Tag / Coronavirus

by Jack Wilkie

The Tyranny of the Uninformed

“Did you hear Governor Abbott just said they’re lifting the state’s mask mandate?” I asked the lady behind the counter at my neighborhood coffee stop last week, just minutes after the news broke.

“No, I didn’t. That’s interesting,” she replied.

“Leave it to Texas to be the first!” piped up the guy in line behind me.

“Well, actually Florida and some others have…” I started to say, before being interrupted by the lady at the back of the line – 

“Yeah, and everybody in Florida is sick!”

As brief as this exchange was, it speaks volumes about our national COVID conversation. 

The fact of the matter is, they were both wrong. Texas was not first, and Florida (and the states that opened long before it) is not overrun with sickness any more than moderate states like Texas or hard lockdown states such as California. In truth, they’re really not much different than anywhere else. And yet my fellow customers both confidently asserted these falsehoods with the implication that Texas is going on a suicide mission by throwing caution to the wind and lifting the mask mandate.

It’s been like this from the beginning. The mainstream opinion loudly shouts down any dissent, and here we are a year later having learned almost nothing. We ignore the fact that the effects of the virus are heavily scaled to age. We ignore any statistics that say areas with mask mandates have shown little difference in results from areas without them. We can’t have a conversation because the “moral” response was decided long before the facts had a chance to be debated.

Take, for instance, the early refrain that anyone who even mildly opposed state measures “Wanted to kill grandma.” The argument is presented as if they’re saying, “Such a position could be dangerous and potentially fatal to the elderly.” That’s not the same thing, though. “You’re going to kill grandma” does not leave room for discussion. It presents the discussion as settled, but by emotion rather than fact. Since emotion can’t be argued with, and since the conclusion has been assumed, the debate over the facts can’t happen. Rather than discussing ways to keep grandma safe, your business has to go under, your mental health has to plummet, and your children’s development has to be stunted. Period. Any objection makes you a grandma-killer.

Because emotion rules, facts won’t see the light. One can comfortably feel superior to scores of one’s fellow citizens just by accepting what is presented as fact, because to hold the majority, mainstream opinion, there is almost no research required whatsoever. We are all baptized in that viewpoint daily. It’s almost a feat to not know that side’s arguments. If you are going to believe something else, you have to go looking for it. 

This does not mean that everyone who holds the majority opinion is uninformed. It also does not mean that the minority opinion is always correct, or that its adherents are all smarter, better people. Plenty of people far smarter than me disagree with me. It means nothing more than this: the minority opinion, by nature, will always be made up of a more informed collection of individuals. We who hold minority opinions already know what you in the majority think, because we’re shown that point of view (and pressured to believe it) every single day. We don’t even have to go looking for it. For you to know our opinions, however, you will have to have the willingness to look in places you have been told are morally unsavory. Because most don’t do that, most won’t be informed on both sides.

Why then, does the majority opinion hold such a superiority complex over the minority opinion? How did the two people in the coffee shop – who clearly had not done the research necessary to make their claims – have such boldness to proclaim their incorrect understandings as settled, unarguable fact? They were wrong and yet the discussion framed me as the backwards one for merely pointing it out. How does that happen? Because the majority does not fight fair. To the majority, might makes right. Again, emotion rules the day.

This L.A. Times story gives us yet another example of this bold confidence without any self-awareness or research.

High schools (and their foreign equivalents) have opened all around the world, many of them months ago. We don’t have to sit around and wonder if it’s safe. We have more data than we could ever need. And yet here they are presenting this as some kind of mystery. They’re so far behind the documented facts on this, it’s little different than saying “Guys, we just saw somebody drink milk that came from a cow. Maybe it’s safe for human consumption!” Further, the model they’re citing includes testing students for covid every single morning. “If you want to open your campus, you have to do this,” says the presumed exemplary principal. Except high schools have opened literally around the planet, safely, without such measures. You don’t have to do this. 

