There are growing calls for church leaders to be held accountable for exploiting their positions of power by pushing the now rapidly crumbling Covid narrative on their congregations.
Through either a lack of discernment or dishonesty, countless church leaders used their platforms to spiritually blackmail the people by effectively equating mandate compliance with obedience to God.
Those impacted the worst by the mandates, individuals and families who could not comply for conscience sake or simply out of principle, were not only forced to out themselves through the implementation of vaccinated-only worship services, but they were subject to spiritual shaming from the pulpit and on social media.
Mandates were costing people their jobs, livelihoods, and homes, and in the midst of their suffering and loss, their “spiritual guides” were describing their sacrifice as selfish and unloving.
Mask compliance and vaccine status were presented as outward marks of Christian love, in accordance with Jesus’ command to “love your neighbour as yourself.” Those who did not submit to the established narrative, or so much as questioned it, were publicly maligned, both as “anti-vaxxers” and “anti-science,” and as rebels against God who are refusing to fulfil their “Christian duty” towards others.
But today, calls for honest reflection and repentance continue to mount as the once-established narrative slowly falls apart. Mainstream media outlets are only now beginning to examine what was previously only questioned by independent outlets, who at the time, copped all sorts of abuse for daring to question “the science.”
Earlier this week the New York Times published a piece titled, The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned? In the article, the author noted that the “most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illness – including Covid-19 – was published late last month.”
According to its lead author, Oxford epidemiologist, Tom Jefferson, the findings were unambiguous.
“There is just no evidence [masks] make any difference,” he said. “Full stop.”
Not even N-95 masks make a difference, Jefferson added. In fact, it’s likely they may have even been harmful for the simple fact that they created a false sense of safety.
So far, we’ve had admissions that the virus wasn’t as dangerous as we were told. Lockdowns did more harm than good. Banning people from outdoors was an atrocious mistake. The vaccines didn’t do what they said they would do. And masks did nothing.
Well, not exactly “nothing,” according to Pastor Michael Foster of East River Church in Ohio. Several lessons were learned.
In a post on Twitter, Foster, author of ‘It’s Good To Be A Man,’ noted six things that we learned, or ought to learn, from the past three years of governmental madness.
“We learned that many conservative churches would toe the governmental line even though it didn’t make any sense.
“We learned that many ‘winsome and reasonable’ pastors could quickly transform into tyrannical authoritarians when anyone questioned their toeing the governmental.
“We learned that those churches would use faux-righteous manipulation tactics to slander their members who questioned them by implying or straight out saying that they don’t love their neighbor.
“We learned that many of those who didn’t bow down to the governmental insanity still collapsed to the irrational fears of the masses.
“We learned that even Christians throw aside all they knew about scripture and basic science and divided themselves from precious friends and family over the incredible stupidity of masks.
“And we’re about to learn that few of the pastors or Christians possess the humility to say that they were wrong even in the light of indisputable evidence and make amends where possible.”
Sadly, Pastor Foster appears to be right. While the mainstream media is slowly catching up to what we’ve been saying from the start, we still have nothing but silence from the church, who, as representatives of God’s ministry of grace on earth, really ought to be the first to offer a humble admission of fault.
But where there is a refusal to admit fault, then we must hold them to account, so said William Wolfe, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence.
“Forgiveness shouldn’t be divorced from accountability,” Wolfe tweeted. “Now we can say, without getting censored, that ‘Love your neighbor, wear a mask’ or ‘Love your neighbor, get the shot’ was a lie.
“So it’s time to hold the Christian leaders who pushed that lie accountable.”
Queensland pastor, Giuliano Bordoni of Grace Church, agreed, describing church leadership’s involvement in peddling the narrative as “state-sanctioned spiritual abuse.”
Responding to Wolfe’s comment, Pastor Bordoni said pastors who used their office to uphold extra-biblical commands must come clean and apologise or else resign.
“What bothers me is that most people don’t realise that even if this wasn’t a lie, even if this wasn’t a scam to transfer billions and billions of dollars into the hands of a few, even then, religious leaders had no place in using clear commands from the Scriptures tied up with non-biblical directives,” he explained.
Pastor Bordoni went on to say that if leadership does not repent, congregations should demand resignations.
“Most likely, a repentant pastor would resign of his own initiative without being asked, since he is guilty of state-sanctioned spiritual abuse,” he added.
Of course, the obvious objections are sure to arise: “We only did what we thought was best! We didn’t know any better at the time.” Friends, this isn’t an excuse. This is precisely the reason why you don’t bind the consciences of the people to that which God has not decreed. You just end up making a mess for which you owe others an apology. And a proper apology must be made, not just to acknowledge the wrongs committed, but to assure the people that this sort of thing will never happen again.
