The following report is by J. Todd Billings from Christianity Today:
As the COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available to Americans, a high proportion of white evangelicals have stated they “probably” or “definitely” will not get the vaccine. Media outlets such as The New York Times and CNN have expressed fear that vaccine hesitancy could be a roadblock to America attaining herd immunity and endanger the unvaccinated and their communities.
In the midst of this alarm, the large (and varied) demographic of white evangelicals has been labeled “anti-science,” further entrenching the suspicion of those who are vaccine-hesitant that a pro-vaccine message is tied to a “hostile media” and government overreach. As deepening chasms of distrust separate followers of Jesus from all backgrounds into self-sorted ideological tribes, we face the question: Can we find a way to display love to one another and our neighbors, as a witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ?
The reality is that people are more complex than demographics. The “anti-science” label often generates more heat than light. As a cancer patient, I’ve learned it’s not anti-science to thoughtfully consider a medical intervention. There’s a difference between accepting a newly approved treatment and asking doctors to set a broken arm. As I explored in my recent book, exercising discernment with modern medicine is part of our vocation as mortals who are followers of Jesus. God alone can deliver us from sin and death. But the Lord can also offer medicine as an extraordinary gift on this short mortal journey.
For evangelicals, the crux of the vaccine question does not hinge upon trust in a particular political party or agenda, but upon our response to God’s workmanship in creation. With trust in God as the creator of the complex harmony we observe in the creation, we can receive the vaccine as a divine gift.
Like many evangelicals, I was raised to be deeply responsive to the Psalmist’s declaration: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (104:24, NRSV). The connection was clear: As Christians, we worshiped the Lord and delighted in the order, complexity, and sublime harmony of his creation.
Only later did I discover that this evangelical piety about creation aligns with an older biblical tradition of creational theology. From Augustine in the West to Gregory of Nyssa in the East, and from early Christianity through the Reformation and into the Enlightenment, many Christians shared this theology. Drawing upon Scripture, creational theology rejoices in the “manifold works” of God in the order and complexity of creation and enjoins humans to grow in their understanding of creation’s wonders. As scholarship on the history of science has shown, through the centuries it has encouraged many to pursue serious scientific inquiry and exploration.
Sixteenth-century Reformer John Calvin taught this creational theology with particular verve. “Wherever you cast your eyes,” he wrote in Institutes, “there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of God’s glory.” What many today call the “natural world” was, for Calvin, a “dazzling theater” of God’s glory. He lamented that “scarcely one man in a hundred is a true spectator of it!”
How does all of this relate to our discernment about vaccines in our contemporary moment? Many of my fellow evangelicals hesitate about the COVID-19 vaccine because they worry about government overreach. They note the painful economic consequences of the government-imposed shutdowns and worry that the government “messaging” has been inconsistent during different points in the pandemic. If one disapproves of the government response to the pandemic, why trust the vaccine?
While these concerns can arise from genuine hardship, if we believe a biblical “creational theology,” they are actually beside the point. Yes, the development, testing, and distribution of the various vaccines have involved government support and coordination—first from a Republican president, and then a Democratic one, as well as from other governments around the globe that don’t fit American partisan categories. But no president or governor or mayor did the hard work of investigation—the thousands of hours of inquiry and observation and testing carried out by scientists around the world.
In a truly astonishing way, leading scientists from across the globe, from numerous political contexts, worked together to amass a huge body of knowledge about COVID-19. This took place in a relatively short amount of time, but they shared their hypotheses, insights, data, and conundrums with one another in an unprecedented manner.
As The Atlantic showed, the year 2020 was like the Apollo project in energizing a huge number of scientists and studies, with online archives to share the results of studies immediately with scientists elsewhere bypassing the processes of print publishing and expensive paywalls. At the beginning of 2020, one archive for biomedical research had 1,000 papers giving data from the results of investigations. By October, because of COVID-19, it had over 12,000 papers.
Christians can rejoice in the fact that a solution to a widespread disease was so deeply investigated by these scientists in 2020. The scientists need not have been Christian for their work to share some key convictions with creational theology: that order and symmetry characterize the natural world in deep ways, and that the human mind can understand aspects of this complex cosmos. As non-Christian scientists like Albert Einstein have observed, there is a deep harmony and “marvellous order” in the universe, without which scientific investigation and progress would not be possible.
As evangelicals who affirm that this order and complexity are part of God’s design, that humans are created in God’s image to rejoice in and discover creation, we have all the more reason to cherish the past year’s scientific progress. The decision about whether to get the vaccines based on this research is not a question about whether we approve of the president, governor, or mayor. For followers of Jesus, it’s a question of whether we trust in the order and design of creation that makes scientific understanding possible, as scientists from around the globe have paid deep and close attention to the “theater of God’s glory” in creation.
