Of COVID and Guns
I was talking to some friends recently about churches and COVID and churches and armed security. The evil in Uvalde seemed to confirm to them the wisdom for increased security at the church (requiring concealed carry for security, locking church doors during worship, putting security cameras around the church). The questions I asked were, What is the threat level? Is there a reasonable likelihood of a violent threat to the church?
I have found that those who advocate this kind of church security overlap with those who are done with COVID. Done with masks, social distancing, temperature checks, living in fear. Do the masks work? Maybe. But people are deeply social and lose something with the masks. Instead of creating real security from the virus, it provides a false sense of security; virtue signalling, if you will. Masks might even be counter-productive for all sort of reasons…
Euthanized to Avoid COVID-Lockdown Loneliness
A 90-year-old Canadian women opted for assisted suicide instead of enduring another 2-week lockdown in her retirement home. The threat of another two weeks with no human contact was too much, and the doctors agreed to kill her to avoid it. Her family, however, was allowed to be with her to provide companionship during her death. Just not her life.
Parapets, Masks, and Preserving Human Life
I recently was teaching through the 10 Commandments using the Westminster Catechisms, and discovered something interesting in relation to the 6th commandment (“You shall not murder”). This commandment requires us to endeavor to preserve the lives of other people (WLC 155, WSC 68). What I found intriguing was a text, Deuteronomy 22:8, cited to support this claim, “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should fall from it.” Jewish roofs were flat so people could walk on them, and a parapet around the edges would prevent people from falling off and becoming injured.
What was interesting was the connection by the Westminster Assembly of this zoning regulation to the 6th commandment, an exegetical connection that Calvin also makes in his commentary on the verse. Building a safeguard on the roof was an expression of loving your neighbor by preserving their life.
What would it take for someone to fall off without a parapet and die? They would have to be on the roof (not necessarily a regular occurrence, especially not your own house), would have to be either careless (their fault!) or slip (rare in a dessert), and then fall from a one-story roof in the just the wrong way to be fatally injured (unlikely from that height). Parapets were protection against an unlikely scenario that could just as easily be the fault of the person falling. And yet, God commanded that parapets be added to preserve human life. This is what keeping the 6th commandment looks like: protecting human life from what might appear an unlikely or dubious threat.
Now do masks with COVID-19.
On Quarantines, Ethics, and Corporate Worship
This is one of those posts that should have been written months ago when COVID-19 was starting to have an effect on large gatherings, but still remains relevant as churches begin the process of reopening for Sunday worship. When the coronavirus hit, state governments began banning large gatherings out of caution in order to prevent the spread of the disease, with most states banning congregational worship as a subset of these large gatherings. The question that needed to be asked then, and still needs to be asked now since COVID-19 has not evaporated and new quarantines are still a possibility, is, What duty does the church have to still meet in the face of plagues and government restrictions? Scripture teaches on the subjects of gathering for corporate worship, loving your neighbor, and submitting to the government, and so I will examine these three pertinent topics to answer this question.
The Duty to Meet For Worship
“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some” (Heb. 10:24-25). These verses encapsulate the biblical teaching that the regular gathering of Christians for worship ought to be normative for the life of the believer and not set aside. This characterized the life of the church in scripture (e.g. Acts 2:42, 13:42, 20:7-10; 1 Cor. 16:1-2) and remains the duty of Christians today…
COVID-19 is God’s Judgment
One of the questions prompted by any crisis is whether God is inactive. Is he stepping aside and allowing calamitous evil to befall his creation and people? Is the crisis something beyond God’s power? Or, perhaps most frighteningly, is the catastrophe something that is being orchestrated by God?
These questions are common whenever we are confronted with suffering, and are elevated to prominence in times of widespread disaster, such as the moment we find ourselves with COVID-19.
Is the coronavirus God’s judgment for sin? The answer must be yes…
