it even brings
up that exact point brings up another issue biblically that is right next to this issue of
the world hates the world hates God, the world hates Jesus, the world hates us. Right next to
that is, is this principle where we know that in our messaging, because this is the nature of
(33:27):
Winston and our messaging, they're not supposed to love us because of our message. Right. Right.
They're supposed to love us because they are really come to know the love of God because they see
our love for one another. Right. That's what Jesus says. Right. They will know that you are mine.
Right. By your love for one another. Right. And yet these are the same supposed Christian leaders
who were biting and devouring other believers. Yeah. They weren't writing against unbelievers.
(33:51):
Right. They weren't writing against the world. They were writing against other brothers and
sisters, people that they probably imagined even in their congregations growing up in other churches,
they were writing against them believers. And so even in that principle, if you're going to be
winsome, I'm using my air quotes here, you're going to be winsome to that end. You're supposed
to be winsome by your love for other brothers. Right. Not by being critical. Appeasing to the
(34:15):
world and then hating your brother. Right. Right. It just is so backwards and there's so such a lack
of biblical integrity in all of it that it is frustrating that all of that continues to be
promoted. And I mean, to that end, there's a quote here from the author of this book,
Shepherds for Sale, and I thought it'd be pertinent for us to read because we're talking about
the nature of how we reflect and what this means for us in the future. But this is what the author
(34:38):
said in regards to the same things we're talking about, those Christian leaders who proposed and
pushed forward the government mandate agenda without apology, without regret. She said this,
I believe if those who use their positions of influence to unjustly burden and malign other
evangelicals would acknowledge the hurt they caused, they'd be surprised to discover how many of their
(34:59):
brothers and sisters are eager to at last put away resentment and anger. These leaders acted with
utmost certainty, yet they know now that they were wrong while those they were accusing of being
unloving were right. Refusing to say so suggests they have learned nothing and would do it all
over again. Yep. Yeah, that's a great quote. Yeah, they know now, looking back, they were wrong. And
(35:27):
all of us who were trying to be discerning and making good decisions for our family and not
jumping to just, you know, wrong conclusions, we were accused of things. But in the end, we were
right. Yeah, right to hold the position, right? Right to hold the line. To stand firm. It doesn't
mean that those who chose willingly in their own conscience and their own conviction to get the
(35:51):
vaccine were wicked and evil. We had the freedom. We had the freedom to choose. And in that choosing,
we weren't to judge. You mentioned the Romans 14 passage. We were not to hold each other in contempt
in that. But even if any of us made a mistake in it, we had the freedom to make the mistake,
to make the decision to go either way. But it wasn't a matter of us judging one another in it.
(36:14):
Right. That was the big thing. And that's what we see in hindsight. So, I mean, as I look forward
about what this means down the line, I see a lot of ditches. You know, oftentimes you talk about a
ditch to the left and the right. This one, I see a bunch of holes. It's not just the left or the
right. It's front and back and it's at every which side because I think it's really shaky ground
that we're on moving forward now as Christians. I don't just mean as the world. The world, yes,
(36:36):
the world buys a lot of things hook, line and sinker. But as Christians, we've bought some
lines from Christian leaders that have put us in a rough spot. And I'm not saying we did at Oak Hill
or necessarily the listeners did, but I mean, as a whole evangelicalism, whoo, it is, there's a
reason why we joke about it being evangelical-y fish. Right. Because it is shaky. And why we don't
even like the term anymore. We don't even buy the term. We're not even part of that whole movement.
(37:01):
Exactly. Yeah. That doesn't really have any bearing on us. But I think about a couple of ditches that
are here. One, I think about that hardliner who might be so discouraged by everything that occurred
by all of the accusations and all of the uncertainty and all of the trust the science that ended up
being false that they may say, you know what? I just don't want to do anything that they,
that they quote unquote government or Christian leaders ask me to do. I just want to be a rebel
(37:26):
for the sake of pushing against that because I can't trust it. So I think that's one ditch,
that's one danger and that moving forward. Yeah. And if you're spending too much time on social
media or watching Fox news or, you know, you're, you're, you're in an echo chamber where now
everything is a conspiracy and you're so cynical that, yeah, you're going to put yourself in a bad
(37:48):
spot. So be careful not to do that. Don't go into that ditch. Yeah. It's a dangerous spot to be.
