Dear Christian: Do Not Forget the Watchers!

The question dropped unexpectedly into one of my digital communication platforms. The nonchristian’s private inquiry to me last week came after reading what other Christians were asserting on the public Web.

How would you answer the question? I’ll give you my answer shortly, but first something else that’s related.

What do Christians project in the public square?

• Whether in the grocery store or on social media, what do nonchristians hear from Christians?
• What do non-citizens of the kingdom of Heaven observe in the actions, attitudes, and general demeanor of Heaven’s citizens?

So many of us who profess to follow Jesus have grown lax and let our guard down, especially online. Whether commenting on someone’s blog post or writing an observation on social media, far too much commentary by Christians is foreign to the kingdom of Heaven.

I suppose this is fresh on my mind because I just finished a years-long project writing a study on the Sermon on the Mount. So I ask myself, “How should a citizen of the kingdom of Heaven disagree with a fellow Christian or with an unbeliever?”

If I look only at the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, I conclude that we who follow Jesus must be…

• meek and poor in spirit — certainly not testy or demanding or demeaning.
• pure, righteous, and merciful.
• peaceful, peaceable peacemakers.

And when I get further into Jesus’ sermon in Matthew 5-7, I see that the essential heart-inclination of Jesus’ disciple includes…

• returning good for evil (instead of paying back in kind).
• finding ways to bless those who mistreat us (instead of passively doing nothing).
• submitting to oppression (instead of resisting it or fighting against it).

These things stretch us in the church and in the community. They challenge us in the blogosphere as well as on Parler, Rumble, Facebook, and Twitter. And far too often we forget who we are — as evidenced by our surrender to responses from our old nature instead of offering up commentary clearly sourced in the new nature of those who follow Jesus.

Well, back to that out-of-the-blue digital communiqué that dropped into my virtual lap…

I’ve been watching the angst over the Covid vaccine… What I’m curious about is how is it known that God doesn’t want people to have the vaccine? And I’m sure you have an answer.

Wow! Frankly, I was very astonished and taken aback. I shouldn’t have been surprised by a nonchristian observing Christians, of course. Nor should I have been surprised by the question. Both things are logical and reasonable. But I was surprised and taken aback anyway.

I began my acknowledgement of the question by commending the writer’s own carefulness in online interactions with those who see things differently:

I very much appreciated your not allowing yourself to be drawn into a testy discussion…at least not in any of the threads I saw. I salute you for that.

You are correct that I have an answer — I just don’t pretend to know the right answer. 🙂 I will gladly give you my perspective…after I get it written.

The reply I received further underscores the importance of my introductory comments in this blog post:

I try to stay out of testy. And your responses to what is [online] show me you do too. So I have come to you with my question…

Well, the question again, followed this time by the reply I gave eventually:

“How is it known that God doesn’t want people to have the vaccine?”

I know of only one way to know conclusively whether something is or is not God’s will: What the Bible says about the matter. Sometimes the Bible speaks directly to a matter. Other times the direction we get from it is in the form of principles or precepts that apply to the matter at hand. Then there are times when the Bible is silent.

I think on the matter of the Covid vaccine, people are relying on one or both of these Biblical precepts: do not kill and do not damage your body. I’ll elaborate on these very briefly…

Since God forbids murder, it seems reasonable to go a step further and say it would be wrong for Christians to benefit from a murder victim’s body. Many Christians will use that line of thought to oppose the use of vaccines which have anything to do with aborted fetal cell tissues or lines. So if a given Covid vaccine falls into this category, they would naturally believe a Christian should avoid it. To be consistent, though, it seems they would have to be opposed to organ transplants from murder victims. I’m guessing, though, that they would see a significant difference between an aborted fetus and a murdered teenager. I’m not prepared to get into that now.

Many Christians seem to base their anti-Covid-vaccine stance on two related Biblical doctrines: (1) God indwells the bodies of His people and (2) God’s people should do no harm to these dwelling places (aka, temples of God). Here are two source verses for these doctrines:

Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.

1 Corinthians 3:16, 17 (as worded in the World English Bible)

To me, this stance is even more difficult to be consistent in. Here are some examples of what I mean:

• Extended sitting soon becomes bad for your health.
• Mood stabilizers will ruin your kidneys (and in some instances, your thyroid to boot).
• Extended concentrated dosages of ibuprofen will ruin your liver.
• Being overweight is very bad for you in a variety of ways.
• Refined sugars do bad things to you too.

And yet, my occupation for the last how long means extended sitting and I consume refined sugars…

I know that inconsistency is no reason not to do what’s right. I mention it only as a way of acknowledging it and the difficulty of it. 🙂

So do I think a Christian should not have the vaccine? No. Do I think a Christian should have the vaccine? No. I do not know what to believe anymore about the health dangers of any of the Covid vaccines, so I personally would have no grounds for saying, “God doesn’t want me to have it because He forbids my harming my body.”

I closed by inviting follow-up questions. I got two, again shown below in green, each followed by my reply:

Is there anything in the Bible that would support getting the vax for ones own health, for the health of your loved ones and for the health of the country?

When she heard the question, our daughter Dora — who works with and among nonchristians — quickly offered two answers: “Love your neighbor as your self and the same one.” (For the record, Dora wasn’t necessarily putting forward her own opinion regarding the pros and cons of the vax. Nor of which Scriptures could be rightly used to answer the question.)

I understood the first one, but was utterly baffled by the second. (Female brain and male brain processing the same data differently?) She explained to her puzzled Pa that she meant the same verse for opposing the vax.

Wow — I hadn’t thought of it that way (yet, I hope)! Check out these source verses:

You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am Yahweh. –Leviticus 19:18

Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are. –1 Corinthians 3:16, 17

Though I might be cautious about using one or more of these myself as an answer, here are some other verses that could be used in answer to your question:

each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. –Philippians 2:4

Let no one seek his own, but each one his neighbour’s good. –1 Corinthians 10:24

For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another. –Galatians 5:13

Of course, for each of those, an anti-vaxxer could protest that we shouldn’t do extreme damage to our own bodies just to show consideration to another’s health. Or to put it another way, we shouldn’t violate 1 Corinthians 3:16,17 in the process of “honoring” it. And to that, someone else could reply with this:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. –John 15:13

Well, I don’t doubt other Bible verses could be presented in answer to your question above. I’m not thinking of any more right now. I could look online, but then you could also. 🙂

We’ve been asked, not by people who know Mennonites so I’m not sure where the question comes from other than they know Mennonites are Christians, are Mennonites anti-vaxers? […] I’m thinking it isn’t the Mennonite Church that is against vaccines but individuals in the church or individual branches of the faith. Would you agree?

Your thought is correct regarding Mennonites generally and vaccines. I agree with you that it is not the Mennonite Church but individuals within the churches that would take a stand against vaccines.

So, I say again as I do in this post’s title, “Dear Christian: do not forget the watchers!” They may not engage you, but they do watch you. They notice what you care about and what you promote. They notice your attitudes and your values. They notice your consistencies and inconsistencies. They notice what you say and how you say it. Many of them know what to expect of a citizen of the kingdom of Heaven…whether you deliver that or not. And they wonder. A very few might ask you directly. Would you bite their head off?

It has been good for me to be reminded.

May we not bring reproach to Christ’s name. May God not be ashamed to be called our God.

“The darkness deepens — Lord, with me abide.” And help me keep my light lit, no matter how much thicker the darkness becomes.