“the current debate over masks is ... currently the most obvious reflection of our idolization of liberty.”
“Community post-Enlightenment serves me now, not the other way around. The all important ‘I.’ In a word, our much beloved individualism. Some of you probably have calendars, t-shirts, and coffee mugs touting individualism’s tenets that tell you that you have the right to be happy, achieve your dreams, define yourself however you want, and live your best life now, among other distillations of secularism’s priority of the individual.” - John Ellis
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John, I don’t fault you for your passion on this, but I also don’t think it helps. The debate already suffers from too much heat and not enough reason. We would benefit from a bit more enlightenment reason vs. post-enlightenment (or later-enlightenment) romanticism.
… which takes me to your enlightenment analysis. There’s a lot of thought there, and I appreciate that, but there’s something missing. Rousseau, for example, went on to promote collectivism (https://www.britannica.com/topic/collectivism). Bentham, and Mill and others—kind of the grandchildren of the Enlightenment—developed a vision of society in which in which enlightened elites engineer what’s best for the society as a whole, at the cost of individual liberty.
So… much of the push back we’re seeing on masks (as well as keeping schools closed, applying restrictions to churches, etc.) is rooted in anti-collectivist and anti-elitist populism (the latter is redundant… all populism is anti-elitist, but I wanted to focus on that part of it.)
Worldview wise, the idolatry vs. “kingdom ethics” clash is more complex than you’ve portrayed here because there are flavors of both individualist and collectivist idoloatry. It’s just as easy to idolize the emotion of the crowd as it is to exalt the reason (or emotion) of the individual in ways that are contrary to Christian ethics.
So, I don’t think the framing works.
What does work, I think, is recognizing that the Evangelical Christian mind is a stew of both biblical and cultural ideas — theology and philosophy and folk philosophy — and it’s a huge challenge to step back and look at ideas notion by notion and try to bring them into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
But difficult or not, that is our calling. … and I appreciate your efforts to do that.
A word of advice on persuasive strategy: in our current climate, everybody seems to come out swinging and nobody seems to listen anybody. I don’t claim to have a cure for that but maybe people listen a little more if we start out softly? (Prov 15.1)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Welp, John has read 60 papers. That means we must listen to his expertise or we’re sinning. Clearly this is the final word on the subject, and we can put our concerns to rest. I, for one, am thankful that I need not concern myself with disagreements on this subject any longer, now that the science is settled.
The article is very angry. I wear a mask when I go out in public.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I’ve been trying to decide if the pushback on masks (the versions I’ve encountered personally, and a smattering of written episodes) is mostly built on philosophy/worldview, as John argues, or is more a problem of habits of thought… or some combination of the two.
I definitely get the feeling at times that a difference in worldview is involved to some extent. An example is that I don’t see a person who is on the wrong side of lots of issues politically as some sort of nonhuman embodiment of pure evil, incapable of ordinary human motivations… and the highly politicized voices I hear on both the right and the left routinely make claims that require that as an assumption.
For example, if a governor is pro-abortion, she can’t possibly issue a health-related restriction that she sincerely hopes will save lives.
So the thinking goes.
This is not my worldview… at least, the part of my worldview I’ll lump under the heading “anthropology,” doesn’t look at my fellow human beings that way, especially leaders who have very difficult decisions to make with always-inadequate information.
Maybe I’m wrong to see left-leaning, pro-abortion leaders as ordinary people who happen to be wrong about some things.
I think I’m happier though. I’m free to not be constantly angry, constantly assuming evil is afoot (as opposed to just dumb mistakes), constantly seeing hideous ugliness in people that might just be good people with some large and unfortunate blind spots.
The haste to see leaders with issues as evil people is especially rich when it comes form individuals who think Trump is mostly an OK guy… or even a really good president.
When that happens it hits me hard. We do not have the same worldview.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
But the mask debate is over now, anyway…
Trump tweets photo of himself wearing coronavirus mask: ‘nobody more Patriotic than me’ (Fox)
Now the populists and nationalists et al. all have permission from their Dear Leader to accept masks.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I’ve mentioned before with John’s writings on masks, I think he’s completely missing the target. At most, the anti-mask typically reaction represents a failure of trust in our institutions (“elite” institutions, as has been pointed out above) more than a worked-out, idolatrous philosophy. And there’s plenty of blame to spread around on that front. I don’t know of a single person out there saying, “Yeah, I know I could be killing people by not wearing a mask, but stinks to be them. Beer?” Certainly not a Christian person. I’ve seen plenty falling into conspiracy theories. You can accuse them of bad faith or stupidity, but please realize one of those is necessarily prior to an accusation of sin.