At this point, some readers will object: Am I assuming that our current knowledge of COVID-19 is perfect? And am I guaranteeing that there are no possible risks to taking these vaccines which the CDC says are “safe and effective”?
I’m not assuming a positive answer to either question. Science is a fallible human enterprise seeking to understand the extraordinary order and complexity of God’s creation, and our understanding is always progressing. And although the vaccines are safe and effective in relative terms, I think it’s wise to recognize that absolute certainty is simply not possible. For mortals like us, there is simply no way through this pandemic that is guaranteed to be “safe.” Opting out of the vaccine is far from risk-free. With the psalmist, it’s time to bring our fears before God and ask the Lord to help us to “number our days,” for we are mere mortals (Ps. 90:12).
In December, a pastor friend of mine shared that he was invited to be among the earliest to receive the vaccine in his state because a significant part of his work was in the hospital. He was honest with me and others: He had that gut feeling of fear about putting it in his body. He talked to his doctor, trusted Christian friends, and sought to prayerfully discern. In the end, he received the vaccine in faith that in life and in death, he belongs to Jesus Christ. He had the right to decline. But more important was his recognition that he is a mortal who belongs to Jesus—the one who laid down his own rights to show us his love. For the love of his God and of others, he refused to let his fear have the final word.
Our understanding of COVID-19 is not perfect, and we need not assume that science is infallible to receive the vaccine as a gift. But perfect medicines have never been an option. Consider Calvin, who applied his theology of creation to insist that medicine, as “a knowledge of carefully using the gifts of creation,” is in fact a divine gift.
Would Calvin assume that these medicines are devoid of risk? Certainly not. Calvin encouraged his hearers to take medicine based upon the best available (yet provisional) understanding of the world. Imagine what he might say about the extensive safety testing for treatments like the COVID-19 vaccine. But even without large-scale testing, Calvin insisted that through medicine God “provides us with the capacity to attend to our illnesses.” Indeed, he exclaims, “whoever does not take account of the means [medicine] which God has ordained does not have confidence in God but is puffed up with false pride and temerity.”
We can give thanks for the marvelous theater of God’s glory in creation and the gifts that come from exploring it. As our congregations learn about the vaccine in this tumultuous time, we can remember Paul’s admonishment to “be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Eph. 4:2–3). Our bodies are not our own but belong to Jesus, the one through whom “all things were created” (Col. 1:16).
Even as we recognize our own rights and fears, we are called to consider the body we steward, the bodies of those in our spiritual family, and the bodies of our neighbors whom Jesus calls us to love. May we seek to display the love and trust that comes from God so that with love that seems strange to our divided age we can join together singing, “they will know we are Christians by our love.”
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[17] Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. [18] For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.Romans 16:17-18
[1] But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. [2] And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. [3] And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. [17] These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.[18] For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. [19] While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. [20] For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. [21] For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. [22] But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.2 Peter 2:1-3, 17-22
I kid you not, maybe I’m just going “crazy,” but as I read this report I kept hearing a subtle hiss of snake in the room.
I don’t say this vauntingly, but I could rip apart practically every sentence this guy wrote. I mean, this is one of the dumbest Covid propaganda pieces I have read.
When I was writing my book “The Lord of Glory,” and I was researching the various works out there on the Trinity, Modalism (and a few other things), this is was the exact same language used. So as my brain began to leak out my ears from all the contradictory ear-tickling and vain jangling, it was so hard to stay persistent with the research, as all the critical and salient points are buried with layers and layers of fillers and marshmallow fluff. This propaganda piece made me reminiscent of that.
In those books that I read and notated for my own, just like this article, these books barely quoted scripture, and when they did, it was always from a new version and it was taken out of context or applied to something that was irrelevant to context. And then they, without fail, continually referenced Roman Catholic “church fathers” that were ridiculously heretical and blasphemous – appealing to manmade traditions that trump the scriptures. And then these people would just make up all these brand new traditions and ‘ideologies.’
In the case of this propaganda report put out Billy Graham’s Christianity Today, Billings talks about this so-called “creational theology.” -Huh, what? – These are the “tradesmen terms” you learn in a college and seminary education indoctrination. The “ignorant laity” has to learn these made up terms and tricks that these airheads and narcissists created to make themselves feel smarter than they actually are, so they can make the pupils dumb and be forced to learn their philosophies and pseudo-sciences. So when these people make “fair speeches” and speak “great swelling words of vanity,” you understand where some of that comes from.
