“No one, least of all Christians, should welcome civil war in the Church. But too many Church leaders have grown arrogant due to the rank and file’s reluctance to seem unpleasant or uncharitable by confronting their deceit and manipulation, and a unity based on acceptance of false teaching is a unity of the damned. As Aragorn says to Theoden, king of Rohan, in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, open war is upon us whether we would risk it or not. Or, as Moses says to the Gadites and Reubenites in Numbers 32, “Should your fellow Israelites go to war while you sit here?”

One of the most important books of the year is Shepherds for Sale by Megan Basham. Yesterday I did an 1800-word review of this very much needed volume. What I said in my write-up briefly lays out what is found in it, and why it is such a significant book for Christians to be aware of: Link
But one can only do so much in a short review. So I need another article or two to properly do the book real justice. Here I can get to some of the areas/chapters that I was not able to cover in my previous piece. As already stated, this book primarily focuses on American evangelicalism and how so many leaders, pastors, organisations and denominations have been selling out to radical leftist agendas and ideologies.
Thus the subtitle of her book: “How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda.” In yesterday’s piece I mentioned other books that have done similar sorts of things. But this one may be the best so far in offering a wealth of detail and documentation: fifty pages of endnotes in small print is an indication of this.
Chapter Five of the book is on the Covid wars and how the government used pastors and churches to spread its message and methods, including the need for total lockdowns, mandatory medicine, forced vaccinations, and highly questionable science.
The chapter especially zeros in on Francis Collins, the National Institutes of Health director. A quick look at the index reveals that she spends more time on this individual than any other person in the book. And there is very good reason for this.
She actually had a chance to interview him for the book, but oddly enough the interview was dropped at the last moment. Hmm. She was keen to ask him some tough questions, something the mainstream media had refused to do with him and Fauci.
She explains in great detail how Collins almost single-handedly did the bidding of the State as he readily and fully pushed the party line. She writes: “In late August 2020, BioLogos, a faith and science organization Collins founded that merges Darwinian evolution and Scripture, released a public statement titled ‘Love Your Neighbor, Get the Shot’ in favor of vaccines, masks, and lockdown orders.”
Many well-known evangelicals were happy to be signatories to this, including N. T. Wright, Philip Yancey, David French, Timothy Dalyrmple of Christianity Today and Walter Kim of Baker Publishing. These folks took a pledge ‘because of their faith in Jesus Christ’ to do the following, and more:
-“Wear Masks” because “Mask rules are not experts taking away our freedom, but an opportunity to follow Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 6:31).
-“Get vaccinated” because “Vaccination is a provision from God.”
-“Correct misinformation and conspiracy theories when we encounter them in our social media and communities.” Because “Christians are called to love the truth, we should not be swayed by falsehoods (1 Corinthains 13:6).”
…Elsewhere the document got a lot more specific, and it suggested that the signers were agreeing to treat medical opinions that didn’t align with those of Collins and Fauci as conspiracy theories as well. (p. 95)
In this regard they worked overtime to demonise experts who dared to hold a contrary point of view, including Stanford professor of medicine and health policy Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Says Basham:
Bhattacharya and some of his “non-consensus” colleagues – like biostatistician and Harvard professor of medicine Martin Kulldorff and Oxford infectious disease epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta – opposed pandemic policies like lockdowns, and they questioned conventional scientific wisdom about the severity of the virus. They were beginning to advocate publicly for different approach, one that didn’t require everyone to isolate and social-distance but instead focused on protecting vulnerable populations, like the elderly and the immunocompromised. This non-consensus group would eventually release their public proposal for herd immunity as the Great Barrington Declaration, and tens of thousands of epidemiologists and public health scientists, including a Nobel Prize winner would sign it. As the pandemic progressed, they also spoke out against mask and vaccine mandates and called for more serious consideration of vaccine injuries and risk. (p. 96)
When that first came out I wrote it up and quoted from it. It is still a vitally important document: Link  
But Collins and Co wanted nothing to do with it:
In private emails in October 2020, Collins deemed the Great Barrington authors “fringe epidemiologists” and worried that they were “getting out of control, and getting too much traction.” He urged Fauci to make sure the work of the Great Barrington doctors faced a “quick and devastating takedown.” This didn’t mean seriously engaging with the scientific arguments presented in the Great Barrington Declaration – neither Collins nor Fauci ever did that. It meant relying on media connections to ensure the declaration was dismissed as quackery. (pp. 96-97)
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The fall is not simply a question of rational deduction. It is a point of divine revelation. It refers to what we call original sin. Original sin does not refer primarily to the first or original sin committed by Adam and Eve. Original sin refers to the result of the first sin—the corruption of the human race. Original sin refers to the fallen condition in which we are born.

