In R.R.Reno’s writings included in your column, he says the virus doesn’t pose “an extreme threat”. I think hundreds of thousands of US deaths are pretty extreme. I agree with you that requiring masks in a close indoor setting such as church or theaters or grocery stores as well as stressing the importance of vaccinations even to the point of mandates is a reasonable public health solution. God gave us the ability to use our brains to develop science snd scientific methods to aid our personal and societal health. It seems irresponsible to do otherwise. It also seems that if we practice loving our neighbor as ourselves we would want to employ protections for the common good.
Mark, I agree that there are trends of “healthism” in the country. But I don’t think a concern about a pandemic that has killed more than 650,000 Americans plus millions more world-wide can in any reasonable way be considered “as spiritually corrupting as fixations on wealth and material consumption.” Jesus warned against the dangers of mammon but not against caring for the sick and loving one’s neighbor!
I do wonder how Reno can say that vaccines are only moderately effective when those that aren’t vaccinated are eleven times more likely to die than those that are vaccinated. I also don’t understand how such a pro-life advocate like Reno can be so cavalier about real and potential loss of life and even blame those who do care about saving lives as having disordered preoccupations. It seems like he is speaking more from a political rather than from either a medical or biblical perspective.
I believe that vaccine mandates that have been carefully studied, evaluated and recommended by the CDC and FDA are not extreme measures any more than requiring polio and small pox vaccines are. My aunt died of polio before a vaccine was developed so I have been personally touched by death among the unvaccinated. I am also glad that millions of lives have been saved because of this polio public health vaccine mandate. Why ae COVID vaccines any different?
To go back to Reno’s concern about “disordered affections”, I would add to the list of concerns an idolatry of independence and individualism that doesn’t seem to care about the health and welfare of the broader society. In the context of Jeremiah’s familiar exhortation, God’s people should care about the health and welfare of the society in which they live. So we indeed should be cheerleaders for anything like vaccines that can save an abundance of human lives. Healthism is not nearly as great a spiritual threat as a lack of compassion for the past and future victims of the pandemic.
I respect RR Reno and First Things greatly (I subscribe to the magazine). But his commentary on "healthism" begins with a half truth. Vaccines are not "moderately effective" or modestly better than natural immunity. There are nearly completely effective in preventing death from COVID-19.
Further on, he says, "the virus does not pose an extreme threat". Again, over 1,500 people died of COVID yesterday in the US alone. Over 650,000 Americans have died. Life expectancy dropped as much last year as it did in World War 2. What other threat have we encountered recently of that magnitude? The fixation isn't on death; it is on unnecessary death when there is a proven and safe remedy available. To paraphrase- "Why will you die O house of America?"
While I agree with Reno that our society is often dominated by an unhealthy preoccupation with health and death, I cannot agree with Reno’s assessment of this in application to the COVID-19 crisis.
I have been extremely saddened at the Christian response to the pandemic. Very rarely have I heard my fellow Christians asking, “What can I sacrifice for the sake of my neighbor during this time?” More often, conversations revolve around protecting individual safety and rights ("Is the vaccine safe for ME?", "I should have a right to risk my own health if I want to.", etc.). The body of Christ in the United States was given an opportunity to step into the call to “lay down our lives” for one another, and we have failed miserably. Instead, the pandemic has revealed just how individualist and self-centered our faith has become. Stubborn refrains about personal freedom do not align with the call of our Savior to be take up our cross and follow Him. Perhaps we have gotten our Bill of Rights mixed up with our Bible.
While scripture makes it clear that for believers death has no sting (1 Cor.15:55-57), that does not negate the mandate to reduce human suffering here on earth. Only a Gnostic view of Christianity would claim that the health of human bodies, the reduction of human suffering, and the protection of human lives is not important to God. Scripture is abundantly clear that we are called to sacrifice ourselves, not just for the souls of the “least of these”, but for their very real physical needs as well. Scriptural messages to not live in fear are always a call to courageous self-sacrifice, not courageous self-indulgence.