This “vaccine” is a “divine gift” from SATAN himself. No way, no how, notta chance that Jesus Christ, the only Creator and sustainer of life, would EVER tell ANYONE to take a vaccine.
Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.
Proverbs 25:14. Confirms 2 Peter 2:17 and Jude 12-13
[17] How oft is the candle of the wicked put out! and how oft cometh their destruction upon them! God distributeth sorrows in his anger. [18] They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away. [19] God layeth up his iniquity for his children: he rewardeth him, and he shall know it. [20] His eyes shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty. Job 21:17-20
Oh, it’s a gift alright, and God is going to “plentifully reward the proud doer” (Psa 31:23) and give a reward to the fools and transgressors (Pro 26:10).
In December, a pastor friend of mine shared that he was invited to be among the earliest to receive the vaccine in his state because a significant part of his work was in the hospital. He was honest with me and others: He had that gut feeling of fear about putting it in his body. He talked to his doctor, trusted Christian friends, and sought to prayerfully discern. In the end, he received the vaccine in faith that in life and in death, he belongs to Jesus Christ. He had the right to decline. But more important was his recognition that he is a mortal who belongs to Jesus—the one who laid down his own rights to show us his love. For the love of his God and of others, he refused to let his fear have the final word.
By golly, I’m convinced! I’m just going to stop what I am doing and run over to Walgreens and jab myself with this “vaccine.” I’m being totally sarcastic of course.
And then to make the blasphemous comparison of taking the vaccine correlating with “God’s image” is just sickening. The WinePress has explained in comprehensive detail all the rhetoric surrounding this Covid shamdemic in our “Facts Are Facts: Learn The Data Surrounding Covid-19,” and what we know is in all four of these vaccines: all of them contain the very things that WILL slaughter all those that take it in the largest world’s eugenics experiment ever. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines rewrite the genetic code of the person (DNA) – you know, the thing that makes that person in the LIKENESS AND SIMILITUDE OF GOD! But no, let’s not confuse Billings, this MINISTER OF SATAN, with facts.
All these people can fry in hell as far as I am concerned. I know some Fruit Loop “Christian” will cry foul, but I really don’t care. These people are sick, disgusting, monsters.
Bryan Denlinger of King James Video Ministries released a really good sermon about not taking the vaccine, so I recommend giving it a listen.
Franklin Graham Says ‘Vaccines Bring Healing To Bodies Like Jesus Did’
Texas Megachurch To Offer Covid Vaccines After The Services
The WinePress has been warning that the propaganda from these churches and so-called “Christian” outlets would increase. Well, here’s some more for you.
The WinePress needs your support! If God has laid it on your heart to want to contribute, please prayerfully consider donating to this ministry. If you cannot gift a monetary donation, then please donate your fervent prayers to keep this ministry going! Thank you and may God bless you.
They always use very soft and “smooth” language that just makes you want to puke. I often think if Peter Ruckman were alive what would he think? I think he would be exposing these satanists.
I like most of Ruckman’s stuff, but I doubt he would. If you read some of what he wrote and said, he was very cowardly in many issues. He absolutely refused to condemn people like Jack Hyles within the Baptist system. If he was unwillingly to do that, and with his building and school owned by the government, he’d probably get the jab.
I don’t know much about Peter Ruckman but I heard some good stuff about him and saw the cover of his book “Damnation of a Nation,” and I gotta read that! Peter Ruckman would probably look at a christianity today magazine and say “what is this garbage?”
I can’t see him getting the jab but yeah he did talk good about Jack hyles which is not good. I suppose he was ignorant of what was going on
All denominations are satanic and in my opinion, the baptist one is like a Trojan horse. Because it looks like they actually fear the Lord and preach the Word, but when you turn the KJB on them and hold them against scripture and discernment, those places are riddled with sin and corruption.
A bunch of hierlings, some of which can’t keep both feet on the floor when they find an attractive woman. Also, the Baptists are greedy! You make a “donation” they do somersaults and cheer. They get excited during their offering plate stick-ups too.
Like Bryan Denlinger mentioned in his video “How Satan Uses Sex Perversion to Destroy,” baptist man who’s like 50 and flirting with a 16 year old girl, touching her arm flirtatiously, playing with her hair, he’s gonna have a red dot above his house if he keeps it up and goes any further than that!
Makes you wanna puke, and guess what: it makes God want to puke to; in fact, those publishers are gonna be spewed out of God’s mouth.