What we’re dealing with in Texas is another case of the exact same problem. We don’t have to wonder what removing the mask mandate will do. We’ve already seen populous, elderly, unhealthy states take such measures. By the same token, we’ve had rather lax lockdown measures for many months with regard to things like restaurant capacity and gathering limits, and other states are looking at us as crazy or suicidal.

Can we please stop pretending we’re walking blindfolded on the edge of a canyon when there are people who have already crossed the bridge?

This has been the hallmark of this whole matter – readily available knowledge gets either treated with skepticism, ignored outright, or morally condemned. If it doesn’t line up with the morally right view, it isn’t permitted a spot at the table. As long as that remains the case, we remain hopeless. Until facts can win the day – honestly, until facts are even allowed to be discussed – we will continue to be vulnerable to very bad people and very bad ideas. 

If you want to go down the rabbit hole of the alternative view, start with Tom Woods’ free eBook that breaks down misleading Covid charts. Check out The Great Barrington Declaration, an anti-lockdown paper written by 3 Ph.D.s in the field and signed by over 50,000 scientists and medical professionals. And, scroll through Covid Clarity and other related Twitter accounts who have been digging up data since the beginning.

My Covid archives:

Can You Please Just Let Me Be Wrong?

Fear of Death is not a Christian Virtue

Fear is the Name of the Game. Stop Playing.

The Day the Lockdown Should’ve Ended

One Year into Covid, I was Horribly Wrong

by Jack Wilkie

Fear of death is not a Christian virtue

I’m going to start right up front with the disclaimer that this is 1) not a claim to speak for the Forney church of Christ or Focus Press, for whom I preach and write – thus why I’m writing on this website, under my own name and 2) a personal opinion on what the Bible teaches on this matter, yet one of which I hope to persuade you.

The point of this article is not to debate the risk level of the coronavirus, or really to discuss the virus at all. My point in this article is not dependent on the dangerousness of the virus. On the contrary, my point is that the danger of the virus is irrelevant in the face of Biblical commandments.

I’m writing to posit two Biblical truths and apply them to our situation.

First, Christians are not to fear death.

Paul wrote in Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” While I’m here, I am to try to follow Christ’s footsteps, but death, whenever and however it comes, is to be viewed as gain. Do we believe that? Do we act like we believe it?

In a letter to a sickly woman named Mary Willis Shelburne, C.S. Lewis shared these thoughts on the matter of death for those in Christ:

“Pain is terrible, but surely you need not have fear as well. Can you not see death as the friend and deliverer? It means stripping off that body which is tormenting you… What is there to be afraid of? You have long attempted (and none of us does more) a Christian life. Your sins are confessed and absolved. Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.” (Emp. added.)

One of the most beautiful blessings about Christianity is the knowledge that death is not the end. I suspect the cause of our confusion on this issue is that we have neglected to ground ourselves in faith that we will be far better off on the other side.

I am not running toward death – I wear my seatbelt, drive the speed limit (or… thereabouts, you know), work out and try to eat reasonably, etc. I would very much like to see my children grow, and care for them and my wife, serving God all the way. But neither am I going to live my life in fear. To die is gain.

Arguing from a different angle, James wrote that our planning for the future must be done with an important fact in mind: “You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). While we put off religious duty and wait for the virus to disappear, or a vaccine to eradicate it, or whatever else may save the day, we aren’t guaranteed that we’ll be here to see the other side.

Aside from the COVID deaths themselves, over 2 million Americans have died of other causes this year while waiting on life to return to normal. You aren’t guaranteed that you will be able to fellowship and share the body and blood of the Lord with God’s children a year from now. But you can this Sunday. Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow, but instead to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33-34).

Fear of death is antithetical to our faith. We are a religion founded on resurrection, practiced by millions who cower in fear of death. This should not be.

Second, we have work to do.

It was wrong of us to determine our course of action based on risk rather than on Biblical command. If God told us to do something, we are to do it and let Him work out the details. Preaching the Gospel has routinely gotten people killed throughout church history. No, persecution is not a direct equivalent, but it establishes for us that obedience – even in the face of great risk – is required. Even when Paul escaped Damascus in a basket to avoid persecution (Acts 9:25) he did so to go somewhere else and preach, not to go home and hide and wait for favorable conditions.

