Reflecting on the Pastoral Failures of 2020
As a minister of the gospel, I should have “stayed in my lane,” stuck to the text, and more vehemently opposed any effort to impose a masking requirement upon the people of God. Such a policy and such an application of the Sixth Commandment was not based on the teaching of Scripture, but based on what the government-approved scientists were saying at that time regarding the “Masking-Preventative-Hypothesis.”
To the beloved congregation of First Presbyterian Church in Fort Oglethorpe:
Three years ago, I made the biggest mistake of my pastoral ministry. At the time, people exhibiting symptoms of a new virus were trickling in to Emergency Rooms in the Chattanooga area. We were told this virus was deadly and dangerous by the media, health experts, and government authorities. I believed them.
These “unprecedented events” would become a great test of the strength of my commitments and my consistency to my guiding principles. It was a test I failed.
I. Worldview
When it was suggested we should suspend the public worship of God for a few weeks I not only agreed to it, but also enabled the suspension of public worship. I was wrong. Although I was motivated by a desire to “do the right thing,” this was undoubtedly the wrong decision and is one the greatest regrets of my life.
This was a worldview failure. A worldview is supposed to help a person make decisions in the absence of all the facts and respond rightly to “unprecedented events.” But I ignored my worldview in March of 2020.
In a Christian Worldview, God is the ultimate reality and the ultimate end (goal) of life is His glory, and a crucial duty of the Christian is to give God the glory He deserves in the context of public worship. But at this time I agreed: the potential for danger was so great, I believed, that even public worship should be shut down.
Although at the time I thought what we were doing was right, in hindsight I see how it reflects a failure to apply my worldview to what I was reading in the news and hearing from other elders both near and far as well as the government authorities. While perhaps there may have been individual situations in which the risk to some people from the new virus was so great their own personal decision to absent themselves from the public worship of God for a season might have been legitimate, it was wrong of me to support suspending God’s public worship for the whole congregation. If the virus was as deadly as we were led to believe, then we needed corporate worship all the more.
I apologize for failing to rightly apply the Scripture to this situation:
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. (Psa. 63:2–4)
II. Wisdom
During the “Quarantine” closure, I began making a series of videos offering mostly half-baked pastoral reflections on the current unpleasantness. Mercifully, few of you watched them. In (at least) one of these videos, I asserted something along the lines of, “…we know masks work…” because there seemed to be no outbreaks tied to all the tourists coming to the Florida theme parks, which at the time required masking. So I encouraged people, as we resumed public worship, to wear a mask in order to prevent the spread of potential sickness.
This was a wisdom failure. As a trained and credentialed minister of the gospel, I do have a bit of expertise in biblical exegesis, theological matters, and ethical questions. But as to whether a piece of cloth can stop a particle of virus, I am wholly unqualified to give advice. But I used the influence of my position as an officer in the Kingdom of God to encourage the people in this congregation to wear masks. And the basis of my exhortation: it [allegedly] works at Disney World. I apologize for deviating from my expertise and training as a pastor to offer pronouncements on a subject about which I knew nothing.
Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. (Prov. 17:27–28)
III. Ecclesiology
Eventually the hospitals in Chattanooga did get a bit busy with people exhibiting symptoms of the virus that leaked from a communist lab in Wuhan, China. At that time, the Session chose to no longer simply encourage all God’s worshipers to wear masks, but require everyone worshiping or attending functions at the church to wear a mask. While I personally opposed this as a requirement, I dutifully announced it and explained the reasoning behind the policy.
Perhaps some of you may remember, I went so far as to explain – as I preached through the Decalogue – that the Sixth Commandment was the reason the Session required masking: to prevent the potential loss of life. This was inappropriate.
While I personally disagreed that any Church court has the authority to require masking, as I believe this violates both the liberty of conscience and the limits of church power, I nonetheless shared the Session’s embrace of the “Masking-Preventative-Hypothesis,” and I enabled the Session to transcend what I knew were the limits of its Christ-given authority by reminding people of the policy and urging people to comply with it.
This was a failure of my ecclesiology, my doctrine of the Church.
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10 Fresh Pastoral Prayers for the New Year
Graciousness with doubt and questions. A crisis will cause people to question their beliefs. Pray for graciousness for those seeking God, even during a season of doubt. Mental, spiritual, and emotional health for church leaders. Pastors and other church leaders have faced many obstacles in the last few years. Ask God to provide ways for people to seek help and maintain health.
Before you launch your New Year ministry plan, begin with prayer. How might you pray to start the year?
Passion for people, not numbers. You should track your numbers and know your metrics. Yes, each number represents a person. I get it. But you don’t shepherd numbers. If you struggle with caring more about numbers than people, now is an excellent time to take a new posture. Pray God gives you this passion.
A filling of the Holy Spirit over comfort with nostalgia. I have a deep love for the sanctuary room. Even when I’m alone, I still enjoy the comforting presence of the room. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion, but our prayers should be first for a filling of the Holy Spirit.
Outward movement rather than an inward bent. Pray your church has a desire to reach outward rather than inward. Ask God to give your church a wake-up call for evangelism.
Compassion for the lonely. Some people need more time alone, but isolation is never beneficial. Pray for those who are experiencing loneliness. Pray that your church shows compassion.Read More
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COVID Wars: Shoddy Science and Medical Malpractice
We are told to “follow the science”. What we have witnessed far too often over the past four years is “follow the money”. Be it corrupt politicians, Big Pharma, medicos with vested interests, or globalist bodies seeking to control us all, we have seen how quickly and easily science and medicine can be corrupted and hijacked for nefarious ends.