It is commonplace to hear the statement, “people are basically good.” Though it is admitted that no one is perfect, human wickedness is minimized. Yet if people are basically good, why is sin so universal?
It is often suggested that everybody sins because society has such a negative influence upon us. The problem is seen with our environment, not with our nature. This explanation for the universality of sin raises the question, how did society become corrupt in the first place? If people are born good or innocent, we would expect at least a percentage of them to remain good and sinless. We should be able to find societies that are not corrupt, where the environment has been conditioned by sinlessness rather than sinfulness. Yet the most dedicated-to-righteousness communes we can find still have provisions for dealing with the guilt of sin.
Since the fruit is universally corrupt we look for the root of the problem in the tree. Jesus indicated that a good tree does not produce corrupt fruit. The Bible clearly teaches that our original parents, Adam and Eve, fell in sin. Subsequently, every human being has been born with a sinful and corrupt nature. If the Bible didn’t explicitly teach this, we would have to deduce it rationally from the bare fact of the universality of sin.
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On the other hand, we should not focus on death when it is close but rather should focus on Christ. This is because a large part of the terror of death comes from the awareness of our sins and our guilt before God. The unbeliever has no alternative but to hope that there is no God on the other side to judge him. The Christian, though, has a different kind of certainty, and he can focus on Christ rather than on his sin.

A few years ago, I received this unexpected request from one of my church members with multiple sclerosis: “When you have time, could you please do a Bible study on how to prepare for death?” This person knew that her condition was incurable and, although death still seemed a fairly long way off, she was anxious to receive advice on how to face it. I was taken aback by that request, but I should not have been. This was a very sensible idea. Why wouldn’t every church member be interested in such a Bible study? Yet, I could not remember the last time I preached or heard a sermon on that topic. The Bible is very upfront about the reality of death but also very clear that it is possible to die well. It is perhaps significant that one of the best-known Hebrew words in the Old Testament, the word shalom, which we associate with peace and well-being, first appears in the context of death (Gen. 15:15). Knowing how we may die “in peace” should be an important concern for us all.
As I reflected on this, I was struck again about how common that theme was in Christian sermons and devotional literature until about two hundred years ago. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, decisive breakthroughs in medical research, such as the discovery of germs and anesthetics, made death and pain feel more distant. For the first time in history, being healthy became the norm and being ill the exception. For most people in history, death was an ever-present companion. John Calvin, for example, gives a vivid description of how precarious life felt in his time:
Innumerable are the ills which beset human life, and present death in as many different forms. Not to go beyond ourselves, since the body is a receptacle, even the nurse, of a thousand diseases, a man cannot move without carrying along with him many forms of destruction. . . . Then, in what direction soever you turn, all surrounding objects not only may do harm, but almost openly threaten and seem to present immediate death. Go on board a ship, you are but a plank’s breadth from death. Mount a horse, the stumbling of a foot endangers your life. Walk along the streets, every tile upon the roofs is a source of danger . . . I say nothing of poison, treachery, robbery, some of which beset us at home, others follow us abroad.1
It is therefore not surprising that Christians felt the need to be trained in the ars moriendi (art of dying). In fact, the idea that the whole of life is a preparation to die was commonplace. As events in the world sometimes bring death considerably closer to us, I believe it is urgent for the church to recover the Christian ars moriendi. What we need in particular is not so much rehearsing general theological truths about death but precisely what that church member asked me: some practical advice on how to prepare ourselves for it. The Protestant Reformers and seventeenth-century Puritans can help us with this because they knew how to face death and how to think about it in concrete terms. They wrote a great deal on the topic but, for the sake of brevity, I will focus on Martin Luther, whose teaching on the matter sums up the Protestant ars moriendi.2
Luther’s view of the Christian life is attractive because of its concrete character. Luther was not simply a theologian of more abstract concepts such as justification but a pastor who preached and wrote to human beings of flesh and blood facing much hardship and who were never far away from death. Luther himself, like his contemporaries, did not expect to live for very long, and he thought he would soon die from illness or martyrdom. It is therefore not surprising that he preached and wrote about death throughout his life. As early as 1519, when he was only thirty-six, he wrote a series of exhortations for his sovereign, Elector Frederick the Wise, who was seriously ill.3 In that same year, he preached a famous sermon on preparing to die, and he no doubt preached many times on the subject. Practical considerations about dying are spread through his writings. We also have fairly precise information about Luther’s last days and his own death that allows us to know that he put into practice what he preached.
