Full disclosure: I have received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. When Novavax can be used for boosters I will probably get one. I am hesitant about receiving another mRNA or equivalent-technology dose. I am yet to understand how a vaccine developed for Alpha helps me with Omicron and whatever other strains may follow. I opted to receive the first two doses due to co-morbidities -- a childhood full of respiratory diseases.
Lots of sad news in the world today. I heard this week that one of the larger churches in my city, Riverview Church, had chosen to implement a Proof of Vaccination in the 9am gathering. Accompanied by a video the announcement applied to services starting this Sunday 13 Feb 2022. I hope someone put up a marquee outside and provided refreshment and teaching for those who were excluded from the main meeting.
About four months ago, there was an interesting opinion piece in The Sydney Morning Herald written by one Phil Colgan, the senior minister of St George North Anglican Church in Sydney. It was entitled, "The word from a vaccinated preacher: we don’t urge law-breaking, but we cherish religious freedom". The summary read: "Our churches support emergency action during the pandemic. Longer term, the idea that Christians would exclude anyone from church is extremely problematic."
And it is problematic. As Colgan goes on to say:
It goes against the very essence of the gospel. Jesus sought to welcome the “sinners” of his day – the people who the self-righteous elite sought to exclude from their temple. When we seek to include people, it is not an affirmation of their viewpoints, but an expression of love for them, with the hope that they might come to know God’s love shown to them in Jesus, and then even change their manner of life. Given that reality, of course churches want to talk about whether a vaccine passport is a good and necessary step.
What worries me in this whole experience is that it seems we can’t even do that – that is, talk about it. Perhaps I was unclear or unhelpful in my words? However, to arrive at good outcomes, people need to be free to discuss things in theory, disagree, listen to others and then seek to arrive at some sort of consensus. This is not possible when we demonise people with whom we disagree (or perhaps who don’t even disagree, but only raise the issue?)
I've just come from being on the side of a conversation between some vaccinated Christians talking about this very category of people: those who are vaccine-hesitant or even actively resistant to the political, societal and peer-group pressure to be vaccinated, and specifically those who claim to be Christian. What I heard was not love, nor any willingness to bear with the weakness of other brothers and sisters, in the Romans 15 sense, but rather demonising and stereotyping -- lumping them all together with home-schoolers and Trump supporters. They even went so far as to suggest that Christians who refuse to be vaccinated or delay their boosting for whatever reason should go and form their own churches.
I'm strongly inclined to try and find such a church just so that I can join it. Identifying with the leper-class seems to me to be something that Jesus would do. Talking up an "aren't we great, we're triple-vaxxed" line seems so Pharisee and Sadducee.
As Colgan says, we don't encourage law-breaking. We don't. We strongly urge obedience to the laws of the land as per Romans 13. But we don't necessarily encourage obedience to the law when that law goes beyond its God-given limits. When the government starts telling Christians how to be Christians, when they start talking religio licita and illicita, then the church needs to ask itself whether being obedient to the state at the expense of obedience to Christ is worthwhile. Of course, disobedience to the state will mean great suffering for the church. When the believers disobeyed the Sanhedrin in the months after Pentecost they experienced persecution of all kinds including floggings, imprisonment and execution. God occasionally stepped in to save, miraculously releasing Peter from prison for example, but generally, that wasn't (and isn't) the case.
I've been telling people for years that these days were coming. Now they're here. The time to chose whether you worship the state or Christ has come. We can make a god of the state or we can resist that urge and worship and serve the Creator who is blessed forever. The secret police aren't breaking down our front doors yet, so there's still time to pray and think things through, but the time to sweep the issue under the carpet one more time has passed. Many prayed for (and died for) the end of apartheid in South Africa. How many for this new apartheid?
