The cacophony of voices demanding that all get the jab has taken a new turn as many students and employees face termination for failure to comply. This comes at the same time that the “vaxxed” are enjoying a relaxation on the freedoms that have plagued formerly free societies over the past 20 months. There is a growing schism underway and Impatience is swelling faster than the arms of the newly injected.

I have long maintained that many pew sitters have been far more willing to promote the gospel of COVID mandates than to witness to their unsaved friends and neighbours. Given what I am now seeing, I now suspect that as the stakes have risen to the point that increasing numbers of congregants in many churches could be cajoled into reporting on their non-conforming brothers and sisters.

The message being sold to and by much of society is that getting the “vaccine,” (like wearing masks, social distancing, etc.) is the loving thing to do. We are hearing this sales pitch from “news desks,” the wells of Senates, university lecterns, and even from church platforms. Just as many churches have added Romans 13 to their wall of inspiration alongside Jeremiah 29:11, Matthew 7:1, and similar passages that are lovingly taken out of context. One sterling example of a pastor who felt called to prick the consciences of resistant sheep breaking from the fold is Pastor Keith Marshall based out of Washington. He indicts those failing to adhere to government mandates in an op-ed. Opining on what our Christian convictions exempt us from, he offers the following admonition to those opposed to the mask and “vax” mandates:

“My faith in Jesus Christ exempts me from:

• Putting my wants above the needs of others

‘Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.’ – Philippians 2:3-4

• Claiming my freedom in Christ as liberty to act without responsibility.

‘You my brothers and sisters were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is filled in keeping with this one command: Love your neighbour as yourself.’ – Galatians 5:13-14

• Refusing to protect the most vulnerable in our midst.

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ – Matthew 25:40

Therefore my ‘Religious Exemption’ requires I receive the COVID vaccination to safeguard life and wear a mask to care for my neighbour. Claiming the Christian faith is no justification to refuse these measures. By invoking the name of Jesus to claim exemption, you are using the Lord’s name in vain and therefore sinning. Now, you may have your own political or personal reasons to do so, but please, stop claiming your faith in Jesus Christ as justification.”

Now, here is a pastor with a great deal of confidence. He summarily paints everyone opposed to the mandates based on religious grounds as engaging in heresy. He asserts with certitude that not being mask or “vax” compliant based on one’s convictions as a follower of Jesus Christ deserves condemnation as a direct violation of the third commandment. He must know something that a vast number of his detractors don’t, because as a member of the condemned, I demur. Since I am committed to rightly dividing the word of God to argue for my positions, our respective disparities in interpreting scripture need to be reconciled.

Since this pastor has not opted for the argument of the Christian duty to submit to the ultimate authority of the government no matter how intrusive, I thankfully don’t need to debunk the absurdity that Romans 13 contains all the law and the Prophets. Instead, he hangs his arguments on the undeniable obligation for the Christ-follower to consider others above him or herself. The centrality of this responsibility is therefore not a matter to be exploited by anyone to score cheap personal or political points. Let’s review the charges he levels against those resisting the mask and/or vax and I will offer my refutations.

