Bhakta Tom: Happy Easter,
Today we celebrate Jesus's resurrection from the "dead' and anticipate his second coming, but the truth is: he never died.
Yes, Jesus is just as much alive today in his teachings as he ever was in person. And he knows that his "second coming" is actually his Christ consciousness rising in a critical mass of his devoted followers.
Jesus started his ministry by teaching us that if we seek first the "kingdom" that is forever embedded in our consciousness (in other words, our eternal loving relationship with God and all His children), and by living righteously (no sinful intoxication, illicit sex, gambling or eating animals), all our needs will be added.
So, let's break our isolation from Jesus and help heal ourselves and the world by seriously practicing his teachings.
=====================
PADA: We first of all grew up in the Evangelical environment and pretty much understand why they think -- global weather change, pollution, smog, loss of species, or even a pandemic -- is not much of a real problem. Why? Because Jesus is coming soon! Of course. We are in the "end of times." Nothing to worry about because God is going to come soon and fix our mess. Real soon! It's the "end of times." God is on the way to help -- don't ya know? Is there is a problem if this theological theory is transplanted into government politics?
Well maybe so.
How many times many Krishna devotees told me the same thing, not to worry about all the ISKCON banning, beating, molesting, lawsuits and assassinations process because "Krishna is in control." "You mean you think you are the controller"? Hee hee, well maybe yes and maybe no, but that is not exactly the right answer. We think people also have to use their intelligence and act with common sense, and not simply fall back on sentimentalism that "God will fix our mess."
Yep. Thus, no problem here, we sinless Christians are going to be magically transported into the heavens, while you sinful schmucks have to remain here and suffer. Many Muslims also seem to believe that the world's problems are not really a big problem, because soon there will be a new Caliphate established and they will be ruling the globe with their sharia law process. Maybe yes, maybe no? Meanwhile, they make a mess of wars all over the place?
Part of this for the Christians has to do with "The End Times," Armageddon, the return of Jesus etc. And thus some of the Christians sort of hope the Middle East turns into a giant burning fireball, because that will speed up the "prophecy" process of Jesus return, the rapture, and Israel becoming the blessed nation of God and all that. Also, this is why the USA planted an embassy in Jerusalem and so on, to cater to these prophecy-ites.
Unfortunately for the USA, this is also why the nation has been so slow to react to the pandemic, because a lot of the Evangelical preachers have been downplaying the crisis, even saying its a hoax, and then a lot of the government leaders essentially went along with that idea. And this is also why these folks attack Greta Thunberg types and others who try to paint animal eating as a cause of problems for the earth. Unfortunately, Greta is correct, mistreating animals and mistreating the planet will lead to a crisis. Srila Prabhupada says the same thing on this issue.
Thus, the problem of torturing and eating animals causing this pandemic has not yet registered very well with the prophecy-ites. Many of them want the society to "return to normal," i.e. have everyone going back to McDonalds to buy a hamburger, killing millions of cows, and to buy cheap Chinese made products at Walmart. They cannot seem to figure out how this type of society is going to have problems.
Neither the Krishna society -- as a society -- really understood the issues either. Jayapataka NOW says he wants to start an emergency food growing program in Mayapur, in case the food distribution is paralyzed in India. OK, a day late and a dollar short. This should have been going on all along, and all over the world in many ISKCON farms. They back pedalled on this process and now, its a crisis, and they have no real plan "B" backup.
Anyway, we believe that Krishna is intelligent. And thus He wants us to use the God given intelligence He gives us and fight a crisis practically and not by using sentimental cheer leader slogans. And devotees of Krishna should also act with common sense and not sentiment in this time as well. We can and should pray to God, that is nice, but there has to be practical follow up action because that is what God expects us to do, to serve Him by using our God given ability, and not wait for Him to serve us.
===================
More broadly, there is a consistent right-wing conservative effort to downplay the risks of the coronavirus in the United States. On March 10, the day before the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 was a worldwide pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump stated: “We’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” Two weeks later, he made a contentious (since retracted) statement that the U.S. should open businesses back up for Easter. Former Fox Business anchor Trish Regan commented that the coronavirus is, in her opinion, just “another attempt to impeach the president.”
