Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Christian Response To the COVID Vaccine -- The Relationship of Science and God

 


Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

From “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats (1919)

Irish poet W. B. Yeats uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse in the poem “The Second Coming” to allegorically describe the atmosphere of post-war Europe.

The poem is also connected to the 1918–1919 flu pandemic. In the weeks preceding Yeats's writing of the poem, his pregnant wife Georgie Hyde-Lees caught the virus and was very close to death. The highest death rates of the pandemic were among pregnant women – in some areas, they had up to a 70 percent death rate. While his wife was convalescing, he wrote "The Second Coming.”

Today, we are deep in the throes of another deadly pandemic, and we can hear commentators repeatedly invoke these lines of old Yeats poem: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” to describe turmoil.

The 2020 COVID-19 has gripped the globe and spun it around with violent intensity while causing untold death and destruction that seems to become ever more intense. Confidence and hope wain with each new surge. But, now, a promising vaccine gives hope for the future.

Still some doubt a patriotic duty to get vaccinated and others simply won't.

Opponents may challenge vaccination requirements based on claims of religious liberty or under specific laws that would allow for a religious exemption from any COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In some states including Indiana and Massachusetts, there are laws allowing parents to cite religious reasons to opt out of childhood immunization requirements.

These exemptions for religious beliefs are political choices. There are no Constitutional or ethical obligations to require an opt out to a vaccine that may be key to stopping a pandemic, should a state wish to prioritize protecting their residents from COVID-19 through mandating vaccination.

The pressing question is “Why do religious groups or individuals resist measures that help defeat a global pandemic?” Research has found …

The number of vaccination refusals based on religious exemption is increasing … we should not consider vaccination opposed to the theological base and values. Following this idea, religion is not in contradiction with vaccination and public health. It is only individual parents or religious leaders and their questionable interpretation of religious practices that are opposed to vaccination, no religion as such.”

(Gordana Pelcic et al. “Religious exception for vaccination or religious excuses for avoiding vaccination.” Croat Med J. October 2016.)



Answers by Peter McLaren

I found an interesting, timely article by Peter McLaren, who is currently the Science and Technology Specialist for the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). Before joining the RIDE Mr. McLaren had been a teacher of science for thirteen years at both the high school and middle levels.

At the national level, Mr. McLaren has been appointed to a three-year term as a member of the Board of Directors for the Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education. He is also a member of the Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies (BLOSSOMS) Advisory Committee at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

McLaren's article is “Religious Nationalism and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Soul-Sucking Evangelicals and Branch Covidians Make America Sick Again.” The extensive article was published in Postdigital Science and Education on May 19 , 2020. You can read the entire piece by clicking here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7234870/

The article investigates the response to the coronavirus crisis by Evangelical Christian nationalists in the USA. It outlines the curious mediaverse of religious nationalism – its post-truth and fake news aspects in particular – links religious nationalism to American exceptionalism, and analyzes conflicts between secular and religious authorities.

According to the abstract …

The article shows that the ideological underpinnings of evangelical Christianity prevent its proponents from understanding the virus in an historical and materialist manner and points toward more epistemically sound approaches to relationships between science and religion.”

(Peter McLaren “Religious Nationalism and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Soul-Sucking Evangelicals and Branch Covidians Make America Sick Again.” Postdigital Science and Education. May 19 , 2020.)

Many Trump supporters are flagrantly disregarding the advice of medical experts since they want to show their loyalty to Trump by downplaying the crisis. The Trump cult places in counterpoint the endless sweep of falsehoods about the coronavirus and the turbid, unyielding faith of those who propagate such falsehoods. McLaren says it seems reasonable to assert that religious nationalism is alive and well among Trump’s evangelical Christian base

Peters, M. A., Jandrić, P., & McLaren, P. (2020a). A viral theory of post-truth. Educational Philosophy and Theory., 1–9.

Peters, M. A., Jandrić, P., & McLaren, P. (2020b). Viral modernity? Epidemics, infodemics, and the ‘bioinformational’ paradigm. Educational Philosophy and Theory., 1–23.

Religious nationalism, especially in the Christian world, “has shaped the very definition of legitimate citizenship, delineating the nation and privileging some political actors and visions in making public policy, obtaining electoral support, and building states.”

Grzymala-Busse, A. (2019). Religious nationalism and religious influence. Oxford Research Encyclopedias

According to Grzymala-Busse, religion is extremely ramped up among evangelicals, in terms of “attending religious services, evangelizing, and taking part in communal religious activities such as Bible study or prayer.”

Part of the interpretation of the Bible is prophecy of the period leading up to Judgment Day. Approximately 40% of American adults are biblical apocalypticists and believe that Jesus will, or likely will, return to earth by 2050. David Jeremiah, a pastor who has been one of President Trump’s informal evangelical advisers, asked in a sermon recently if the coronavirus was biblical prophecy, and called the pandemic “the most apocalyptic thing that has ever happened to us.”

