How Church Leaders Aligned with Fauci To Discredit Experts Opposed TO COVID Mandates
Daily Headlines Live, October 18, 2022
(https://dailyheadlineslive.com/news/how-church-leaders-aligned-with-fauci-to-discredit-experts-opposed-to-covid-mandates/)
End of February 20, 2022. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was a Stanford professor of Medicine, preaching to his Silicon Valley church, on the topic of “clean and unclean.” As he spoke of Christ’s revolutionary compassion in physically touching lepers and other diseased outcasts of the ancient world, he paused to reflect on how our society — in which 64 percent of the population professes to follow Jesus — conducted itself over the last two years.
“I started receiving emails almost immediately after the pandemic started from doctors and nurses asking me if it was okay to hug their wives and their husbands,”Bhattacharya spoke from his pulpit at the metal music stand. “Because they worked in the hospital, they were unclean. Your COVID patients, they were unclean.”
Although coronavirus was not likely to be spread outdoors, he described pedestrians turning wide to avoid unmasked persons on the sidewalk. He then asked his congregation. “When someone comes down with COVID, what’s the first question we all ask? ‘Where did you get it? Who gave it to you?’ We treat contracting the virus as a sin. As punishment for not being careful and doing all the right things.”
The point was clear — throughout the pandemic, Americans treated one another as if they were unclean.
Bhattacharya was a national celebrity after he released The Great Barrington Declaration, which was an open letter with Oxford and Harvard colleagues in October 2020. This document opposed locking down pandemics and instead advocated targeted protection for those most at risk. His opposition to mask mandates for vaccines has led him to call for more attention and serious concern about vaccine risks and injuries.
But few are aware of the religious convictions that also help frame Bhattacharya’s scientific outlook.
He was born to an Indian family in Kolkata. After he arrived in America for college, he converted to Christianity at the age of 18. He’s been a member of First Presbyterian Church in Mountain View, California, where he has served as both a deacon and elder, for 27 years.
Perhaps if they had known this, fewer prominent evangelical pastors, theologians, and seminary heads would have been so willing to follow the lead of another famous scientist and Christian — former NIH Director Francis Collins — in labeling Bhattacharya’s medical opinions “fringe” and “conspiracy theories.”
‘Love Your Neighbor, Get the Shot’
Collins was there from the very beginning of the pandemic. His relationships were leveraged with church leaders such as Living a purpose-driven life Rick Warren, apologist Tim Keller and author Rick Collins, who tried to persuade Christians all over the country that obeying God’s commands and lockdowns is a matter of faith.
Collins and two of his close friends, Russell Moore (Christianity Today) and Ed Stetzer (Billy Graham enter director), argued that Christians were responsible for tamping down on violence. “conspiracy theories” like the idea that virus leaked out of Wuhan’s lab, or that masks weren’t effective.
This revelation was made public by BioLogos last week, which Collins established in 2007 as a bridge between Christians and scientists. It reveals more spiritual manipulations to discredit experts such as Bhattacharya, who have disputed the establishment story.
Titled “Love Your Neighbor, Get the Shot,” it was published by Bhattacharya in the latter part of August 2020. Publishing widely-circulated op-eds Outlets like The Wall Street Journal, getting up and sitting down interviews warning that COVID risk was being exaggerated and that lockdown harms had been minimized
Notable theologian N.T. Wright, Lisa Sharon Harper and Philip Yancey, the best-selling Christian authors, Timothy Dalrymple, Christianity Today CEO, and many seminary presidents promised to “actively promote accurate scientific and public health information from trustworthy, consensus sources.” They promised that they would counter “misinformation”and “conspiracy theories” non-English speaking countries “consensus” Sources wherever they were found
“When Dr. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, tells us what scientists have learned about this infectious disease,”Their followers were exhorted by the Christian intelligentsia. “He should be listened to.”
Who shouldn’t be heard? Scientists who are not from the “consensus”Who were only providing “one person’s theory on YouTube.”Bhattacharya, and other medical dissidents are also included.
The Love Your Neighbor Statement’s closing section contained the pledges of those who signed it. “because of their faith in Jesus Christ,”They would.
“Wear Masks”We are grateful “Mask rules are not experts taking away our freedom, but an opportunity to follow Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 6:31).”
“Get vaccinated”We are grateful “Vaccination is a provision from God”The vaccines and other medications are “safe and effective.”
“Correct misinformation and conspiracy theories when we encounter them in our social media and communities.” Because “Christians are called to love the truth; we should not be swayed by falsehoods (1 Corinthians 13:6).”