1. Not complying is an act of vanity that lacks humility and elevates our comforts over those who obey the mandates. For this to be true, the dissenter must derive some tangible personal gain. Since he is attempting to have the reader accept his premise, then those choosing not to wear a mask are intentionally spreading COVID to those with whom he comes into contact. At the same time, the “unvaxxed” are recklessly putting the safety of those who receive the jab at risk. To grant his argument, masks must be effective while “vaccines” offer no protection. Not only is there no evidence the masks work, based on decades of data, but Fauci and the CDC at various points affirmed that they were ineffective. Furthermore, Fauci’s emails acquired through a freedom of information act demonstrated that he was directly informed that they didn’t work. Thus, the pastor either doesn’t know this fact or believes that we are to not follow the evidence, but put our full faith and trust in what Fauci says regardless of the facts. As to the “vaccines,” why is it selfish or conceited to not get an injection that he himself is admitting doesn’t work? In other words, if the “vaccines” work, why don’t they work?
2. Not masking or jabbing is an irresponsible indulgence of the flesh that fails to show love to one’s neighbour. As I’ve already eviscerated the assumptions behind the efficacy of these mandates, we can deal with the purported selfishness and lack of humility in failing to comply. In simpler times, not wearing a mask, wanting to freely engage with others, and not have an experimental serum with serious potential side effects injected in one’s arm for fear of a virus with a 99.9% survival rate might be considered simply living life. I can say without reservation that those who share in my “reckless disregard” of others enjoy meeting together uninhibited and without fear. In fact, it resembles the practise of relational fellowship that used to be the hallmark of a loving church. Since neither I nor my uninhibited brothers and sisters “inject” ourselves into the personal space of others without their tacit permission and don’t demand that others must remove their masks or be un-jabbed, I fail to see the vain conceit here.
3. We must protect the most vulnerable; knowing that our conduct toward others is an outward expression of our love for Christ. The unmistakable reasoning here is that the most vulnerable are those who have received the injections. How does that work? Does the decision to get jabbed make one vulnerable and, if so, why add to the ranks of the “vaccinated?” I thought the needle was to lower the risk of serious illness and, if so, the vulnerable should be those without the jab. Is this argument inadvertently an indictment of himself for a lack of compassion for those less protected against risk? Shouldn’t he be showing pity for those who didn’t take the mark that he believes offers salvation from becoming a COVID fatality?

Now that I have refuted what reads as a perversion of scripture whereby emotional pleas are served up as presumptive justification to place demands on everyone else; I challenge this “love through coercion” framework and will do so by turning to the same source my presumed brother in Christ wishes to project onto those who don’t feel sanguine about unquestioned obedience to these public pressures.

• The gospel commands us to love our neighbour. Not only do I refute the premise behind Pastor Marshall’s interpretation of scripture, but state categorically that his parameters of extending love violate scripture. In the parable of “The Good Samaritan,” Christ made clear that our neighbour is not just those we rub shoulders with, but incorporates all of humanity. Christ, the apostles, and missionaries throughout history demonstrated love by putting the needs of others first; often setting aside consideration for their personal safety. For the Branch Covidians, the jury is out on whether in Christ there is Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, but there is certainly “vaxxed” and “unvaxxed” and the latter are to be excluded and chided.

     The love passage from Corinthians reads:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Lover bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Pastor Marshall’s brand of love is conditional – take the injection or you fail the “love” test. Where is the patience? How is this pastor’s brand of love not one that insists on its own way? I think I can confidently speak on behalf of the unmasked and “unvaxxed” by saying, we aren’t feeling the love. We place no demands on people whatever they decide to do. We will honour people’s decisions even when we disagree. We don’t presume selfishness or project malintent on those who adopt the mandates, but what earns us the status of personas non grata. Sounds a titch judgey to me, and I’m pretty sure Jesus has something to say about rightly judging others.

