The entire Covid situation has presented everyone with a lot of hard questions. But Christians should often be asking more and different questions than the world asks. I received a great document written by Rev. Dr. Michael Lockwood of the Lutheran Church of Australia and medical practitioner Dr. Ian Hamer that asks some pertinent ones. Here are a few:
Have we honoured our God as the one who will save lives and end this crisis, or have we bought into the narrative that it is human beings who will do these things?
Have we given glory to Christ as the Bread of Life, who alone has conquered death? Or have we acted as if human measures to stave off death are more vital?
Have our human attempts to engineer the outcomes we want led us to set aside the commandments of God? Have we prioritised human commands over those of God or made other moral and spiritual compromises, while assuring ourselves that the ends justify the means? Or have we instead focused on doing what God tells us to do, while leaving the results to him?
Do our actions show that we are afraid?
The Lutheran rationale for religious exemptions to vaccine mandates I posted the other day examined the question of vaccination in light of the 4th and 5th Commandments–considering the demands of our vocations and our responsibility to care for the bodily needs of our households. But there’s no reason to stop at those two. Lockwood and Hamer walk through all ten of them and consider some of the implications of how we have reacted to this pandemic. The results are convicting.
I encourage you to download and read the entire document, “A Call to Repentance and Faith” here.
