Between three and four years ago, my pastor preached a sermon on submission to government, I think using Romans 13 but it's a bit hazy at this point so may have been from another passage of scripture. In any case, I remember distinctly thinking that he- godly man that he is- was a little too enthusiastic about obeying the authorities over us. I thought that he didn't leave a lot of room for a Martin Luther moment: "Here I stand, I can do no other,' in the face of anti-Christian government directives. I discussed it with some of the family at Sunday dinner that day... the issue was talked over and debated, with most of us being more or less in agreement that, if required to choose between obeying the government or obeying God, the government could go pound sand. But of course, at that time it was merely a thought exercise, a "What if?" scenario. No one had any idea that we would soon be forced to face a situation- the pandemic- which would require us to decide in real time if we would obey the government or not.
There's also the question of our Christian witness; what does it say when the Church, supposed to be salt and light, goes M.I.A. during a worldwide crisis? Whenever I travel anywhere, I always try to visit the historic churches in the area- I'm wild and crazy like that. When I was in Lunenburg for a week's vacation in September 2020, I stopped by a number of churches in the area, including the one pictured above: they were all locked up tight. But the local eateries, the shops, the museums, the B&Bs, etc were all open for business... we let the government decide that we were unnecessary- non-essential, if you will- and, by meekly assenting to their dictates, we implied that we agreed.
Some did more than imply. When the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter lunacy was going on in the States, as usual all the progressive types in Canada had to jump on the bandwagon, as if the situation had anything at all to do with us. Whatever your feelings on that unfortunate occurrence, it should be obvious that no one in Canada was in any way responsible. Nevertheless, the woke brigade took to the streets, screeching that 'black lives matter' as if anyone had said or done anything to suggest otherwise. They gathered in large crowds and no effort was made by authorities to stop them, although people who didn't have a woke pass were prevented even from visiting their dying parents. The pastor of one local church- I'm not going to name names- went to the BLM protest and later gushed about it on Facebook, saying how wonderful it was to be among so many people of common purpose and- idiotically- that it was almost the same as a church service. Other than, you know, the total absence of the worship of God, and the complete elevation of the self over the spiritual. He also said that it was very important to be there; I'm sceptical but that's not really the point. This guy's church was shut up tight-not even allowed to have an open air service- with nary a push back from him but he happily traipsed off to a BLM protest because it was just so, so important. Unlike worshiping God with your fellow believers, or ministering to those in need, apparently. The self-satisfied hypocrisy is enough to make you sick. But of course, this was before there was a vaccine; the true colours of many church leaders were not apparent until after that appeared on the scene. I'll discuss this in my next post.