Recently, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, joined the ranks of Christians who have misused their faith in an attempt to guilt believers into taking Covid jabs. Asked if receiving the jabs is a moral issue, Welby answered "I'm going to step out on thin ice here and say yes, I think it is."
Welby's reasoning is typical of Christian Jabvocates, and were it not for his track record, it would almost be forgivable. Welby believes "Vaccination reduces my chances – doesn't eliminate – but it reduces my chances of getting ill and reducing my chances of getting ill reduces my chances of infecting others. It's very simple." Therefore, in his eyes, taking a Covid jab falls under "loving your neighbor".
Unfortunately, Welby is wrong on two counts. The first is that it is nowhere near as simple as he claims. I myself was hospitalised following a Covid infection which I got from one of my fully-jabbed family members. My mother, who jumps to the front of the queue whenever the latest Covid jab becomes available to her, was the first in the household to become infected. She passed this on to my fully jabbed brother and step father, and last of all to me. While in hospital, I was asked repeatedly if I had been jabbed. This would not be a reasonable question if it was uncommon for fully jabbed people to go into hospital. I also overheard at least one other patient telling the nurses he had been fully jabbed, and another patient, who had been there for more than 50 days, told me this was the norm.
And it is. Official statistics reflect this tragically well. The jabs are not fulfilling their extravagant promises, as hospitalisations, at least, seem to be on the rise, in spite of high jab rates. The 90% figure is disputed, so I won't cite it as more than a narrative gloss, but clearly the jabs aren't doing their job.
But even if the jabs were as effective as the Archbishop claims, we hit two other problems. The first is that if they worked as advertised, it wouldn't matter who took them and who didn't: Those who took them would be safe. If your jabs don't work unless I take them too, your jabs don't work even if I take them too. So it still wouldn't be "loving". But more importantly, there is absolutely nothing in the Bible about taking medical treatments out of love. Sure, we have commands to care for, and even heal the sick, if it is within our power, but nothing about what we do with our own bodies.
In fact, the Bible is indisputably in favor of personal liberty. What you do with your body is entirely between you and God. You want to eat meat? Eat meat. You want to drink alcohol? Drink alcohol. You want to abstain from these things? Abstain. It's entirely between you and God. The same is true for medical practice. Nobody, not even an "Archbishop" (a role you won't even find in the Bible), has any kind of right to force, coerce, or otherwise pressure you to do something with your body that you are not fully convinced in your own mind you ought to do. In fact, Romans 14:23 tells us that whatever is not of faith is sin. Therefore, if someone cannot, in good faith, receive a jab, you are actually asking them to sin, and therefore sinning yourself, if you try to convince them to violate their conscience by taking it anyway.
Loving your neighbor is a Biblical value, and if you feel you are loving your neighbor by receiving these jabs, you're bonkers, but you're not sinning. I've said this from the beginning of the pandemic, and I will go on saying it until I am convinced otherwise: If you want to take a Covid jab, take it. It is your right. But my Bible tells me that my body is a temple, and I will protect it in any way necessary. It very clearly presents informed consent as the standard for medical actions, and based on the information available to me, I do not consent to allowing those unknown chemicals to potentially damage my body.
Now, it is no surprise to me that a leader in a Church formed specifically to fulfill the desires of a corrupt government leader would peddle the desires of corrupt government leaders. The Church of England has become increasingly worldly in recent years, and so the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a screaming Liberal is hardly a shock to my system. Nevertheless, I would like to remind the Archbishop, and those who follow in his footsteps, that the Bible has a lot more to tell us than "love your neighbor". In Exodus 20:7, for example, God Himself tells us "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."
I can think of no greater example of taking the Lord's name in vain than inventing commandments and passing them off as if God Himself had delivered them. While the Archbishop has the audacity to say "It's Christmas: do what He said", I can say categorically, nowhere in my Bible did Jesus say "take a Covid jab".
But like any good lie, there is truth in the Archbishop's words. Jesus did say to love our neighbors, and it is indeed imperative that we do what He said. Now, there is a flip side of the Covid issue. Let us not forget the many people who have lost their jobs, even their businesses, due to lockdown restrictions. Let us pay attention to those who haven't lost their yet, but are still struggling to keep them afloat. Let us tip our hats to those who feel distressed and humiliated by mask mandates. A moment of silence for those who took their own lives during this pandemic, be it out of fear, loneliness, or other forms of loss, which could have been avoided if the government had done a better job. What about those who took the jabs in good faith, only to die from some serious side effects? And tell me, Mr. Welby, how are you loving holdouts like me, and my aunt, who feel so isolated in a society that is constantly casting us out because we do not feel these jabs are right for us? What is loving about telling people "your rights don't matter, surrender them for sake of mass hysteria"?
The Archbishop of Canterbury is one man in a long line of men who should bow their heads in shame. But thank God, they actually don't have to. For their shame, the Son of God declared "it is finished", and on that cross, He bowed His head. The Archbishop is guilty of taking the Lord's name in vain, but through faith, he can be held guiltless. And if you're reading this, having committed the same sin, so can you. Just repent.