Right. So yeah, don't be in that echo chamber. You need some other people that are going to bounce
you back and say, Hey, it's okay. Right. You know, yes, they may be crazy, but you don't need to be.
Yes. You don't need to be crazy. I think on, on the other side, we, we still may not have learned
(38:09):
and we may say, Oh yeah, but they were well-meaning. You mentioned the, the potential
swallow prior rebuttal, you know, what could have been said on her end. They may say, but shouldn't
we be loving? Couldn't that be the most loving thing? Couldn't that have been the best thing?
And again, we just want to give the caution, test it, test it. Does God's word say thou must
(38:33):
vaccinate? It doesn't. And I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm just saying God's word doesn't say that.
Right. But nor am I a vac. I'm neither. I'm, I'm a Christian. Sometimes I may choose that. I want
something. Sometimes I may say it's not the best thing. We have the freedom to choose that. It's
not an all or nothing kind of deal. My grandfather actually, this is a little quick story time.
(38:54):
My grandfather had polio. He's one of the last humans in America who had polio because the
vaccine, you know, came through and most kids, it just, it disappeared, but he had polio. He was in
a wheelchair for most of his life and, you know, emaciated, you know, arms and legs and all of that.
Uh, and his, his life was, was wrought with that. So it hit home for me, like the nature of a vaccine,
(39:18):
but that doesn't mean that I'm going to take every vaccine because when they even use a polio vaccine,
there were, there were dangers that were involved. And those are risks that parents took back then.
And I'm not going to look back and say you were right or wrong for doing it. My grandfather had
polio, the vaccine he didn't get, and he suffered through that. But you know, what he also did is
(39:39):
he taught my mom a lot of good lessons that she passed on to me. And so even in that hardship,
you know, I learned a lot. Like he was the type of guy who, even though he had the placard for,
uh, for, uh, the handicap sign, he said, well, yeah, but other people could be more immobile
than me. So I'm going to park further away because other people might need it more. That's cool.
And that was a great lesson that I learned growing up. So even through that hardship,
(40:02):
see, we can trust God with whatever choice we make in faith. We make the choice in faith and
then we can go that way. And what I would say to the Christian listening is no matter what choice
you make in anything, and this is anything, not just a vaccine, this is whether the government
says to do one thing or not, a mandate, we need to be biblically convicted. Our, our,
our convictions need to come from God's word. And then we need to be okay with whatever the
(40:24):
consequences are. And that's the thing we got to wrestle with is we need to be prepared.
If we stand our ground on something, we're not sinning in the midst of it, that we're not sinning
and standing our ground or not sinning in anger and all those things, but we take whatever
consequence comes when we're convicted. I must do this to honor God. Then we say, I must do this,
whatever, whatever comes. That's right. Yeah. So be prepared again for the next round, the next
(40:50):
challenge, the next test that comes, look back. That's why I think we're, we wanted to do this
episode because it does behove us to look back and say, okay, what do we mess up? What do we do?
What do we do right? And what have we learned? So the next round comes around, we get it right
this time. And I'm not looking forward to that. I know, right? But crazier things have happened
(41:11):
and the way that the world is oriented is very likely. So God willing, we will learn and we'll
probably talk more about this if something else comes up. Yeah. If something else comes up, we're
going to, you know, assuming we're able to record all of that, you know, we'll be back here. Body
will come together again. We'll shepherd them through it. Exactly. With God's power and strength
and the spirit will shepherd people through and we'll be okay. Cause God sovereign. Amen. Lord
(41:34):
willing will be lights, you know, a city set on a hill. That's right. Lights in the darkness.
All right. Well, it's been good talking on this hard subject listeners. We prayed this conversation
has helped you to renew your minds and reform your hearts and we'll catch you next time on the
thingy tree.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.