In Rodney Stark’s book, The Rise of Christianity, he describes the risks that early Christians took to care for their neighbors during the Plague of Cyprian in the Roman empire. Early Christians fearlessly attended to the sick in their homes, gave generously of their own provisions, and even adopted surviving children into their own families. There is something seriously wrong with my faith if I am unwilling to wear a mask to my place of worship and reduce my indulgence in dining and entertainment activities as an effort to offer some protection for my neighbor and help curb the spread in my community. Taking a risk with a new vaccine is a very small step of faith and self-sacrifice that looks pale in comparison to the incredible sacrifices of these early Christians. For fellow Christians today to claim that they are trusting God to protect them when they go to the movies without a mask is nothing more than a self-centered faith for a self-indulgent activity.
With hindsight, we can see that many of the measures that these early believers took to care for the sick were quaint and ineffective. Perhaps someday we will look at our current efforts in the same way. However, God honored these early Christian’s willingness to sacrifice their very lives for the sake of their neighbor by reducing death rates where Christian’s were ministering by almost half. Beyond that, the pandemic led to an explosion of Christianity across the Roman empire. As people of faith, we should believe that our actions are more than naturalistic interventions. When we make choices to sacrifice our own rights for the sake of our neighbor, our God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20). Who knows how a living and present God might honor the self-sacrificing, natural, and embodied acts of faith of His children to supernaturally impact the world?
Tim. I was a longtime subscriber to First Things. I was disappointed enough in Rusty Reno’s gradual slide to the far right that I let my subscription expire. He seems to be losing contact with reality.
Back in the primitive days of Christ’s ministry, love meant visiting the sick. Now it means obediently accepting any and all measures (so long as they are FDA approved!) until no one gets sick anywhere at any time. We literally believe we ought to be able to control sickness, and so assign Messianic power to an intravenous treatment that hasn’t even been properly tested. Sounds like “healthism” to me.
RE: Vaccine Passports; If government (or businesses) want to require certain precautions for the use of certain non-necessary amenities (though we know how vague and subjective non-necessary can be, just like non-essential) such as air travel, that's fine. However, required precautions should not exceed the duration of the use of service. "Wear a mask while in airport or plane" is fair game, but "Get your whole person vaccinated so that you can be in airport or plane" is not.
In R.R.Reno’s writings included in your column, he says the virus doesn’t pose “an extreme threat”. I think hundreds of thousands of US deaths are pretty extreme. I agree with you that requiring masks in a close indoor setting such as church or theaters or grocery stores as well as stressing the importance of vaccinations even to the point of mandates is a reasonable public health solution. God gave us the ability to use our brains to develop science snd scientific methods to aid our personal and societal health. It seems irresponsible to do otherwise. It also seems that if we practice loving our neighbor as ourselves we would want to employ protections for the common good.
Mark, I agree that there are trends of “healthism” in the country. But I don’t think a concern about a pandemic that has killed more than 650,000 Americans plus millions more world-wide can in any reasonable way be considered “as spiritually corrupting as fixations on wealth and material consumption.” Jesus warned against the dangers of mammon but not against caring for the sick and loving one’s neighbor!
I do wonder how Reno can say that vaccines are only moderately effective when those that aren’t vaccinated are eleven times more likely to die than those that are vaccinated. I also don’t understand how such a pro-life advocate like Reno can be so cavalier about real and potential loss of life and even blame those who do care about saving lives as having disordered preoccupations. It seems like he is speaking more from a political rather than from either a medical or biblical perspective.
I believe that vaccine mandates that have been carefully studied, evaluated and recommended by the CDC and FDA are not extreme measures any more than requiring polio and small pox vaccines are. My aunt died of polio before a vaccine was developed so I have been personally touched by death among the unvaccinated. I am also glad that millions of lives have been saved because of this polio public health vaccine mandate. Why ae COVID vaccines any different?
To go back to Reno’s concern about “disordered affections”, I would add to the list of concerns an idolatry of independence and individualism that doesn’t seem to care about the health and welfare of the broader society. In the context of Jeremiah’s familiar exhortation, God’s people should care about the health and welfare of the society in which they live. So we indeed should be cheerleaders for anything like vaccines that can save an abundance of human lives. Healthism is not nearly as great a spiritual threat as a lack of compassion for the past and future victims of the pandemic.
