Trust the Medical Profession

It’s quite interesting that one of the common responses to scepticism regarding masks, lockdowns and vaccinations is that we ignorant non-medical people need to just trust the professionals. What is commonly assumed is that professionals can never get things wrong. We somehow have arrived at a point in history where mistakes are no longer made, and there is no way generations to come will look back and chuckle at our ignorance. This is plain hubris.

Need we be reminded that medical professionals in times past used to blood let to ‘help’ their patients? Need we be reminded that there was great resistance when Ignaz Semmelweis suggested that washing hands before surgery could prevent deaths. He ended up losing his job. So before these medical professionals get too cocky, they ought to remember human history and that includes medical history is fraught with errors and stupidity. We are no doubt making mistakes just like our ancestors.

Pfizer Side-Effects

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In recent weeks it seems that a few people have begun to talk about adverse reactions to the Pfizer covid vaccine. A US court has ordered Pfizer to release a damning document that highlights over 100 different adverse reactions to the vaccine from around the world. Curiously there were a few others that were not listed which I think are common enough. Unlisted side-effects of the Pfizer covid vaccine are self-righteousness, stupidity, heartlessness and the loss of critical thinking skills.

Let’s take Duncan Garner as our first example. Having just received his second dose of the vaccine, he gets covid. Initially surprised he assumed it couldn’t be covid because he was already vaccinated. His religious faith took a hit when he discovered it was, but he managed to overcome this spiritual attack and move to comfort himself with the thought that things would have been far worse had he not been vaccinated. Conclusion? Get vaccinated says Garner. So he thought the vaccine prevented him from getting Covid. It didn’t. And now he expects us to get this marvellous vaccine because he thinks it will reduce the effects of the virus. Don’t take up a job in sales mate.

Then there are the clowns who complain about the protests. Newmarket’s retail boss Mark Knoff-Thomas labelled those protesting by marching down Broadway as ‘utter dickheads’ because it apparently ruined one of the busiest shopping days of the year. I wonder what he calls the people who shut down the shops for about a quarter of the year and who now are banning unvaccinated people from many shops around the country.

On a related note, we have Inangahua Community Board chair John Bougen frustrated with supposedly irrational attitudes of anti-vaxxers. Let’s leave the ‘anti-vaxxer’ slur alone this time. People who haven’t got the Pfizer vaccine are not all anti-vaxxers. If you don’t know this, it’s probably due to the little known adverse reaction of stupidity.

So what’s Bougen’s problem? Why are those choosing not to take the vaccine irrational? Well, unfortunately for him, it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The only irrational one is Bougen. He is annoyed because those who have refused the vaccine are having a negative impact on business. Cafes have apparently lost staff and can’t open on certain days of the week. Chefs are no longer working at restaurants. The worst of all for Bougen is that employers have to foot the bill for four weeks pay for the staff who have refused the vaccine and are losing their jobs. How dare these people get four weeks pay? They’ve only been pushed out on their arse because our ever benevolent overlords have decided to mandate an experimental vaccine before they can continue in their employment. Why should they get four weeks pay as they begin to look for jobs that will allow the modern-day leper to apply? How dare we give them anything? They should be dismissed immediately. Who do they think they are trying to make their own medical choices? Bastards. They should be tossed on the street without a cent. Better still, they should have been held down and forcibly vaccinated so John Bougen can enjoy a flat white at the cafe of his choice.

This is a clear case of the damage the Pfizer vaccine is doing to the critical thinking skills of a number of New Zealanders. We treat people abominably and then we blame them for the results of our treatment. We accept the government’s injustice like docile sheep, and then instead of blaming the government for its evil stupidity, we turn on the poor sods who have already suffered job losses and then blame them for minor inconveniences to ourselves. We say they are ruining the economy because now we don’t have enough workers. We blame them for putting lives in danger because they are no longer working as St John’s volunteers because of the mandate.

I’ve even heard this sort of stupid thinking even amongst some Christians who think unvaccinated people need to just resign and let employers get on with hiring someone else. There is no compassion, no love, no care, no sense of the great wrong that is being done right now. No desire for justice. No understanding that not only are brave people losing their jobs, but they are also losing their rights to be free citizens in their own country. No haircuts, no date nights, no clay shooting club, no weddings, no family Christmas and the list keeps going on and on. There is only a sense of frustration that these people won’t just disappear and stop ruining our society.

And finally to the mainstream media for their stupidity. The New Zealand Herald had a recent headline: Young girl gets virus after hug with unvaccinated adult. The lead paragraph reads. “An 11-year-old girl got Covid-19 after “a fleeting hug” with an unvaccinated adult at a family dinner, leaving the family’s lives “disrupted” for three weeks, her mother says.” Sounds absolutely appalling, doesn’t it?

So the story? A young girl hugs a young man who was unvaccinated and carried the virus. Interestingly he did not know he had the virus, so it can’t have been bad – not like Duncan’s version eh?! The poor girl contracted the virus and ended up with covid and had to isolate. It was very disruptive apparently. Then we get the usual self-righteous lecturing about how the mother always follows the rules like a good little sheep, as well as the obligatory throwing the unvaccinated family member under the bus and the altar call to accept the gospel of vaccination. Then we are regaled with the fact that poor Shakyra had a compromising health condition and was born premature.

