I am moving this over from the American Politics thread in an effort to address it in a more focussed manner. The Evangelical response to coronavirus has been both surprising on some fronts, and (as expected) rather frightening.
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Originally Posted by Puppet Guy
Aren't they already calling this a plague from God?
Evangelical responses are actually a fair bit more nuanced than that. Certainly, there are those who are identifying this as divine judgment, but I have seen a surprising number of leaders and commenters speak about the pandemic in terms of church/state separation, which itself is incredibly scary.
Take, for example, the lunatic hipster Jeff Durbin. Durbin is the head pastor of Apologia Church in Mesa Arizona. He also hosts a daily radio show, a terrible weekly late-night talk show, and his church runs a notoriously aggressive and dangerous anti-abortion campaign called "The Red Door Ministry." Durbin is also fond of reminding people that in his former life he was a marshall-arts champion who once played a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on the big screen.
In a show that aired yesterday, Durbin tackles coronavirus and attempts to offer a "biblical response":
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Originally Posted by Jeff Durbin
"I can already hear the keystrokes: people say, 'You are minimizing this.' No, no one's doing that here. No one is calling this a hoax here. No one's calling this virus not-serious. We are saying, 'Absolutely'; 'Totally serious'; 'Fallen world'; 'Have to contend with it'; 'Have to love each other.' We have to protect everybody, but the question is how do you do that in a balanced perspective?
"Christians tend to leap off of the edge of either side of an issue. I'll give you one example I mentioned on Sunday: People have actually suggested that if you continue to meet for services in this moment you are murdering your neighbour. Literally murdering your neighbour. Now I want to ask the question: Are you going to use that same argument in the next 24-months with the millions and millions of people who are dying in your state from other communicable diseases that even have mortality rates that are equal to this? Are you murdering your neighbours because you continue to meet for the gathering of God's people for worship in the midst of those communicable diseases?"
Durbin believes there are two critical issues to address in facing the global pandemic: 1) The "biblical law" to submit to governing authorities in Romans 13: "The governing authority is God's deacon. It's to wield the sword of justice, to punish the wicked and protect the righteous. So, people say, 'Therefore, you need to shut down all of society, destroy the economy. That's fine because you need to obey your government. Don't meet for corporate worship because the government says so.'" 2) Love your neighbour: "They say, 'You need to self-quarantine, shut your business down ... to hell with the economy. We need to save lives.' They say, 'It's "love for neighbour" that says you should close your church down right now; no more gathering. "Love for neighbour" says you quarantine for the next couple weeks until the Romans 13 government says you can come away.'"
Durbin is couching the whole issue of self-isolation in an "us v. them" narrative about conflict between submitting to an oppressive government and obeying scriptural commands for Christians to congregate. He sees the US authorities as overreaching in a way that also infringes on divine mandate. The take away is that his church is going to continue in defiance of the quarantine order, because God says so.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
and do you agree that groups of people should be able to do this based on religious beliefs?
No. It's a reckless and myopic response. The argument is basically that the divine mandate for Christians to congregate takes precedence over State imperatives to isolate. Durbin makes the case that local church authorities should be free to make this decision for themselves, unfettered from government involvement. He thinks that it's probably wise for some churches to shut down temporarily, but then also suggests that a good number of others in more remote locations, or without incidents of infection can and should continue to gather, so long as they are observing rules of social distancing. It's stupid, because the entire strategy behind clamping down on large gatherings is precisely an effort to reduce or eliminate the spread, and to attempt to contain the outbreak. This approach of churches deciding for themselves whether or not this is a legitimate directive essentially flies in the face of that.
Durbin also asserts this idea elsewhere that the biblically proscribed function of government is restricted to matters of national and civil defense, and the promotion of justice. This is effectively what undergirds some Christian positions on matters of gun ownership/control, health care, and social programmes. The sense being that these are not within the purview of governments, and it is thus an illegitimate extension of government control beyond their proper jurisdiction. It is through views such as these that Christians can attempt to maintain a commitment to the well-being of their neighbours and society at large, while simultaneously insisting that programmes like universal single-payer health care, a regulated economy, and restrictions on firearms are somehow antithetical to God's plan.
It's bizarre, but if believers such as Durbin can maintain a strong stance on God's sovereignty, such inconsistencies are weirdly tolerated without much of a second thought.
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Christian pastor who thought COVID-19 is just ‘mass hysteria’ among the first from Virginia to die from virus
On March 13, Spradlin shared a misleading meme that compared coronavirus deaths to swine flu deaths and suggested the media is using the pandemic to hurt Trump. In the comments, Spradlin acknowledged that the outbreak is a “real issue,” but added that he believes “the media is pumping out fear and doing more harm than good”
Nothing more than irresponsible poppycock. In fact this clown needs to be arrested for spreading false bs on the virus.. People will listen to him and ignore everything else.
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Kenneth Copeland has a hilariously over-sized head. It's rather fitting.
Fun fact brought to mind by his invocation of Genesis 3 in his rebuke: "You come down and you crawl on your belly like God commanded you when he put his foot on your head in the Garden of Eden."
Christians often misunderstand from this story that the snake in the Garden of Eden is Satan, and the curse God set upon it was a prophecy of the coming of the messiah, which was fulfilled in Jesus. In actual fact, the "snake" in this story is a mythical creature, "Nahash," who was cast down and turned into a snake. And the curse in Gen 3:14–15 itself merely describes part of the difficulty and danger of agrarian life: snakes bite people, and people hate snakes; "She will strike at your head, and you will strike at her heel."
In the New Testament the Apostle Paul intentionally mis-translated this passage to set added force on the human response in the curse when he said in Rom 16:20, "the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet."
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
besides stomping on snakes heads I wonder why a god would even need feet.
If I were a god I would just use a combination of floating/levitating, teleporting and when I was feeling randy, time travel and blackholes, to move around.
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Pass the bacon.
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