Preface:
I’d like to begin by getting out all the qualifications so that we can deal head-on with the theological problem at hand. So, let’s qualify. First, I’m not a Covid-Denier (by the way it is interesting how the term “denier” is so artfully and effectively appended to any of the Left’s causes célèbres, but that’s another essay). I know Coronavirus is real and it’s deadly. I’ve already buried one of my congregants and I don’t want to bury any more. I will. That’s part of being a pastor. But I hope to not do so any time soon. So, yes, Covid is real and it is extremely transmissible and extremely deadly to certain portions of our population. Second, those extremely vulnerable portions of our population can and SHOULD take SARS-COV-2 seriously. Being cavalier about your own safety is to disrespect the gift of God, and that’s a sin. Thirdly, being cavalier about OTHER PEOPLE’S safety is a sin. Fourth, I do believe that the lockdowns and mask mandates are legal – in the sense that the State Health Department is operating under powers granted by the Ohio Revised Code. However, I also believe these mandates are unconstitutional and therefore, I, as a citizen, am not bound to obey an unconstitutional order. In fact, I believe the best way to be a citizen is to disobey an unconstitutional order. HOWEVER, I am happy, I rejoice, in fact, to submit to my brothers and sisters in Christ in love. Our Church DID shut down for a time, much to my sadness, but I, as pastor agreed to shut down, out of love and respect for our church leadership – not because of an unconstitutional order from the state of locality. And in future, should there be a novel and virulent virus that threatens to kill people I will, sadly, but happily, suspend services if that is what my church leaders believe is the wisest and most prudent and Christ-honoring choice.
To recap this set of qualifications: Covid is real; it’s really deadly; it deserves to be treated as such.
Introduction to the Theological Problem:
Recently I’ve had multiple people at my church recommend that we suspend having 2 services: one where masks are required; and one where they are not. The desire to return to one unified service comes, I believe, from a place of good faith and a desire for my own personal wellbeing – since people don’t want me to have the burden of multiple back-to-back services. I trust that these concerns were raised in good faith by leaders in my church. These folks are people I respect and have come to trust to try to give good wisdom. They work hard and sacrifice with and for the body.
However, I don’t believe that their solution is ideal, or even the best available solution – even though it comes out of love and a desire to do what’s best. I do not think forcing everyone who wants to attend to wear a mask is the right way to go. Now, if church leadership overwhelmingly disagree and tell me that this is what they believe is the wisest course, I will acquiesce — because I’m not a tyrant and I have no desire to be. We have Deacons and Elders for a reason.
Now, there are several reasons for not wanting to mandate masks for people who wish to worship with us. Not because it will preclude people from worshiping – nomatter what we do it will preclude SOMEBODY from worshiping! Rather, because I think that it makes several, well-intentioned, but ultimately overwhelming errors.
In what follows I will lay out the biggest reason why I do not wish to mandate masks at church and deal with the biggest and most forceful theological counterargument.
Masks Don’t Work:
OK, now, before I get called a “science denier”, let’s get something straight. Masks really don’t work. They may filter the largest fluid particles, but they do not stop aerosolized virus particles from becoming part of the air we share. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Here are some sciency-types saying the same thing.
Here’s a taste of that article made by actual scientists, actually looking at things demonstrated by the scientific method:
A historical overview of cloth masks notes their use in US healthcare settings starting in the late 1800s, first as source control on patients and nurses and later as PPE by nurses.20
Kellogg,21 seeking a reason for the failure of cloth masks required for the public in stopping the 1918 influenza pandemic, found that the number of cloth layers needed to achieve acceptable efficiency made them difficult to breathe through and caused leakage around the mask. We found no well-designed studies of cloth masks as source control in household or healthcare settings.