Billings’ message has the creepy cadence of a Jim Jones sunny afternoon gathering featuring a Kool Aid stand. Christianity Today is a Liberal propaganda rag. Maybe we should ask Mr. Billings if he is willing to take financial responsibility for the vaccine victims, or if he tunes in to TheCovidBlog.com or reads OpenVAERS.com daily, or if he understands SM-102/Luciferace is a vaccine ingredient, or if he understands the vaccines are being “marinated” in ape feces and aborted babies and heavy metals, or if he is aware of all the thousands of divinely inspired doctors who are testifying to the power of Vitamin D, Zinc, Ivermectin, HCQ, and Chlorine Dioxide treatment protocols, or if he understands that the “vaccine” trial data was manipulated and that these “vaccines” are less than 1% “effective” at their marketed purpose – but 95% effective at the intended purpose – to sterilize, kill, and destroy. The Luciferians know these shots will kill, and that is what they mean by “effective”. Maybe Mr. Billings should take a break from pontificating and do some hard research on the “Corporate Rap Sheets” of all these drug makers. The AMA logo – the caduceus is encircled by serpents. “Snake Oil” is not a gift from God. It is snake oil, and Rockefeller’s father began this criminal enterprise generations ago. I wonder if Mr. Billings is delusional and believes his own nonsense, or if he misdirects and deceives on purpose.
Jacob and whoever reads this, Christianity Today is a deplorable, apostate, sacrilegious blasphemous disgrace! I wouldn’t use their disgusting magazines to line my cat’s litter boxes with! Those lukewarm evangelical emergents recommended Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, the movies Evan Almighty and Pan’s Labyrinth and advertise a bunch of bible colleges which are all on the alexandrian cult purpose driven party line. You can bet that these quote end quote “Christians” in their Christianity today magazine will be saying to take the mark of the beast after the catching up!
No Jacob, you’re not crazy, there is a snake hissing as you read their magazines; it’s hissing “yea hath God said?”
1 Timothy 6:20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: 21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.
We bible believing God fearing men and women do not have a problem with true Science. Just Science Falsely so called. But they will not put that in their articles. The will just label us across the board as Science haters.
Daniel 1:4 Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.
I really enjoy Dr. John Asquith and the purecambridgetext.com blog. Early in my Christian walk I’m not sure I would have appreciated it so, the Lord led me through & out of so much that was useful & faithful to a point….but not full scripture, & through many hard knocks of consequential chastening, unwise union etc, so that I surely do appreciate it now. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————- This article of yours reminded me how the ‘creation ministries’, for example, teach much that is useful & glorifies God, yet they neglect the Fall & its affect on all of the creation, & misrepresent positions like the catching away & the Genesis gap ….and end up undermining their own stated position, & joining in unity with Rome & the world against the saints of God & Bible ! I look at those caught up in that & think that many really true do get caught up in such things as new believers, but that at some point the Lord sets a situation before them that is so obviously a bridge too far that it leaves a soul without excuse for remaining & continuing in that affiliation. —————————————————————————————————————————————————— In a related vein, I’ve been wanting to read Dr. Asquith’s ‘Futher Thoughts on the Words of God’ because I’ve learned so much concerning the history of the Bible & faithful believers outside of, or coming out of Romanism, & about the Bible & defending the faith & case for God’s preserved word from the writers there. John Asquith is a very forthright & humble man of God, & I personally met a faithful Bible translator missionary who takes a lot of flak for it, that he represented positively …rare thing that vouches well for him. Anyways, it’s hard to find hardcopy, so I recently read the Amazon Kindle excerpt in the meantime, and reached out to see how I could get a copy outside of Amazon. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— I immediately thought of something I read there as I read your article here. They had up the ‘Introduction’ and though the whole of it is pertinent, specifically in that writing, Dr. Asquith used a term that really resonated with me, & what you are talking about here, calling it “G-Bock”, & very detrimental to Christian faithfulness, creeping in through well-meaning attempts to ‘educate’ and teach Bible truths, but ending with a powerless milquetoast, lowest-common-denominator, warmed-over ‘orthodoxy’ in even the most fundamentalist circles. G-Bock: The ‘General Body of Accepted Christian Knowledge’ was a term that apparently was so frequently thrown at him & inerrancy men like him that he & his family developed a shorthand term for it. ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— What you’ve exampled here is about the lowest rung of that error, and a perfect example of the sort of nauseating & off-putting mess of pottage it ends with, or perhaps better stated death in the pot….. I believe there surely is a ‘hiss’ as you read, & especially when you’ve experienced the audible ‘hiss’ when it’s questioned, & you witness the countenance & tone change of those questioned …that mocking, & then threatening air that it takes on when ‘the authority’ promoting the orthodoxy is confronted, however mildly or charitably…and the one confronting persists instead of cowing or falling into line.