Luther can help us because he teaches us how to think properly about death both throughout our lives and when it is near. His insights can be summed up under four headings.
BE CONFIDENT BUT REALISTIC
First, Luther recognizes that death is frightening even for Christians. He is not so foolish as to believe that the fear of death can be neutralized by stoic fortitude, as certain atheists try to convince themselves. This is a conviction that is often found in his writings. For example, in a sermon on 1 Corinthians 15 preached on October 6, 1532, he says: “The heathens have wisely said ‘he is a fool who is afraid of death, for through such fear he loses his own life.’ This would be true if only a man could act on the advice. . . . They advise that nothing is better than simply cast all such fear aside, to rid the mind of it and to think: why worry about it? When we are dead, we are dead. That is certainly disposing of the matter in short order and completely extinguishing God’s wrath, hell and damnation!”4
Or again, in one of his table talks: “I do not like to see people glad to die. . . . Great saints do not like to die. The fear of death is natural, for death is a penalty; therefore, it is something sad. According to the spirit one gladly dies; but according to the flesh, it is said ‘another shall carry you where you would not.’ ”5
Yet, because Christ defeated death, Luther also knows that the death of a Christian is fundamentally different. As he says to Frederick the Wise in one of his fourteen consolations: “The death of a Christian is to be looked upon as the brazen serpent of Moses. It does have the appearance of a serpent; but it is entirely without life, without motion, without poison, without sting. . . . We do resemble those who die, and the outward appearance of our death is not different from that of others. But the thing itself is different nevertheless because for us death is dead.”6
This is why the Christian is able to prepare for death in a meaningful way. However, this preparation should take place throughout the whole of life, and this leads to Luther’s next insight.
THINK OF DEATH AT THE RIGHT TIME
This is perhaps the most insightful piece of advice and the most challenging for us today. The issue is not simply how to think about death but when. Luther’s oft-repeated advice is that we should familiarize ourselves with death while we are still healthy, while death itself still seems far away. Conversely, we should not stare at death when it is near us but rather focus on Christ. Now it is clear that most people today—sadly, including many Christians—do precisely the opposite. They studiously ignore death while healthy and are caught unprepared when it comes.
On the contrary, Luther understood that spiritual growth is a slow process that takes a lifetime and that facing death is something that has to be learned. This is why he encourages us to think often of our own mortality, to reflect on its cause and consequences and on its ultimate outcome for the Christian—the resurrection of the body. One interesting suggestion on how to do that is to meditate on our own death and when we pass cemeteries.
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John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, 1.17.10. ↩︎
Throughout this article I refer to the Weimar edition of Martin Luther’s complete works (Weimar Ausgabe or WA). The “Fourteen Consolations” and the famous sermon on preparing to die referred to below are also available in the American edition of Luther’s Works (Concordia Publishing House), vol. 42. ↩︎
“Fourteen Consolations for Them That Are Laboured and Laden” (1519). ↩︎
WA 36, 539. ↩︎
WA 408. ↩︎
WA 118. ↩︎