Dias, E. (2020). The apocalypse as an ‘unveiling’: what religion teaches us about the end times. The New York Times

Peter McLaren writes …

Evangelical preachers declaim messianically that humankind is universally born of the spirit and propagate the falsehood that contingent phenomena such as the coronavirus are in reality divine plagues cast upon humankind for the sin of homosexuality, abortion, fornication, political correctness, and multiculturalism. In this way, for evangelicals, faith in the transcendent supernatural power of Jesus must supersede science.

Humans are perceived as powerless if they decline to pray to the God of Prosperity. Here science is glibly supplanted by a metaphysical abstraction. But prayer should not be done in the spirit of helplessness. We cannot pray and then abdicate our responsibility for achieving what we are praying for because we are denying the difficult work ahead in saving the country from Covid-19.”

(Peter McLaren “Religious Nationalism and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Soul-Sucking Evangelicals and Branch Covidians Make America Sick Again.” Postdigital Science and Education. May 19 , 2020.)

Other attitudes that accompany religious nationalism are associated with cultural homogeneity and the preservation of national traditions. These include “natalism (the belief that promotes the reproduction of human life), redistribution to members of the religious nation, and the preservation of national religious symbols and traditions.”

Grzymala-Busse, A. (2019). Religious nationalism and religious influence. Oxford Research Encyclopedias

McLaren believes from the time that the coronavirus crisis first appeared in the U.S., it became clear that it is comorbid with Christian nationalism; or to put it another way, Christian nationalism seems to be a co-occurring condition relative to pandemics that reach the shores of America.

As Grzymala-Busse explains:

(I)n this relationship, religiosity defines the nation – and nationalism reinforces religiosity, leading to unusually high rates of national identification with a given religion and high rates of religiosity itself. This mutual reinforcement characterizes countries where religious participation and religious nationalism are both high, such as the Philippines, Poland, Ireland until the late 1990s, or the United States.”

Grzymala-Busse, A. (2019). Religious nationalism and religious influence. Oxford Research Encyclopedias

After being placed in charge of the coronavirus crisis, the first action undertaken by Mike Pence was to form a prayer circle with evangelical supporters. Later, the state of Oklahoma held a statewide prayer day where megachurch pastors from all over the state appeared with Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK) to try and pray away the coronavirus. And, of course, prayer circles popped up all over the country.

McLaren wonders if Christian nationalism could be traced to the Hebraic idea of the covenant which is revealed in the narratives of nations as divinely “chosen people.” An implied connection is made between America and Israel. The connection concludes that America is the modern-day or “New Israel.”

NOTE – Manifest Destiny (1845 – Democratic Review) claimed that America had a destiny, manifest, i.e., self-evident, from God to occupy the North American continent south of Canada. “Manifest Destiny” was also clearly a racial doctrine of white supremacy that granted no native American or nonwhite claims to any permanent possession of the lands on the North American continent and justified white American expropriation of Indian lands. It was firmly anchored in a long standing and deep sense of a special and unique American Destiny, the belief that in the words of historian Conrad Cherry, “America is a nation called to a special destiny by God.”

(Donald M. Scott. “The Religious Origins of Manifest Destiny.” Teacher Serve. National Humanities Center. 2020)

Some politicians think COVID-19 is a fair trade-off to let the elderly and infirm die in order to preserve the economy. Take, for example, comments made by the repugnant Antioch, California planning commission Chairman Ken Turnage II, who felt compelled to compare the corona virus to a forest fire that burns:

Old trees, fallen brush and scrub-shrub sucklings that drain resources. Society will strengthen when the pandemic is all settled. We would have significant loss of life, we would lose many elderly, that would reduce burdens in our defunct Social Security System, health care cost (once the wave subsided), make jobs available for others and it would also free up housing in which we are in dire need of. We would lose a large portion of the people with immune and other health complications. I know it would be loved ones as well. But that would once again reduce our impact on medical, jobs, and housing.”

Prieve, J. (2020). East Bay politician under fire for saying let coronavirus kill the elderly, weak and homeless. Times-Herald, 29 April

Turnage, 47, said he has no intention of stepping down. The Antioch native is a general contractor who owns K2GC Inc. and ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2016, finishing fourth. He was Antioch’s 2015 “Citizen of the Year with Most Impact.”

He said his post was “not malicious, or racist” and had “nothing to do with money or business.” Rather, he was simply stating what he believed was happening to the Earth through the global pandemic.

Some evangelical Christians who argue that Christianity is under attack in the U.S. have even motivated Christian militias to prepare for a holy war against the deep state. “Religion and nation” – God-talk and nation-talk – could push toward conflict and outright violence.

The Christian Patriot Movement grew during the 1990s after the Ruby Ridge and Waco sieges appeared to confirm the suspicions that the federal government has turned against the ideas of liberty and natural rights expressed in the American Revolution.

Well-known televangelist Rick Joyner said on September 3, 2019 (Jim Bakker Show): “The Second Amendment is linked to militias. We were meant to have militias throughout the country to defend our communities. If Christians don’t get involved in things like that (militias) the wrong people will get in.” And concluding with a call to arms, “We are entering a time for war and we need to mobilize.”