At any rate, I get the impression John is trying to shortcut the political discussion by finding a “Biblical” political position. I’m sorry, you don’t get to go there. God hasn’t seen fit to give us a handbook for politics. Christians can endorse a (limited) range of positions as consistent with Biblical truth. I’m sorry if that’s messy, and doesn’t allow you to browbeat your neighbors into your POV, but we’d best not be wiser than God on this. Like the sciences, medicine, etc., He’s left us a lot of the work to hammer out how best to order a society.
As for the Reformed not holding a position to satisfy his “evolving” political inclinations… if they don’t, I’m not sure who would. The Reformed tradition currently accommodates a very broad range of political persuasions, from Two Kingdoms, Transformationalist/neo-Kuyperian, “Ordinary-Means-Of-Grace,” etc. The only other game in town is Rome or EO (Anabaptists aren’t playing — at least, not since Munster).
Private business (i.e. not gov’t owned) has the right to set policies for their business, such as “no shirt, no shoes, no service” or “no smoking inside building”. Although I am not a fan of masks, I will wear a mask inside a business that requires it, then take the mask off when I am outside. If I do not like the policy, I do not have to shop at that business. Gov’t requirements always create disagreement, and that disagreement doesn’t always mean that people are making liberty an idol. Many concerns are based on nothing more than wishing to protect liberty, not worship it. Large gov’t and the regulations it produces inevitably produce inconsistency. For example: Consider a disease which is very contagious with serious consequences, requiring medication to control the disease and symptoms. The disease spreads through personal contact, yet the gov’t does not require/mandate that anyone do anything, although the gov’t does have education programs about the disease. What is the disease? Sexually Transmitted Disease or, when I was growing up, venereal disease. The comparison with the covid virus is not perfect but similar enough to consider/wonder why the gov’t & media are so focused on one but not the other.
Wally Morris
Huntington, IN
My daughter’s father-in-law is a pathologist at Mayo—so perhaps the thoughts I’ve received from him count as somewhat authoritative—and there are any number of questions that haven’t been totally answered yet. For starters, there’s a question of whether you really can get herd immunity for a coronavirus—you can get pretty much the same cold again and again and again, and for whatever reason, it’s not that common to get secondary, permanent immunity with coronavirii. We know we can see antibodies about 3 months out, but those are the primary ones. Is a vaccine even possible for this? They do it for veterinary, but not humans, so far.
But if you can get permanent immunity, does it make more sense to stomp it out, or is it too late, and would it be better if we all went to “Camp COVID” to deliberately get the disease—at least all of us who are healthy?
Regarding masks, the question is “in what context?” Inside makes a lot more sense than outside, but even there, you’ve got the question of whether people are using the mask as if it were impervious to the disease—and then they ignore social distancing because “they’ve got their mask on”, well, except they don’t have it over their nose half the time, so it’s really not doing much good unless…they have a nasty cold and shouldn’t be out in public to begin with, I dare say.
At this point, what I can say for sure is that Christian love ought to include some steps to protect the most vulnerable, and those are the aged and those with metabolic syndrome—obesity, high blood pressure/sugar, size of your waist. So we would infer that staying away from the aged when possible, using protective gear when not, and….encouraging people to drop a few pounds and take care of their blood pressure and sugar. And of course, pray that it doesn’t do what many suggest the Spanish flu did—mutate so that it attacks the young more than the aged.
Put differently, though there are a ton of things I don’t think we know for sure here, I’m amenable to John’s thesis, but with a couple additions and modifications.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Aaron Blumer]But the mask debate is over now, anyway…
Trump tweets photo of himself wearing coronavirus mask: ‘nobody more Patriotic than me’ (Fox)
Now the populists and nationalists et al. all have permission from their Dear Leader to accept masks.
I think this just means that the Left must now disavow masks as symbols of the alt-right, so we’ve all just switched sides.
Comparison “not perfect” is an understatement… but there are similarities.
What I’m seeing a lot is crossing over the fine line between questioning government on these things vs. a spirit of rebellion. And sometimes, it seems, a crossing over the line from concern for liberty to idolizing of liberty. I don’t think John’s wrong that this happens. It’s just that there are other thought processes involved also.