In the end, more than 8,000 people, many of whom were pastors and ministry leaders, promised to work against the evidence and arguments Bhattacharya and his Great Barrington colleagues were presenting in order to promote Collins and Fauci’s policies.
s National Review’s Michael Brendan Doherty told me, “The signers were basically saying ‘We need to treat the Church as a mission field for the Establishment.’”
A ‘Swift and Devastating Takedown’
The signers of Love Your Neighbor pledged to fight scientific injustices. “misinformation,”Collins and Fauci worked behind-the-scenes to make sure Bhattacharya would and other experts that questioned their policies were regarded as purveyors.
Collins designated Bhattacharya as a Great Barrington author in October 2020. “fringe epidemiologists” Fauci was asked to insist on the following: “swift and devastating takedown” They would publish their works.
That didn’t mean seriously engaging with the scientific argument presented in the Declaration — neither Collins nor Fauci ever did that. It was a way to rely on media connections in order to dismiss it as quackery.
Bhattacharya is not the only Christian doctor to suffer reputational damage. This was partly due to Christian leaders telling their flocks to avoid conspiracy theorists. As an example, Dr. Kirk Milhoan (a Maui-based pediatric cardiologist, and pastor) was put under review for questioning the wisdom of giving vaccines to children.
However, he is undoubtedly the most famous. He took serious professional risks.
In the heights of panic to stop “misinformation,” posters with Bhattacharya’s picture were plaqued around Stanford’s campus alongside Florida’s COVID mortality numbers. Bhattacharya, who had been advised by DeSantis to ignore all restrictions, was said to have led excessive death in Florida. The state has been suffering from a number of deaths since then. Florida actually came in the middle, just behind those states who used more harsh measures. It also did much better economically.
While Bhattacharya was speaking out against mandates and lockdowns, faculty members distributed petitions in his favor, suggesting that he had a divergent view about masks not stopping the disease spreading, “putting lives at risk.” He was right, even though the CDC acknowledges it.
‘It Devastated the Poor and That Was Deeply Immoral’
Bhattacharya answers my question about the efforts of church leaders to end debate from both the viewpoint of a physician and Christ follower. “Scientists and scientific leaders should allow debate to happen, not misrepresent that the debate is already settled and then essentially trick Christian churches into following them,”He says it to me.
This is the belief that “get[ting] the shot”Symbolic of “lov[ing] your neighbor,”He claims it was never wrong: “From a basic scientific perspective, for a church to say that [COVID] vaccination is an act of love because you’re protecting other people is just not factually correct.”
As revelations emerge that scientists knew early on that the vaccines did not prevent transmission, it’s another point on which time has Vindicated Bhattacharya.
He insists on the fact that pastors and theologians argued that COVID policies were less harmful than the official COVID laws. “least of these”It was also extremely flawed.
“The lockdowns essentially were a policy that privileged the rich laptop class,”He said. “The BioLogos statement had it exactly backwards. It was the policy pushed by Francis Collins that destroyed the poor, destroyed the vulnerable, destroyed the working class.”
To Bhattacharya’s point, a U.N. ReportIt was believed that 233,000 South Asian children were starving in March 2021 due to the COVID lockdown interruptions.
“There’s millions of people who have starved as a consequence of economic dislocation caused by the lockdowns,”Bhattacharya states. “And the World Bank issued reports suggesting that almost 100 million additional people were thrown into poverty due to loss of income. I mean, that’s what I call trickle down epidemiology. The idea is you protect you, protect the rich and somehow that’ll trickle down and help protect the poor. But in fact it’s the opposite. It devastated the poor and that was deeply immoral.”
Bhattacharya claims he still loves Collins and prays to him for the best, but he thinks Collins abused his former NIH Director position as both a Christian trusted voice and as a public official in health.
“[Collins] said, ‘Look, because I have this authority, not only can I render a verdict on science but I can also use that verdict to guide the morality of the church and the moral teaching of the Church. I think it’s just an extraordinary position for one man to take on himself,”Bhattacharya states.
As for the church leaders who signed the BioLogos statement and platformed Collins to suggest that taking a side in an unfolding scientific debate was a Christian duty, he’s bewildered that they ever could have thought it was a responsible decision.
“It’s one to have a public health campaign help people know how to get vaccinated,”He said, “But to tie that to moral behavior — to say, ‘If you don’t get vaccinated. You’re a bad guy, you’re sinning…’”He struggles to breathe, and he exhales. “I mean, that, that’s really… That’s really dangerous.”