The combination of these two effects — the mantra of some Christian evangelicals to choose “faith not fear,” along with the right-wing conservative effort to sow doubt and downplay the pandemic — could prove devastating.
[PADA: It already is devastating. Downplaying the pandemic has placed USA way behind S. Korea, Taiwan and other places that took firm action right out of the gate. And that is why the USA is way behind with testing, supplies, and the will to act. A friend who works at a "home for the retired" says there are lots of outbreaks in his industry all around the USA, and yet there is currently no federal watchdog program monitoring all this -- that he knows of.
Nor are there tests available in various places even if they wanted to monitor things. And recently a Naval ship's captain was fired because he complained about the lack of tests and lack of action. OK there is a policy to not address the issue practically, and to suppress the persons trying to ring the alarm bells (as happened in ISKCON)?]
Biocultural anthropology is well-placed to examine why the United States has emerged as a hotspot for viral transmission during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There are many possible explanations — from problems with the health care system, to the prevalence of underlying health issues, to cultural differences in resistance to mask wearing or the desire for social contact.
[PADA: Yes, the USA "poor" often wait until they are almost dead before they go to the emergency room, because they have no health insurance. Thus, back pedalling on giving the poor medical coverage means, they are often walking around with severe illness and -- spreading it -- because there has been no effort to allow them medical access.
Now the problem of the poor will spread in their communities, but the elites have not yet figured out that if its around anywhere, it can spread into the elite community just as easily. So the denial and dysfunction of the elites is catching up to them. And if there are many sick among the "poor" workers, who will keep the food distributing process, garbage collecting, hospital staff and nurses etc. going? Is there a plan? Nope!]
But one of the most pressing issues, especially as Easter approaches, is how right-wing evangelists have set a coronavirus time bomb that is ticking as we speak. In Asia and Europe, church gatherings have already acted as “super-spreader events.” In South Korea, more than half of the country’s cases of infection have been linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus—and church leaders have been accused of homicide and violating the Infectious Disease and Control Act.
In France, a five-day prayer meeting with 2,500 attendees ignited the biggest cluster of COVID-19 in the country. Similar “super-spreader events” could happen in the United States. On March 22, Tony Spell of the Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hosted 1,825 people for Sunday morning services. Twenty-six buses were used to pick people up from around the Baton Rouge area. Despite the impossibility of people adequately distancing themselves from one another in these circumstances, Pastor Spell asserted that if anyone in his congregation contracted COVID-19, he would heal them through God.
Pastor Tony Spell was charged with misdemeanors on March 31 for holding church services against shelter-in-place orders in Louisiana. Gerald Herbert/AP Images
Even as late as March 29, just two days before global coronavirus cases surged past 1 million and New York City issued pleas for help in handling the pandemic, hundreds of Spell’s parishioners filled the church parking lot for another service. This was not an isolated incident. Evangelical pastors in Florida, Virginia, Texas, and Maryland continued to convene church services throughout March and early April—though some of them did have basic social distancing measures in place.
Some of the comments made by evangelical extremists are hard to wrap one’s head around. Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne said in a video on March 27: “We have brought in 13 machines that basically kill every virus in the place. If someone walks through the door, it kills everything on them. If they sneeze, it shoots it down at a 100 mph. It’ll neutralize it in split seconds. We have the most sterile building, I don’t know, in all of North America.”
He also made the peculiar claim that God will multiply toilet paper: “You think you’re gonna run out, but when you look again, there’s still enough. That’s supernatural sustenance.” Howard-Browne was arrested on March 30 for unlawful assembly and violation of his county’s stay-at-home order. He was released 40 minutes later after posting bail.
Encouraging mass gatherings and spouting misleading information about a life-threatening virus sweeping the globe is nothing to take lightly.
