Live not by lies. – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Today there is a significant push to quickly move on by many who were true believers in the fear ladened, heavy handed, misguided, and deadly COVID response.
Now, some may bristle at this statement as they cannot accept their own fear, ignorance, and participation. A few, these days, will continue to be true believers and very well may go to their grave quoting the CDC or Fauci. But there is emerging, a much larger population, who once eagerly participated in the fear mongering, coercion, and even more heinous acts toward anyone who questioned the state sanctioned narrative. They no longer believe as is evidence in their quickly abandoning the ridiculous masks once the mandate lifted and their increasing reticence to the boosters. However, this newly skeptical group is also resistant to taking responsibility for their previous participation.
The truly curious thing isn’t their late awakening but the desire to quickly move on, in order to ‘get past this’. Their hope is to ‘sweep under the rug’ their behavior that they internally recognize as wrong, while simultaneously claiming they had no choice. The narrative, as promoted by many including the likes of national and international media and politicians, is a call for amnesty. The rationale consisting of claims of ignorance and compassionate coercion, justifies behaviors that would never normally be tolerated.
Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, amnestia, “forgetfulness, passing over”) is defined as “A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of people who are subject to trial but have not yet been convicted.” Though the term general pardon has a similar definition, an amnesty constitutes more than a pardon, in so much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the offense.
– Wikipedia
There are many who have had relationships deeply marred, education lost, biology damaged, while being thrust into economic chaos. These are not trite experiences that will find healing with cheap amnesty for the evil that compelled the lies continues to live beneath the surface of communal cowardice.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
1 Corinthians 13:6 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/1co.13.6.NIV
The revelation of pervasive narcissism and weak resolve is most shocking in the communities who claim to follow Jesus. Churches, or more irresponsibly, church leaders were often swept up in the fear and proceeded to fan its toxic flames. The ease with which most churches abandoned the command to gather and embraced an online, poorly simulated, church experience reveals the lack of priority around true Christian community and a lack of courage to stand against a world of deranged terror. The leaders embraced this fear, wrapped it in a self-serving message of love of one’s neighbors, accepted the financial payoffs and fearfully marched their flocks into the chaos of the world replacing the hope of Christ with the hope of vaccines.
How many, vulnerable individuals within the body of Christ, were driven from community into isolation? How many were coerced into taking an experimental gene therapy against their better judgment? How many were left to die alone in a nursing home or hospital?
Not only did the church fail her own but she also failed in her witness to the world. When the tyrants rose and forced little children, who were clearly not at risk, to mask up, who stood for the children? When the educators abandoned their duty to teach and openly accused students of murder for not following along, where were the righteous?
The church did not stand with the most vulnerable but participated in the orchestrated hallucinations. Canceling in person gatherings while liquor stores and strip clubs remained open, compelling arbitrary social distancing, mandating ineffective masking, and promoting experimental vaccinations were not benign activities. It brought real harm for it was all laced in fear and lies.
As followers of Jesus, when we are wrong, when we sin against another, we are compelled to repent and seek forgiveness. Where has this occurred? Rather than admitting ignorance, cowardice, and complicity with evil many choose excuses. The leader’s refrain of ‘we didn’t know’ is quickly followed by ‘we were just following orders’. There is rarely an acknowledgment of wrong thinking or wrong doing. Why is that?
Is the reality of one’s horrific failure and cataclysmic harm too much to bear? Is the same fear that led to obnoxious and dangerous behavior toward others still rooted within but now targeted at oneself? Is the dark truth of one’s actions which harmed loved ones and even oneself settling in?
There is only one response that can produce hope and life, repentance. For leaders like pastors, priests and elders, who let fear and lies guide them and their people into destruction, the failure is not personal but public. And thus, public repentance is required. It is not just God who was sinned against, but the vulnerable who were in their care.
Unrepentant hearts are a breeding ground for sin and death. Leaders who fell to fear must choose what may seem to be an even more terrifying path, public repentance. They must acknowledge their sin and the destruction they caused.