By this stage I was truly worried, I can tell you. In typical mainstream media fashion, my fears were only relieved 3/4 of the way down. Shakyra only had a runny nose and a cough. One wonders how this made it into our supposed premier newspaper. Imagine trying this 3 years ago. My daughter was hugged by her uncle who hadn’t got his flu shot. She got a runny nose and a bit of a cough. That would have been front-page news that. Riveting stuff. The real question is, why isn’t the headline “Two unvaccinated young people unaffected by Covid”?

Keep your eyes peeled my friends. As you do, you will surely see that these vaccine side effects of stupidity, self-righteousness and loss of critical thinking skills are worryingly common.

Reformed Evangelism

In reformed thought, evangelism is history- and world-affirming; the gospel declares Christ’s universal providential government and cosmos-renewing intentions. Thus, we must repudiate all notions of evangelism that are intent on purely inward, pietistic concerns, seeking to escape from this world into heaven rather than seeking his kingdom coming “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

Joseph Boot in The Mission of God

Which Character Do You Play?

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Recently I listened to N D Wilson talking about ‘story’. Some of his comments were extremely thought-provoking. Watch for instance his short film Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl. He portrays God as a great storyteller or playwright and we are living and acting as characters in His world play. What follows are not my ideas, but Wilson’s ideas which I am thinking about and musing on.

What kind of character are you? We all like to think of ourselves as heroes of the story, which we often think of as our story, but is that really the part we are playing? Who are you? Would you like the character you are playing? So often when reading great literature, watching good films, or even reading biographies of good men and women, we think of ourselves as playing the parts of heroes. We put ourselves in Corrie Ten Boom’s shoes. We imagine ourselves as an Atticus Finch standing up for the downtrodden and oppressed, or maybe a Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was involved in an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler.

But what part do we actually play? Imagine that you were watching a great movie on the madness of our covid times. Perhaps a tale of the small town or community you live in and how it responds to the pressure and stress of this worldwide issue. Would you like the character you play? Would you feel sympathy? Embarassment? Frustration? Disgust?

How would the average viewer see you? Would you be the leader who means well, but whose cowardice paralyses him from standing up against unrighteousness? Would you be a man whose principles are as malleable as plasticine which responds to the pressure from the forces that surround it? Would you be the businessman who knows what is right, but because of financial pressure bows to the evil and nonsensical laws that ban unvaccinated people from your premises? Are you a pastor who has segregated your church when your Lord never drives anyone away? Are you the woman who uses the apartheid vaccine certificates because a haircut is more important than standing against unrighteous partiality?

Well the truth is, we are in a story. We are in the great play of world history which began with creation and climaxed with Christ’s death resurrection and ascension, and is following a protracted denouement to his universal reign and inheritance of all the nations. You are in the play. Your actions now testify to the kind of character you are playing. Good characters grow and develop. They consciously submit to Christ’s lordship and live out the implications of that in the cameo role God has given them. Consider how your character can grow in boldness and righteousness in the time and situation God has placed you.

Encouragingly, there are individuals who are standing up against the divisive unrighteousness that our government is promoting. These are the characters who we would be cheering for if we were watching this on the big screen. For instance, take a look at Tried and Tested, and electrical safety testing, maintenance & repair business servicing the Wellington region. Support these types of people. Take your business away from those who discriminate. Let’s move from cheering the good guys from the safety of our sofas to practising righteousness and supporting the good guys in practical ways.

Calvinist Political Theory

In his study of Puritan political theory, Richard Flinn discusses the important work of Samuel Rutherford and his classic work, Lex Rex. Rutherford was confronting in his time a similar question about the source of law. Some of the papists of his day had argued that the king as a man was subject to God, but in the practice of his office as king, he was not subject to God’s law. Rutherford saw that this meant that the king was either above God, or co-equal with God, which are both “manifest blasphemies.” Flinn points out that at the heart of the Calvinist view of biblical political theory is that the civil government must be under God’s law, or be blasphemous. Furthermore, “unless we are willing to grant this doctrine and build upon it, there can be no Christian politics; there can only be humanistic politics, which, when practiced by Christians, is idolatry.

Joseph Boot on Richard Flinn’s study of Puritan political theory in The Mission of God

Apartheid in New Zealand

Today is a shameful day for New Zealand. We now have two classes of citizens. Those who are permitted by Mother Jacinda to have a little bit more freedom for being good little boys and girls and obeying Mummy. Then there are those truculent and dirty children who have refused to do what they are told because they think of themselves as free people and not slaves. These remain in time out. No freedom for you.

Our media are celebrating this as ‘freedom day’. Somehow I think that we will look back on this day and it will be given another name. Once again our bought and paid for whore media prove to be utterly useless in holding an out of control and incompetent government to account.

Think carefully about how you act in these times. The courage or cowardice you show in your treatment of others will be remembered for a long time. Sadly too many Christians in positions of leadership have shown that pragmatism rules over principles as wide and easy roads of compliance have been followed rather than the difficult and treacherous path of justice and righteousness. While the road of compliance is endorsed and celebrated by the majority at present, the audience we ought to be thinking of is our king. Explaining away being complicit with injustice to him is another thing entirely.