Landon Spradlin, a traveling musician and evangelist, posted on social media on March 13 that coronavirus management was politically motivated “mass hysteria.” On his way home to Virginia from preaching on the streets of New Orleans, he started feeling ill and was admitted to a hospital in North Carolina. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and COVID-19. On March 25, he died.
A family friend wrote that Spradlin “spent his last days in a strange city, sedated and face down in a desperate effort to keep him breathing. Whatever mistakes he made, nobody deserves that. I’m angry and heartbroken at his death, and worried about the millions of others who continue to laugh off the virus.”
For many of these preachers, the mantra “faith over fear” is interpreted to mean that religion will physically protect people from illness. On Sunday, March 15, “Apostle” Guillermo Maldonado, leader of the King Jesus International Ministry in Miami, Florida, rhetorically asked, “Do you believe God would bring his people to his house to be contagious with the virus? Of course not.” He went on, “If we die, we die for Christ. If we live, we live for Christ. So, what do you lose?”Viruses do not respect sacred grounds or religious holidays.
Referencing the Old Testament, Andrew Wommack, a conservative Christian televangelist, explained, “Exodus 23:25 … says that you shall serve the Lord your God, and He shall take away all sickness.” He continued that the phrase “take away” in Hebrew literally translates as “turn off.” So, Wommack concludes, God “turns off sickness. You don’t have the ability to get sick.”
For others, the main message is that fear is the devil’s work. Pastor Shuttlesworth states in his podcast, “I can’t afford for there to be even one month where some lab-created virus … derail(s) me from God’s prophetic agenda for my life.” He gives advice on how to “scripturally insulate yourself to fear.” Rabbi Curt Landry, of Curt Landry Ministries in Fairland, Oklahoma—whose ministry seeks to reconcile Judaism and Christianity—had a similar message in a video posted to Facebook, stating, “I am more concerned about the fear, the spirit of fear, that has been released from the devil, than I am the virus.”
Drawing from a historical example of how Americans responded to the 1918 flu pandemic, Russell Reno, the editor of the religious journal First Things, stated: “Their reaction was vastly different from ours. They continued to worship, go to musical performances, clash on football fields, and gather with friends. … Unlike us … that generation did not want to live under Satan’s rule, not even for a season.”
Others have worryingly spoken out against vaccines. Rabbi Landry warned that “they are going to have a computer record of everybody who does take the vaccine,” which will determine who will later accept the “mark of the beast.” He said, “That vaccine is from the pit of hell.”
Why is this right-wing evangelical faction reacting this way to the pandemic? It may come down to tradition, money, and power.
Evangelicals have a tradition of Biblical literalism—interpreting the Bible not essentially as moral stories but as reality, with advice taken from its pages, even if it is out of context. Within the evangelical world, there is a history of having the power to do faith healings; if those fail in the face of the pandemic, it might call people’s faith into question. It might be noted that without mass gatherings, evangelical leaders have very limited sources of income. Many rely on those gatherings for donations to sustain their ministries.
Some pastors preach that God will protect believers from the pandemic and that fear, and the expected vaccine, are the work of the devil.
It is not an anthropologist’s job or desire to judge the spiritual beliefs of others—from the belief that illness is caused by magical darts that can be sucked out by a shaman to the faith that prayer can heal. All people deserve respect when it comes to their beliefs. But when those spiritual beliefs and sentiments have the power to undermine public health advice and spread illness and death, it becomes imperative that anthropologists and epidemiologists highlight these dynamics of vulnerability.
My intent here is not to ridicule people or their beliefs but to understand those beliefs and to help prepare people for the risks they might pose. As warm weather and religious celebrations tempt people to gather, remember that from a biological standpoint, viruses do not respect sacred grounds or religious holidays.
This Easter, let us hope public health is put above piety when it comes to mass gatherings.
In Matthew 24:4–5, Jesus says, “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.” Only time will tell if the theories put forward by a group of right-wing evangelical leaders creates the conditions for the virus to continue its rapid spread, with the potential to become a plague of Biblical proportions.
=======================
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.