In sum, given the paucity of information about their performance as source control in real-world settings, along with the extremely low efficiency of cloth masks as filters and their poor fit, there is no evidence to support their use by the public or healthcare workers to control the emission of particles from the wearer.[1]
As of the update on the above article there really haven’t been any well performed studies that invalidate this trend. And that’s what’s to be expected. If you can breathe in through the mask then you can breathe out through it as well. Since the only way to get sufficient fluid filtration is to make the mask tighter and add more layers, then you are reducing the amount of airflow as you make cloth masks better – which is problematic if you, like me, have grown lazily accustomed to breathing air. Cotton, particularly cotton-t-shirt-level-thread-count cotton is simply not a medically sufficient means of virus filtration – who knew!
You could, of course, point me to many articles published that show that cloth masks DO stop the spread or whatever, but I think common sense has to win out – otherwise it just devolves into contradiction. But, I think this is a meaningful visual, demonstrating that cloth masks do not stop water vapor/ aerosols.
Now, you might protest and say, well maybe they don’t really work, but they work a little. “Maybe not much, but they do something.” Sure, they make it harder to breathe, speak, and identify people. They are correlated with increased risks of influenza. They make it hard on asthmatics. Yeah, they do something. But do they appreciably reduce the risk of contracting Coronavirus? Actual evidence says no. So, the argument shifted into: “well it protects others” – which is very convenient since that’s not a provable-in-the-real-world hypothesis. That’s like the argument 2 guys in my high school had. One said: “well, sure, you’re stronger and faster, but I’m tougher.” To which the other guy said: “wow, way to call dibs on the immeasurable quality!”
If the mask lets air in and lets aerosols out then how exactly does it protect others?
Perhaps it prevents histrionics and hysterics. But does it prevent disease spread? I mean, the mask mandators have given up on saying it prevents contraction…which seems like the easier thing to prevent…but no, it will not protect you from contracting the virus.
So…why wear one? Well, I can think of 3 reasons, only one of which seems even remotely reasonable. 1) Because it may have some tiny impact on the total number of virus particles hanging about, and even doing a tiny something is worth doing. 2) Because the guvmint says so. 3) Because it makes people feel safe.
I actually think that you could make a case for all three of these reasons. I do not. I don’t buy these arguments. I don’t think that masking does enough to warrant mandating them. If you want to wear them, sure. But there are costs we haven’t calculated – like the cost of not seeing people’s faces. The costs of people behaving with more perceived anonymity. The cost of children being normalized into not seeing people’s faces. Faces are important – that’s why God gave us them. And I don’t think that there is enough evidence, scientific and commonsensical to warrant any kind of mandate. Moreover, I don’t think, as above, that the orders in effect are constitutional.
So, number 3: wear them because it makes people feel safe. Here’s where we get theological.
Ceremonialism:
So, since masks really don’t work, then they’re largely, if not entirely, ceremonial. Now, ceremony is good. I like ceremony and pageantry and aesthetics. There’s a good kind of ceremony. There’s also the pointless kind of ceremony. Queen Elizabeth II is the ceremonial monarch of England. “Ceremonial” in this context is a fancy way of saying “technically” and technically, in this context, is a fancy way of saying “not really”. Masks have value to the public in the same way the Queen does – she doesn’t and cannot really do anything, actually queenly – she can’t put you in the tower or demand your head on a platter – but she does…you know…exist? She’s a queen in name only because she can’t really do the meaningful things monarchs do – like rule.
So, masks are like QEII. They don’t, either of them, really do anything, but lonely young women get fanatical about them and they do come with a cost. But is making people feel safe a good enough reason to mandate masks? Maybe. The place you would make that case would be 1 Corinthians 8. Here’s the relevant text:
Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall. (NIV)
This is an important text that goes far beyond eating idol-meat. It is one of these fundamental proof-texts of Christian Theology. The message is: you need to sometimes limit your freedom so you don’t harm someone else’s conscience.
Another important text would be that we are “to avoid every appearance of evil”. Romans 14 is also crucial.
The argument then, goes something like this:
Stronger Brother wishes to engage in a behavior that his conscience allows him to engage in. Weaker Brother is scandalized (in the literal sense) by seeing the Stronger Brother engage in this behavior. Paul admonishes the Stronger Brother to not use his freedom to engage in behaviors that will scandalize the weaker brother.