Some of us were quite sceptical of what was being done to us in the name of Covid from very early on in the piece. Things did not seem to add up, and the hysterical media alarmism, coupled with Statist overkill via lockdowns and all the rest certainly made us wonder.
And many of us wondered out loud. We got absolutely hammered and hated on for daring to ask hard questions and query the official narrative. For simply expressing our concerns we were turned into despised pariahs and treated as the scum of the earth.
Yet increasingly we are being vindicated. Barely a day goes by when we do not learn even more about just how wrong so much of the “science” was, how dictatorial and totalitarian our governments were, and how much medical fascism was allowed to take place. Simply considering all the injuries and deaths so far with rushed and improperly tested medicines should wake us up.
All this, coupled with the clearly stated aims of individuals and groups like Schwab, Harari, Gates, the World Economic Forum and the Great Reset mob, makes it clear that we whistle-blowers and questioners were absolutely right to stick our necks out and dare to look closer at what was – and is – happening.
There are now innumerable articles and videos and plenty of books on all this. Last year I offered this list of titles.
Four recent articles that have appeared on these matters are worth drawing your attention to. The first one speaks about slodderwetenschap (the Dutch term for ‘sloppy science’). The authors say this especially occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic:
We had front-row seats to witness the media reporting claims of a breakthrough made one day, then dismissed the next. It’s one of the first occasions the public has been able to clearly see how messy the scientific process can be – when it’s done sloppily.
One of the more public facets in the swirling whirl of COVID-19 misinformation was the continuing role of Dr Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Officer to the President of the USA. Fauci insisted that his pronouncements of the moment, such as suggesting it would only take 15 days to slow the spread of the virus or that masks were ‘unnecessary’, were ‘science’ and as such not to be questioned. Yet, the main method of science is to question. Fauci was abusing his claims of expertise and in the process helping to erode the public’s trust in science itself.
The researchers argue that one of the drivers of sloppy science is that people find it hard to accept results that are a work in progress; they much prefer the neatness and superficial completeness that often comes with incorrect work. It can mean that shortcuts are taken – and alternatives are ignored because they cause disruption.
Results that are desired are often declared correct due to political and financial pressures or even fears. This culture involves accepting storylines that are presented without further examination (eg, Fauci’s ‘I am Science’). Naïve acceptance can cause real harm – especially when the initial claims need to be qualified or are disproved. What arose during the COVID-19 pandemic was the increasing proliferation of unsound science, which meant policy leaders – misled by misinformation – made terrible decisions with devastating ramifications. The debate about the longevity of lockdowns as a means of dealing with COVID-19 and the seemingly deliberate suppression of the role of natural immunity post-infection stand out as two prominent examples.
They close their piece by outlining seven critical mistakes where sloppy science can creep into the scientific process:
1. Jumping straight into giving explanations for unexpected observations. The impulse to be the first to obtain results makes shortcuts tempting.2. Disregarding variables that could be of importance to the research. Selecting suitable variables is critical for good science – it’s a process that should not be rushed.3. Not correctly considering the context of the experiment. For example, how the research relates to the real world.4. Inflexible modelling. For example, only using a single model instead of an open-ended model to determine outcomes.5. Making bad sampling assertions. Like applying statistical functions across populations as a whole – when they may only apply to specific subsets.6. The overuse of labelling and categorisation.
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What Did Mary Know? Faith to Know the Triune God
Mary models the right posture towards God with her willingness to trust him because he is good and his word is true. While she had significant questions, she did not allow them to keep her from receiving what God had said. This was an overwhelming day for Mary. Indeed, this faithful monotheist worshiper of Yahweh had to allow God’s Word to stretch her faith beyond what she had already understood from his Word.
Christmas provides numerous opportunities to learn more about God and his great plan of salvation. First, we can consider Christ’s unique birth as shepherds come to bear witness and the angels sing his praise (Luke 2:20). Second, we can understand more of who Jesus is by tracing the many promises God has made throughout Scripture and how they are all fulfilled in Christ. Often, the connections to Christ are called “scarlet threads” because God’s promises run throughout Scripture and intertwine with one another to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Still more, we learn doctrinal truths at Christmas too. One of the most important revelations at Christmas is the fact that the one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Wonderfully, Christmas calls the church to look back and see the Triune nature of God vaguely revealed in the Old Testament, but this more intimate and personal knowledge of him is not manifested until the Word becomes flesh; the only begotten Son comes from the Father’s bosom to unite with humanity.
Coming Into View
The first full revelation of God as Father, Son, and Spirit is given to the young virgin Mary who receives this fuller knowledge of his nature by faith (Luke 1:26–38). It is amazing how much Mary was expected to process at this revelation. Consider three things.
First, the angel declares to Mary that she will conceive and have a son as a virgin, a word that harkens back to Isaiah 7:14. Second, the promised child is declared to be great and the Son of the Most High, language that combines 2 Samuel 7:14 and Psalm 2. Third, the Son will be given the throne of David and will reign forever, also a reference to the promise God made to David in 2 Samuel 7:14 that God would be like a father to the forever king and that the forever king will be like a son to him.
These three declarations to Mary help us appreciate God’s progressive revelation as the promised son and king is now known as the Son of God. The Son of the Most High would add to himself humanity so that he could be the forever king promised in 2 Samuel.
But How Much Did Mary Know?
It is not clear how much Mary understood this revelation into the nature of God, nor how her commitment to worshiping one God was being reshaped. However, it is clear that she received it by faith while seeking more understanding. With faith, she protests, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). In comparison to her uncle Zechariah’s request for confirmation when he was told that in his old age he would have a son (Luke 1:18), Mary’s response is of a different type. While Zechariah was rebuked and made mute for his question that revealed doubt, Mary does not ask for proof. Rather, she asks an honest and important question.
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