On the other end, you have pro-mask folks who are driven by concern to help people avoid the disease etc., but some are motivated by idolization of government or wokeness or “the liberal social narrative” or what have you. So… isn’t it human nature that when it comes to motives, you’re always going to have some who are right for the wrong reasons and wrong for the right reasons?
Matt 7:1 comes to mind…. and 7:2, or wherever the part is that talks about the kind of standard we use to judge others ends up being the sort of standard we get judged by.
Of the two, it might be better to be wrong for the right reasons.
…discussion by finding a “Biblical” political position. I’m sorry, you don’t get to go there. God hasn’t seen fit to give us a handbook for politics. Christians can endorse a (limited) range of positions as consistent with Biblical truth. I’m sorry if that’s messy…
It’s not as limited as many think. In any case, we’re supposed to derive principles from Scripture and apply them to all of life. So the claim that “this is the biblical way to think and act” is a legitimate claim for debate and a legitimate effort, regardless of whether it’s “political” or not. There are no excluded categories of thinking and acting Christianly. So, claiming “this is the biblical position” is not shutting down the debate. It is the debate—for believers. “This is political so there’s nothing biblical to say” is shutting down the debate. (Well, sort of. It’s moving the debate back to a different, more fundamental question: What is the Bible good for? Or how do we use it for all of life?)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I am astounded at the thought that in 2020 Americans think not wearing masks to prevent the spread of a novel disease is a symbol of freedom and liberty. They somehow think they are resisting a repressive government… simply amazing and sad at the same time.
Let me edit to add this. There is an article in my local paper by a woman with severe asthma. So bad is her asthma that she says she cannot tolerate a mask… but she wants to still go out and expose herself to a novel virus that causes severe respiratory problems. What is the logic in that? And how come the local city council, county commission, and governor, are “oppressive” for asking her (or requiring her) to wear a mask to save her life which is apparently so fragile?
[Aaron Blumer]So, claiming “this is the biblical position” is not shutting down the debate. It is the debate—for believers.
Of course the “biblical position” is to take what the Bible says and apply it to all of life. We all agree on that.
However, taking your own application, i.e. “wearing a mask == the biblical position” and then assuming it is biblical truth, is indeed shutting down the debate. It still must be shown to be true, not claimed and then preached as sin.
Dave Barnhart
be to obey those that God puts in rule over you for your safety and protection (Heb 13:17 and Romans 13).
[Mark_Smith]I am astounded at the thought that in 2020 Americans think not wearing masks to prevent the spread of a novel disease is a symbol of freedom and liberty. They somehow think they are resisting a repressive government… simply amazing and sad at the same time.
Mark, for the great majority, this is not about masks. It’s about trust and being lied to — about science and a lot more. If the main reason for telling us NOT to wear masks in the beginning was to preserve them for those who really needed them, why not say so? Because government doesn’t trust us to not run out and purchase them anyway? And now that we are being told they are necessary, when everyone with half a brain understands that the majority of the cloth masks being used can’t actually prevent transmission of virus, even if they can maybe slow down some transmission through fluid droplets, you wonder why people don’t just trust what they are being told? If government really believed that masks worked so well, they’d allow everything to open up if we wore masks. And you know what, if they would allow life to get back to normal if we wore masks anytime we are around others, I’d sign up for it myself.
Science is also saying that the very young not only don’t get very sick (if at all), they also don’t transmit the virus much. That’s why in Europe, which is much more socially oriented than we are, the schools are opening. But we’re keeping all of ours completely shut. What people dislike is the misuse of “science” to take whatever policy position the authorities like. People are sick and tired of not being told the truth by those in authority. As long as those in authority continue to behave that way, plan on much of the public telling them to take their masks and stick them where the sun doesn’t shine.
Personally, I agree with protecting those who need it. That’s biblical. I’ll avoid getting too close to those at risk, and happily wear a mask for them. What I’m not going to do is to strap one on my face every single time I go out “just in case.”
Dave Barnhart
How is it not sheer common sense that wearing a covering over your nose and mouth will do two things: limit how much virus you shed and how much virus you take in.
All the other arguments people make against masks I heard for two decades as to why they didn’t wear seat belts, ie it’s not comfortable, they’re not safe, they don’t really help, the government can’t make me, I’ve got my rights… on and on and on.
The “I’ve got my rights” crowd and the “this is nothing but a bad flu, deal with it” crowd are why I still have not returned to church services inside. Too many who can’t help themselves or help others yet think they are the righteous ones.
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