Ignoring death and loss
Debasing his Christianity further with every letter to the editor on the Opinion Page, Pastor Morris Curry now equates employer vaccine requirements with life under The Anti-Christ (Oct. 10, “Mandating death and loss”). Employers following the mandates of our elected officials (to limit pestilence transmission among their employees and customers) are somehow preparing us all for the “follow or die” authoritarianism awaiting “those left behind” (presumably from The Rapture). Those not following the mandate will be fired and then will die (with their families) of hunger and lack of shelter — all for refusing COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment, and “shame on you” employers for any attempts at enforcing workplace safety and public health! Imagine being forced to vaccinate to keep work — like hospitals and schools and the Armed Forces.
I do not recall the Good Pastor objecting to red state governors refusing federal money for unemployment extension. Those benefits were only allowing the lazy to stay home during a pandemic for the benefit of us all, so let hunger and lack of shelter force them back to work at crappy jobs for low wages. But no vaccine requirements — those are evil. Throughout the Good Pastor’s writing, the End Times, death, the vanity of humanity and the futility of science are recurring themes. The Commandments and Beatitudes? Not no much. It is the writing of a man who feels both death approaching and the futility of either science or Christianity to avert it. It is the nihilistic “burn it down, it’s all crap anyway” attitude that is as destructive to America as it is to Christianity. Caring nothing for the suffering of others, the Good Pastor will be Raptured off above it all anyway.
The rest: “those left behind” are just Jesus’ leftovers, the spiritual food-waste to be scraped off His plate: losers. Pastors should care for their flocks in the Name of Jesus, guiding and protecting them as He would, preaching to them what He taught. Jesus never encouraged defiance of civil authority’s efforts to control plague. St. Luke (a physician) never abandoned medicine or encouraged Christians to pray away disease. Neither brayed-on about the End of Days every time they had a point to make.
— Thom McCombs/American Canyon