So, to put this in Covid-terms this means that the Stronger Brother doesn’t want to wear a mask because he doesn’t believe they are anything but an onerous empty gesture. The Weaker Brother doesn’t feel comfortable worshiping unless the Stronger Brother wears a mask. Therefore, the Stronger Brother needs to wear one, otherwise he’s scandalizing his Weaker Brother – and that’s a sin.
But I don’t think that argumentation holds up to serious scrutiny. And, let’s be frank, when you’re going to mandate someone to do something they find to be an empty and onerous gesture, to ease other people’s anxieties, you oughtn’t to do it lightly – especially if you’re going to prevent people from fulfilling a Divine Command unless they comply. So we must scrutinize, because the stakes are high!
The Scrutiny of Ceremonial Masking:
In the Biblical example the admonition from Paul is to NOT do something that would lead the Weaker Brother into sin. Another Biblical example is not drinking wine. Another is not working on the Sabbath. Basically, the Weaker Brother is offended because the Stronger Brother is DOING something – not not doing something.
But in the case of masking, the offense is because the Stronger Brother doesn’t want to do something. So there’s a reversal. The Weaker Brother is not saying, please don’t behave in a way that it Biblically Dubious: eating sacrificed meat or drinking wine offered to idols or food that was ceremonially unclean; or working on the Sabbath or Feast Days.
When we look at the Biblical Data we see 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14 as the primary texts for this policy, and these texts both admonish the Christian to not actively exercise their freedom.
And not doing something you’re free to do is very different from doing something you don’t want to do. Masking mandates in the Church use the opposite logic. And I don’t think that this is as simple as just saying that it’s the inverse-equal. Sometimes the opposite isn’t the same in reverse.
Now, you might want to dicker on that point and say, but the PRINCIPLE is that we oughtn’t to do or fail to do things if their commission or omission will offend a Brother. You could make that argument, but now, we’ve officially left the Biblical Data and Biblical Theology and are firmly in the realm of Practical Theology. And as an Ecclesiological standard, I think this is dangerous.
Why? Because this is saying that permission to worship with the rest of the body is now stipulated by whether a person will be coerced into doing something that is A) Biblically not commanded B) Driven by subjective feelings. Now, you may say, “well, Lukey, this is a unique time and unique solutions are required.” Perhaps. I’m willing to entertain that argument. But if we’re going to say that, then we have to say that we’ve fully left Biblical and Practical Theology and are talking about something else entirely – the exercise of human wisdom. And I’m OK with having that conversation and trying to use wisdom in a case-by-case basis…but that means that we have to abandon the Biblical and Theological arguments. And again, that’s OK, not everything we do has to have a Biblical or strictly theological argument – it’d be nice if they did – but lotsa things don’t and that’s OK. But is that OK in this instance? I don’t think so.
If we’re talking about what color to paint the halls, or what kind of carpet to get, or whether to repave the parking lot this year or in 3 years, those are all questions that may be guided by our broader theology, but they aren’t really primarily theological. Theology INFORMS them but doesn’t speak directly to them.
Similarly, if we want to talk about mask mandates in Church, the pro-mandate argument might be INFORMED by theology, but it’s not a theological argument. And that’s a distinction with a difference.
Now, I’ll grant that for people who believe in mandating masks they don’t believe that this is a trivial issue – they believe it is vastly more important than roofing or carpeting or paving. And I’ll grant that they believe it’s different in kind, since it can be viewed as a life-and-death issue. And perhaps it is, but I don’t think it is because I don’t think that either science or common sense tell us masks can make an appreciable impact on the prevention of the spread of the virus.
If it did, then I’d say we could make quite a strong argument in favor of mask mandates. As I’ve said before and will say again, much of the Deuteronomic Law is making mandates and provisions to prevent others from being injured on or by your property – penning up bulls, putting parapets around roofs, and so on. We are responsible to one another.