While we wait for our favorable conditions, the work remains waiting for us. Christian service cannot be accomplished in a setting in which we are not seeing each other face to face. When’s the last time any of us obeyed 1 Peter 4:9 – “Be hospitable to one another without complaining”? How long are we going to be okay with blowing off Acts 2’s example of gathering together, praying together, learning together, and serving each other together? Were we “loving our neighbors” by isolating them into depression and possible suicide?

The reason it was so easy for most of us to accept “virtual church” and continue on without the assembly is that our concept of church is so small and powerless. (Somebody should write a book about that.) Other than the preacher or a select ministry team, just about everybody else is interchangeable in many cases. You come to them and get what they’ve provided for you.

What happened when the lockdowns began? The preachers went to the buildings and recorded their sermons, and everybody else stayed home. If we had a biblical view of church, in which we need each and every member growing to maturity in Christ to strengthen each other (Ephesians 4), the idea of everyone doing “church at home” would have been a complete oxymoron. There’s no such thing as church at home.

Biblically we’re supposed to be evangelizing, discipling, praying together, being hospitable to each other, serving each other, and the list goes on. Very little of that can be done over a phone call or a Zoom, particularly for 9+ months.

So, to be clear, I’m not just arguing about getting back to Sunday worship. I’m arguing for going far beyond that, to practicing community as a Christian family. And while many (if not most) have continued to see their biological families through these months, we accepted isolation from our spiritual, eternal family indefinitely. Do we mean it when we call our church family our “family” or not?

God gave us work to do (Ephesians 2:10), and it’s my contention that we need to keep on doing it. You are free to disagree, but the burden of proof is then on you to show where we have the authorization to abandon that work, and how long we’re allowed to go without doing it.

Anticipating a few commonly raised objections:

“‘Love your neighbor’ means not exposing them to risk.” Yes, I know that “love your neighbor” was trotted out, as always, as the old reliable argument we can bend to mean whatever we want (sexual liberation, doctrinal compromise, political point scoring, and whatever else the moment needs). The Bible itself defines what loving one another looks like, though, and there is no sense in which all of us avoiding one another for a year fits into that definition.

It was one thing to accept “15 days to slow the spread” in the name of loving our neighbor. But if at that time it had been pitched to us as “staying home and abandoning Christian fellowship for months with no defined end point to slow the spread,” I suspect we would have been far more reluctant to view it as a loving gesture.

“If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.” If one life is the standard, we can never meet again. Every single year we have the potential to inadvertently spread the flu to an elderly, immunocompromised member. Every single week we all take the risk of getting into a car to drive to worship. Staying home would eventually save one life in both of these cases. Are these equivalent to COVID? Of course not. But I’m not the one who came up with the “one life” standard, I’m merely arguing according to its logic.

“People stay home to keep from spreading germs all the time.” You are fully capable of discerning the difference between one sick person isolating (typically for a short, defined period) and everybody – sick or not – isolating indefinitely, and have no need for me to explain why the two aren’t equivalent. The same goes for staying home for a Sunday when the weather makes assembling dangerous.

You can see the frustration in my tone, I’m sure. Week after week of bare minimum Christianity can have that effect. We simply are not being the church if we are not making disciples and fellowshipping with one another. Our response has robbed us of our identity and told the world that we’re just as focused on this life and afraid of death as they are.

With a knowledge of how beautiful and horrific eternity can be, a world at risk should motivate us to far greater activity, not lesser. Worship is too important. Fellowship is too important. Evangelism is too important. Disciple making is too important. Service is too important. It’s time to get back to work.

A quick postscript:

While everything thus far has been in the realm of opinion, this is not: if you’ve gone to restaurants, traveled, and/or gone into other people’s homes yet still are holding out on the Sunday assembly or other church gatherings, repent and get yourself in there. What that says is that you’re willing to accept at least some level of social risk, but being with the church is not high enough on the priority list to be worth that risk.