I respect RR Reno and First Things greatly (I subscribe to the magazine). But his commentary on "healthism" begins with a half truth. Vaccines are not "moderately effective" or modestly better than natural immunity. There are nearly completely effective in preventing death from COVID-19.
Further on, he says, "the virus does not pose an extreme threat". Again, over 1,500 people died of COVID yesterday in the US alone. Over 650,000 Americans have died. Life expectancy dropped as much last year as it did in World War 2. What other threat have we encountered recently of that magnitude? The fixation isn't on death; it is on unnecessary death when there is a proven and safe remedy available. To paraphrase- "Why will you die O house of America?"
While I agree with Reno that our society is often dominated by an unhealthy preoccupation with health and death, I cannot agree with Reno’s assessment of this in application to the COVID-19 crisis.
I have been extremely saddened at the Christian response to the pandemic. Very rarely have I heard my fellow Christians asking, “What can I sacrifice for the sake of my neighbor during this time?” More often, conversations revolve around protecting individual safety and rights ("Is the vaccine safe for ME?", "I should have a right to risk my own health if I want to.", etc.). The body of Christ in the United States was given an opportunity to step into the call to “lay down our lives” for one another, and we have failed miserably. Instead, the pandemic has revealed just how individualist and self-centered our faith has become. Stubborn refrains about personal freedom do not align with the call of our Savior to be take up our cross and follow Him. Perhaps we have gotten our Bill of Rights mixed up with our Bible.
While scripture makes it clear that for believers death has no sting (1 Cor.15:55-57), that does not negate the mandate to reduce human suffering here on earth. Only a Gnostic view of Christianity would claim that the health of human bodies, the reduction of human suffering, and the protection of human lives is not important to God. Scripture is abundantly clear that we are called to sacrifice ourselves, not just for the souls of the “least of these”, but for their very real physical needs as well. Scriptural messages to not live in fear are always a call to courageous self-sacrifice, not courageous self-indulgence.
In Rodney Stark’s book, The Rise of Christianity, he describes the risks that early Christians took to care for their neighbors during the Plague of Cyprian in the Roman empire. Early Christians fearlessly attended to the sick in their homes, gave generously of their own provisions, and even adopted surviving children into their own families. There is something seriously wrong with my faith if I am unwilling to wear a mask to my place of worship and reduce my indulgence in dining and entertainment activities as an effort to offer some protection for my neighbor and help curb the spread in my community. Taking a risk with a new vaccine is a very small step of faith and self-sacrifice that looks pale in comparison to the incredible sacrifices of these early Christians. For fellow Christians today to claim that they are trusting God to protect them when they go to the movies without a mask is nothing more than a self-centered faith for a self-indulgent activity.
With hindsight, we can see that many of the measures that these early believers took to care for the sick were quaint and ineffective. Perhaps someday we will look at our current efforts in the same way. However, God honored these early Christian’s willingness to sacrifice their very lives for the sake of their neighbor by reducing death rates where Christian’s were ministering by almost half. Beyond that, the pandemic led to an explosion of Christianity across the Roman empire. As people of faith, we should believe that our actions are more than naturalistic interventions. When we make choices to sacrifice our own rights for the sake of our neighbor, our God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20). Who knows how a living and present God might honor the self-sacrificing, natural, and embodied acts of faith of His children to supernaturally impact the world?
For further reference: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/13/christianity-epidemics-2000-years-should-i-still-go-to-church-coronavirus/
Tim. I was a longtime subscriber to First Things. I was disappointed enough in Rusty Reno’s gradual slide to the far right that I let my subscription expire. He seems to be losing contact with reality.
Back in the primitive days of Christ’s ministry, love meant visiting the sick. Now it means obediently accepting any and all measures (so long as they are FDA approved!) until no one gets sick anywhere at any time. We literally believe we ought to be able to control sickness, and so assign Messianic power to an intravenous treatment that hasn’t even been properly tested. Sounds like “healthism” to me.
RE: Vaccine Passports; If government (or businesses) want to require certain precautions for the use of certain non-necessary amenities (though we know how vague and subjective non-necessary can be, just like non-essential) such as air travel, that's fine. However, required precautions should not exceed the duration of the use of service. "Wear a mask while in airport or plane" is fair game, but "Get your whole person vaccinated so that you can be in airport or plane" is not.