Serving Without Fear During a Pandemic

Yesterday, my father preached a sermon where he referenced a lecture he watched from a Korean theologian. The theologian mentioned that back in the early days of Christianity, a plague hit certain Roman cities such that many people fled, including pagan priests. One group of people stayed at great risk to themselves in order to help people, and it was the Christians. It reminded me of a book I read for church history many years ago called The Rise of Christianity by sociologist Rodney Stark. Stark also mentioned the early Christians’ response to the disease and concluded that one major reason why Christianity spread so rapidly back then was because Christians were just loving and serving people. Stark himself, after his research, switched from what he called a “cultural Christian” and an agnostic to an actual Christian, though one not associated with any church. Centuries later, those early Christians apparently led to the conversion of yet another person who studied their good works.

In the wise words of the Teacher, there is nothing new under the sun, though 2020 feels like a historic year for many reasons. Diseases have existed for as long as we can remember, and while we’ve made strides against the microbes, it’ll probably be an unending battle until Jesus returns. Men have always been afraid of disease, and for good reason: There’s something spooky about something that you can’t see and understand invading your body and possibly killing you. This didn’t change in 2020 with the coronavirus, with the entire world going on lockdown before tentatively opening back up recently.

There are a lot of debates about when things should open up, how they should, and whether or not churches should start physical meetings. Those are good discussions to have, but my emphasis here will be to point out that whatever choice your church makes, what churches and Christians cannot do is just retreat from the world in fear. We can understand why others do it, but we who have eternal life secured in Christ should not. Instead, it is time to serve people who are struggling with disease, loneliness, unemployment, etc.

“Bravery” Without Risk and Complete Evidence: The NBA Mini-Strike and Another Police Shooting

I’ve written several times on police shootings and the rational way to approach headlines, which are so often misleading and designed to create reactions that the news can keep reporting on. Sometimes, video evidence is pretty clear that police brutality occurred (as in the George Floyd case), but other times, the evidence is murky at best. The most mature and rational approach then is to wait for more evidence, and if more evidence is not forthcoming, wise people simply admit that there is not enough evidence to criminally convict anyone of wrongdoing. Every case should be treated like this, and I’ve argued this ever since the Michael Brown case, a case that continues to be an embarrassment to those who refuse to acknowledge that the evidence exonerated Officer Wilson.

I’ve also written that, unfortunately, the culture now teaches that one’s preferred narrative trumps reason, facts, and the truth, and large swaths of the population (including many Christians) have been swept up in this attitude. Not only are people stubborn and too proud to admit that they’re wrong, social media has exacerbated this problem because it encourages people to be performative and reactionary. Many people have figured out that churning out woke tweets or posts is a quick way to get likes from others who also want to be praised, and on the flipside, sometimes even not commenting enough on a particular issue will garner suspicion that, perhaps secretly, one holds unacceptable opinions. Of course, if a reaction is captured online, for the world to see, it makes people feel like they have to double-down if it turns out their first take was ill-informed or poorly reasoned. Otherwise, they feel like they lose face and have to eat a massive blow to the ego, and what you get is more tribalism and near dogmatic adherence to preferred narratives.

We’ve seen all of these problems again with the recent police shooting case of Jacob Blake and the sports world’s reaction to it (namely the NBA’s). The Milwaukee Bucks decided not to show up for their Game 5 against the Orlando Magic, much to the surprise of everyone, including other teams. They did this to protest the Blake shooting, and other teams in the NBA bubble rushed to stand in solidarity with them by also putting on a mini-strike (I know “boycott” is being used a lot, but since the NBA players are employees, it seems more accurate to call it a strike). Other leagues followed suit such as the WNBA and MLB by cancelling games for the last two days. The NBA made even more headlines because reports came out that the Clippers and Lakers, led by Lebron, wanted to strike for the rest of the season, though those initial reports are now disputed as too simplistic.

The near universal reaction from the media was praise for the players’ bravery, activism, and vision, and many on social media (including those who can’t tell a basketball from a pumpkin) followed suit. Here’s the problem: The players were far from organized and united on what to do, their goals were unclear, and, worst of all, their conclusions about the Jacob Blake case are wholly unjustified with the evidence we have right now. As typical of the Left, of course, giving any sort of critique or disagreeing with the NBA is tantamount to being racist. Because narrative.