Is it any wonder that the NRx movement refers to Trump as the ‘God-Emperor’ who has the power and will to ‘restore order to an immigrant-flooded nation under the thumb of a progressive media-academic complex ― “global Jewry,” in neo-Nazi-speak.  

The alt-right can be seen as a political movement; neoreaction, which adherents refer to as NRx, is a philosophy. At the core of that philosophy is a rejection of democracy and an embrace of autocratic rule.

O’Brien, L. (2020). The far-right helped create the world’s most powerful facial recognition technology. Huffington Post, 7 April.

Wellcome Global Monitor 2018, the world’s largest study into how people around the world think and feel about science and major health challenges, found North America was the only high-income region where people who follow a religion are “substantially more likely” to say they believe in their religious teachings over science when disagreements arise.

This finding is driven predominantly by the US, where people who have a religion are almost twice as likely to believe their religious teachings (60 percent) as science (32 percent) in cases of disagreement.”

(Wellcome Global Monitor 2018. June 17, 2019.)

McLaren wonders if perhaps Trump would be willing to attend a service at The River Church in Tampa where, Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne “has denounced… social distancing claiming that he can cure the coronavirus just like he did with the Zika virus (which still exists).” Howard-Browne “promised his flock that he would never close the church, regardless of what scientists and doctors say.” Howard-Browne is insistent that he has a cure for the Covid-19:

We are not stopping anything. I’ve got news for you, this church will never close. The only time the church will close is when the Rapture is taking place … We brought in 13 machines that basically kill every virus in the place, and uh, if somebody walks through the door it’s like, it kills everything on them. If they sneeze, it shoots it down at like 100 mph. It’ll neutralize it in split seconds. We have the most sterile building in, I don’t know, all of America.”

Burris, S. K. (2020b). Florida residents pack into megachurch after pastor promises cure for coronavirus. RawStory, 29 March. 

To close, Emily Whetsel is a passionate advocate for vaccination as a society member and former unvaccinated child. She is a writer and editor living in East Tennessee whose parents were brought up listening to the radio broadcasts and reading the literature of the Worldwide Church of God, a cult/fringe religion that was developed from a mishmash of Seventh Day Adventist doctrine, revived Old Testament traditions, and prophecies/conspiracy theories about what happened to the Israelites and when Armageddon would rain down on Earth.

Though her parents say they were “chosen” as church members, she can’t ignore the early influence of The Church (as they called it) in their choice of religion. Her parents had strange, unhappy childhoods, and she thinks The Church gave them a sense of community and belonging; they believed they were part of a select few who had “seen the light” and were special to God.

Despite the harrowing experience of seeing her infant, and another young child, grapple with pertussis, Whetsel's mother didn’t vaccinate her or her brother. Years later, her brother and she finally got vaccinated – but only because he wanted to go to a church camp that summer.

Whetsel says there were a number of restrictive policies in place to foster a sense of sacrifice among the Church’s members, policies which were interpreted as a way to be separate from the world and closer to God and the people in The Church.

Whetsel explains “though anti-vaxxers these days usually cite specious research, influential celebrities, and the supposed plots of Big Pharma as reasons for not vaccinating their children, their arguments, when you strip them down to their foundations, are just like Mom’s. Anti-vaxxers claim they’re no slave to dogma, but they’re just looking for gods to follow at the end of the day.

Emily Whetsel explains …

I know from science and family history that unvaccinated people are in danger of very serious diseases. I don’t know how to combat the willful ignorance of anti-vaxxers. I don’t know how to combat religious belief that makes people think that not vaccinating proves faith in God.

But I’ve learned from history, and if nothing else, I want to strengthen the resolve of those who agree that vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary. With all the real problems in the world, convincing people to vaccinate shouldn’t be a war that we have to wage, but it’s real and we have to do something about it.”

(Emily Whetsel. “I Grew Up in an Anti-Vaccine Cult.” Voices For Vaccines. 2020.)




Prayer: God of All, We turn to You

God of faith and science, we turn to you in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, because we trust you. We trust you because you listen to our prayers. We trust you because you act in our lives and our history for our welfare. We trust you because we know you as a God of revelation in faith and science.

God of knowledge and wisdom, we ask that you would dwell with all the scientists who are working daily to develop an effective and safe vaccine to combat this virus. Help them to collate current knowledge and be conduits of new knowledge regarding the secrets of the COVID-19 virus. Grant them the wisdom to unlock the keys that will provide helpful COVID-19 therapies and vaccines.\

God of curiosity and wonder, grant the scientists the inquisitiveness of George Washington Carver who combined his love of God and his love of science in his quest to unlock hidden agricultural secrets. As the God of the sweet potato, the peanut and the soybean, you enabled Carver to discover their secrets as he united faith and science, wisdom and knowledge, curiosity and wonder.

God of all creation, in this Eastertide we pray for all coronavirus patients, their doctors and their nurses. We ask that you be a fence around all healthcare workers, first responders, and their families. Expand our faith and buoy our hope as we shelter in place. Lord, teach us how to wait, for you are an on-time God!

Amen”

Bishop Ernest S. Lyght, retired bishop of The United Methodist Church



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