• There is an inherent irrational fear of fellow image bearers. The Bible admonishes those who love God to “fear not” a total of 365 times. Pastor Marshall sees even perfectly healthy people who don’t submit to a mandate to take an experimental foreign toxin into their bodies as walking disease carriers. We are not even talking about people who show signs of illness, although they too should be extended non-judgmental love. f he didn’t demand to see our papers, he would not even know whether we had taken the jab, so he is zealous in pushing people to compliance with no regard to health.
• There is a decided lack of basic compassion. While this is a theme in each of my points, a key fact is being lost here. This pastor, like the message coming from the hordes of vexatious “vax” policers, is that the those not needled into compliance are putting the injected at risk. Even they would need to admit that theoretically, the “unvaxxed” are the ones most placing their own lives at risk. After all, whatever presumed benefits Ultimately, short of seeing our papers, there would be no way to distinguish between those with or without the messenger RNA shots. None of his arguments show any deference to the ones whose lives are presumably at the greatest risk. Under this thinking, people are to comply with the pressure from the mob so that the “vaxxed” masses can feel less threatened. That is a profound level of selfishness.
• Nowhere does the “get ‘vaxxed’” narrative take into consideration what is true. Those of us who reject the mandates even in the face of pressure don’t do so to be provocative, live on the margins of society, embrace some latent death wish, or seek to infect as many people as possible. We are almost certainly the most informed on the statistics, how the injections function, the potential side effects, and the cost-benefit analysis of taking or rejecting the jab. I have attempted to share with friends and family details from sources who are being censored, ostracized, and otherwise marginalized. The responses have ranged from an indifferent shrug of the shoulders to claims that they don’t wish to debate the science with me. What this really means is that they trust the manufactured consent granted to “experts” that gatekeepers will offer a platform to. This suggests they either don’t care or assume that I am a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist who doesn’t deserve a hearing. Setting aside the inherent disrespect from someone to whom grace should be given, Paul tells us that the truth will set us free. Furthermore, Jesus said that those guided by truth listen to his voice because he is truth. We are dealing with binary realities that are being dismissed as opinions if they fail to affirm an approved narrative. If those issuing dire warnings are right, the ordained “experts” are deceiving or deceived. The reverse could also be true, but since censorship is the primary tool of tamping down divergent arguments, it is highly unlikely. Either way, we should soberly consider the evidence since lives depend upon it.
• I take seriously the Christian duty to protect the most vulnerable. Based on the premise of the pro-vaxxers, those with the shot are the least vulnerable. Despite this, the pastor seeks to pressure the most vulnerable into taking the shot we don’t want based on our own calculus. This, however, is minor compared to the malevolence shown to the children we are tasked to protect above all. Claiming that masks and injections protect children and young people has never been supported by facts. Suicide rates have tripled while not one child is known to have died from COVID without having a pre-existing condition. The health compromised were always intended to be the ones we needed to protect. Instead, depression and social isolation has had a devastating impact on our young people. The best thing we could have done from the beginning for healthy children and teens was to let them live normal lives. Instead, it is estimated that the injections have led to a 100% increase in adverse events including myocarditis, blood clots and all the way up to death. Anyone who assumes I’m making this up needs to do the research because this comes from many trusted sources. Furthermore, there has been an explosion of miscarriages in women after getting the injection. Those willing to write this off by predetermining it to be untrue is calloused and cares nothing about the welfare of the truly most vulnerable.
• We are to live out the great commission. We cannot effectively witness to people while masked and taking in services online while shuttering our doors. Furthermore, who wants to follow a God whose disciples cower behind masks and insist on vax passports in order to allow them to enter your domicile for a cup of coffee?
• The church should not be divided. From the outset, allowing the government to set the terms for meeting was exclusionary. The fact that mandates were enforced marginalized some and it is now culminating in “get ‘vaxxed’ or get out. What if the Samaritan continued on because the man left for dead did not have his verification of injection.

I don’t care that so many people are willing to submit fully to every mandate and wait on the beneficence of the state to grant them a reprieve someday. The danger is not that they so little value their own freedoms, bodily autonomy, and right to make a decision based on access to arguments from all sides; but that they want to deny the rest of us our ability to exercise these God-given rights for ourselves. They may choose to swallow the narrative being spoon-fed and trust that those exercising coercive control are more credible than front-line doctors and nurses risking their careers and reputations to stand athwart the whirlwind of professional and social pressure. All we are asking for is the right to choose to discern for ourselves.

My skepticism was first tweaked by my awareness that there was a pattern to the approach to the COVID response that resembled every other contentious cultural battle. Whether it be gender identity, race, feminism, homosexuality, white privilege, global warming, socialism, or the evidence for a creator, our institutions have been taken over by God-hating ideological leftists. They have consistently stifled opposition by presenting a narrative and using emotional appeals to attack any dissent. The response to COVID perfectly fits this template and the same forces are behind it.

I believe that the blind obedience and lack of critical evaluation of what is true is because even fellow believers don’t think that there could be such widespread evil enacted on a society. Such an assumption requires a denial of history, the current reality in godless nations and oppressive theocracies, and finally shows blatant ignorance of what scripture tells us about the nature of man. There are reasons we are to be discerning, to test everything, and hold on to what is true. Just like the unbeliever, I will not force my faith on the atheist, but I will try to share my faith because I care enough to spare them the future they are running toward. My motivations are guided by love. My response to the “vaxxed” is much the same and for the same reasons. I am here if anyone wants to sit down face to face, ask questions and listen to one another. I will choose to go maskless, but respect your right to wear one if you so choose.