But that’s a different argument. We know that bulls gore and people fall. We don’t know that masks stop the spread or have any meaningful impact on it whatsoever. And, since we have conflicting scientific data, then I think we have to resort to common sense. My common sense says that if I can breathe through it, smell through it, and push water vapor through it, it isn’t an effective prophylactic measure. You might disagree. That’s OK. But let’s be honest about what we’re disagreeing about. We’re not disagreeing about “science”, we’re disagreeing out how our common sense tells us to interpret “science”.
Conclusion:
Let’s recap the theological argument.
First, the Deuteronomic Argument that we take reasonable steps to prevent others from being injured by us or our property from a predictable source of danger fails because we don’t know that masks do anything, and my common sense says that they don’t, and even if they did, asymptomatic spread is now being seriously questioned as a primary transmission vector, which makes the whole “my mask protects you; your mask protects me” argument even more dubious.
Second, the Weaker Brother argument fails because it the masking argument isn’t dealing with people doing something that was otherwise Biblically forbidden, but is now permitted under the Christian’s freedom. Even if you accepted the Weaker Brother argument on precept you would still have to argue that this is a special case, since it would be implemented solely on the basis of feelings and not because of any biblical argumentation.
Third, the argument that we should do it as a policy because it’s perceived to be the wisest course is the only thing that I find acceptable. I disagree. I do not think it’s the wisest course, but I also am wise enough to know that I’m not wise enough to know everything. If my church leadership told me that this is the way it’s gonna be, I’d disagree, but I’d comply. But that’s a far cry from saying that there are powerful biblical and theological reasons for a mask mandate.
I think that a mask mandate would do more harm than good. I think it sets a very bad precedent: that we can force people to actively do things they don’t want to do so we can feel better. I think that if we accept the wisdom of mask mandates on the basis of feelings it evinces a curious set of standards. Most churches mandate very little – indeed most churches don’t mandate giving (a Biblical command); sexual purity (a Biblical command); not being a divisive person (a Biblical command); active service to the kingdom (a Biblical command); et cetera. Why do we mandate masks but not the above Biblical commands? Because saving lives is important? I agree – but why THIS issue. Why is THIS the issue where we’re willing to go toe-to-toe? Are the above issues not also important? Why not make those issues the flashpoint? While mask mandates may be a wise choice, why are we going to get hard core about this, but not about the other issues? Does this evince out-of-whack priorities? Does this demonstrate that, perhaps, we’ve been a bit lax in Church Discipline? Does this show that maybe, just maybe, we’ve been setting the bar too low?
The problem is that prioritization is one of the most important issues in theology: how do we determine what matters more and what matters most. Indeed, almost every issue in theology comes down to prioritization. And I think God can shape and develop and cause our prioritization to conform to His. And, certainly, the way I prioritize things so that I can do theology well and live well is not perfect – it’s far from perfect. But let’s not pretend that this is a problem with no solution, or that we can’t be discipled into better prioritization. I believe we can, and we must.
In closing I want to say, again, that I know that many don’t see things the way I do. But I do believe that, in my church at least, the people who disagree with me disagree in good faith with a true desire to do what’s best for the Church, and for me. I believe that the issues come down to what we accept as facts and how we prioritize issues. I disagree that mask mandates are the right way to go. I disagree because of how I read Scripture and theologize. But I’m frail and sinful and subject to errors in logic and judgment like everyone else. If I’m wrong I want to be shown how I’m wrong. Not just told I’m wrong, but I want arguments that defeat mine through right use of the Scripture, logic, and sound theology and wisdom – as well as scientific data. Because that’s the only way we can make progress is through detailed, highly scrutinized, careful, godly thinking and theologizing. But there is, a way forwards. Thank God for that!
Footnotes:
These are the footnotes quoted as numbers 20 and 21:
Chughtai AA, Seale H, MacIntyre CR. Use of cloth masks in the practice of infection control—evidence and policy gaps. Int J Infect Control 2013 Jun;9(3)
Kellogg WH, MacMillan G. An experimental study of the efficacy of gauze face masks. Am J Public Health 1920;10(1):34-42