And, if that logic tracks with you, I’ll leave it to you to weigh up the same arguments as they pertain to going to the grocery store.

by Jack Wilkie

The Day The Lockdown Should’ve Ended

April 16. That’s the day every lockdown order in America should have ended. Not because the virus was eradicated that day (it obviously was not), and not because of economic concerns. No, the lockdowns should have ended because every quarantine talking point got overturned by the top coronavirus authority in the land.

In an interview on a Snapchat show, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the doctor who has served as our national COVID-19 spokesman was asked about how people should navigate their use of dating apps during quarantine. Here was his answer:

You know, that’s tough. Because it’s what’s called relative risk. If you really feel that you don’t want to have any part of this virus, will you maintain six feet away, wear a mask, do all the things that we talk about in the guidelines? If you’re willing to take a risk—and you know, everybody has their own tolerance for risks—you could figure out if you want to meet somebody. And it depends on the level of the interaction that you want to have. If you’re looking for a friend, sit in a room and put a mask on, and you know, chat a bit. If you want to go a little bit more intimate, well, then that’s your choice regarding a risk.

“If you’re willing to take a risk…”

“Everybody has their own tolerance for risks…”

“That’s your choice regarding a risk…”

By saying these things, Dr. Fauci revealed two principles that undermine the entire narrative the actions of the last 2 months have been built on. First, he believes people should be free to choose their own risk. Essentially, the advice above boils down to this: calculate your own risk and make your own decisions based on what you’re comfortable with. If you’re willing to risk catching the virus and the other person is too, you’re free to make that choice. You may think that’s a great idea, and you may think that’s a terrible idea. Regardless of our feelings, it’s the officially endorsed position by the face of our national coronavirus task force.

The question, then, is obvious – Why hasn’t that been the official recommendation across the board? Why haven’t we been allowed that kind of self-governance with regard to supporting mom and pop shops? Eating at restaurants? Going to the library? Opening businesses? Assembling in a church building? Playing basketball in a park?

Dr. Fauci endorsed the idea of choosing your activity level based on your own comfort and sense of risk with regard to only one thing – meeting up and having sex with strangers. Every guideline goes out the window in that situation. It’s the quickest, most efficient way to violate every social distancing, germ-free recommendation. But, “if you want to take the risk, go for it.” He even made sure to add that people shouldn’t do so under illusion that they’re healthy, because in his view the virus can be spread even if both parties are totally asymptomatic. That means he made this proclamation knowing full well it could further the transmission of the virus, and that the choice is yours as to whether possibly getting coronavirus is a worthwhile tradeoff for having a date.

Flattening the curve, #StayHomeSaveLives, all those slogans we’ve been trained to recite… Fauci brushed them aside as irrelevant in this case. In his view, the entire premise of government dictating our actions to stop the spread of the virus –  the premise this whole thing was built on – goes out the window the minute a person decides they need some casual sex. You can’t choose to sit 10′ from someone in a church pew in some states, but you can find somebody on the internet, go to their apartment, get physically intimate, and share their bed. You’re not allowed to choose the former because it’s too risky, but the latter is left up to you at your own discretion.

The second principle Dr. Fauci endorsed is this: there are some things in life more important and necessary than avoiding all risks. The doctor thinks Tinder dates fall into that category, and though I disagree on that specific point, many of us agree that some activities are worth it. There are things we don’t want to give up indefinitely in the name of personal safety, and we should be able to associate with people who have come to the same conclusion. Other concerns have to be weighed, too, like paying bills, preserving mental health, seeing family members, etc. Doing some of those things might involve a health risk. But why can’t we calculate it for ourselves? Apparently that’s a luxury only afforded to people who need a date.

Yes, protect the vulnerable. Yes, take precautions. Yes, allow people the choice to stay in should they so choose or should they need to for health reasons. Yes, encourage hospitals and nursing homes to take extra precautions. But the minute dating app hookups got the thumbs up as a matter of personal choice should have been the minute mandatory lockdowns ended as a matter of principle.