COVID-19: Covered in Jesus’s (sic)Blood
We might need faith to get us through COVID-19, but we don’t need wilful stupidity. That is what will kill us, not the virus.
I am not a person of faith. I was brought up Catholic but dropped the church as I grew older and decided to stop looking to a “higher being” to justify my existence or to use to abdicate responsibility for my actions, which is pretty much what I see organised religion as being set up predominantly for. Oh, and to hoard a lot of wealth and wield a lot of control over large swathes of “believers”.
Don’t get me wrong — if you are a believer of some kind of faith or other, all power to you. I’m not here to convince you otherwise in the way that some people of faith feel it is their mission to force their flavour of spirituality on us heathen unbelievers.
But I will call believers out when they act in a fashion that goes against EVERYTHING their supposed doctrine stands for.
Listening to a CNN podcast a couple nights ago, I was disturbed, which is not quite strong enough a word but it will do, to hear church attendees using their faith as the shield against COVID-19.
“I’m covered in Jesus’s (sic) blood,” one woman (see left) proclaimed as a defence to why she could break social distancing guidelines and attend her church gathering. Others interviewed echoed similar claims.
At first, being a bit of a cinephile,I cannot lie, it made me think of this…
When I got over that moment, I actually had to go back and listen again.
Did these folk really think their faith could protect them?
I did a little googling and I found a site that referenced all the “Blood of Jesus” stuff in the Bible.
There are, according to this site, fourteen “Blessings of the Blood”:
1. Atonement for the soul (Lev 17:11; Rom 3:24; 5:11; Col 1:20)
2. Remission of sins (Mt 26:28; Rom 3:24–25 Heb 9:22; Eph 1:7)
3. Life and peace (Rom 5; Col 1:20)
4. Redemption (Rom 3:24–25 Eph 1:7; Heb 9:12–15 1 Pet 1:18–2 Rev 5:9)
5. Justification (Rom 5:9; Gal 3:6–14 Acts 13:38–39)
6. Brought close (Eph 2:13; Heb 10:19)
7. Pure conscience (Heb 9:14)
8. Cleansing from sin (1 Jn 1:7
9. Sanctification (Heb 10:10–14; 13:20)
10. New covenant (Mt 26:28; Heb 10:29; 12:24; 13:20)
11. New birth (1 Pet 1:18–23
12. Overcoming power (Rev 12:11)
13. Church membership (Acts 20:28)
14. Salvation (Ps 51; Heb 9:15)
Now, I’m not seeing a WHOLE lot of evidence there about His blood protecting from plague or pestilence or illness, even if it is apparently able to do a whole lot of other stuff, as we know, the Bible doesn’t hold back on the plague and pestilence stuff, so I pretty much reckon if the blood of JC was going to protect believers from COVID-19, we’d know about it.
However, it’s not just Christians or those part of widespread institutionalised religious belief I fear who will suffer due to their blind faith, and, in holding that faith so dear, cause others to suffer.
Another friend of mine who embodies all the stuff Christians are the opposite of is taking a not dissimilar tack. She is a real “earth mother” into healing and crystals and laying on of hands and energy and silver colloidal etc etc. In fact, let’s call her what she is — a modern-day witch.
A discussion with her revealed a similar level of, I’ll call it what it is, arrogance, about being protected from COVID-19. She was still conducting quite physical one-on-one sessions, hugging, seeing people in groups and in complete denial that she could contract COVID-19 because she knew in every cell of her body that it was not in her and would not infect her.
To stop myself ending up with a face black and blue from face-palming, I wound up our conversation pretty quickly, although not before telling her while I hoped she was correct, I wondered how she would feel if somehow she was wrong and her “spiritual-health-shield” was breached and she contracted COVID-19 without knowing, remained asymptomatic and passed it on to someone else.
Who then died.
*moment of silence*
She tried to come back at me with the “it’s all a conspiracy so the government can take control of us more through fear” argument (which, to be honest, we all know some governments might take advantage of, so it’s a shame she argued this in the conspiratorial way she did because it could have led to a more logical discussion around this), at which point I steered us away from the conversation and ended it not long after.
My point?
I’m not opposed to the believers believing.
I’m not opposed to my mate witching away.
But when both of these sets of people have to live in a world where they do not share any sense of responsibility for their actions, or the outcomes of their actions (OK, that sounds like A LOT of people, let’s face it, but still…), I call them out on their faith or beliefs.
I call out their Gods and their institutionalised religions and their inward-looking attitudes.
I call them out because they don’t have love in their hearts, they only have fear, which is the long shadow of hate, and their only shield for this fear is arrogance and ignorance.
