Phill Sacre

Tag: coronavirus

  • Reflections on passing 100,000: Grief and Anger

    Reflections on passing 100,000: Grief and Anger

    Recently the UK passed a pretty grim milestone: we went over 100,000 covid deaths. The UK has one of the worst death rates in the world – according to Worldometer, we are currently number five on the list (if you sort by deaths per million population).

    The two most common reactions I’ve seen have been grief and anger. People are rightly grieving at the loss of life. And people are also angry at the government for allowing this to happen. I’ve seen a number of people calling for Boris Johnson to resign, for example.

    This is a difficult and sensitive topic. I appreciate that many people have lost a loved one to covid. I have been fortunate: although I know a few people who have been ill with it, no-one I know has (as yet) died of it. I will come back to the issue of grieving at the end. But for now I just want to address the anger.

    Should the government have done more?

    People are angry because they believe the government could and should have done more to stop covid. I think it’s true that there were measures which could have been taken that would have helped. For example, there was a foolish policy during the first wave of discharging people from hospitals into care homes without testing them or providing adequate PPE for care home workers. Over the coming months, I’m sure there will be some sort of inquiry into the government’s handling of covid, and I expect many of the mistakes that were made will be brought to light.

    At the same time, I think many of the things the government have done to combat covid have actually hindered rather than helped.

    Lockdowns, for example. There is a growing body of evidence that lockdowns do not actually work, or at least, if they do they make a very small amount of difference for an enormous cost. In all three lockdowns that we’ve had, it looks like the rate of infection was declining before the lockdowns were imposed.

    But it gets worse. Last Sunday, Peter Hitchens’ column asked “Is this really an epidemic of despair?” I think he’s onto something. I’ve known several people say they have friends or neighbours who have just faded away over this last 12 months. I can’t shake the feeling that the winter excess deaths we’ve seen may not have been caused by covid so much as the lockdown. If you isolate people from their friends, family and support networks, and prevent them from doing things which make life worth living, then surely that’s going to have an impact on their ability to fight infection.

    This is something which carries some scientific weight:

    Factors we found to be associated with greater risk of respiratory illnesses after virus exposure included smoking, ingesting an inadequate level of vitamin C, and chronic psychological stress. Those associated with decreased risk included social integration, social support, physical activity, adequate and efficient sleep, and moderate alcohol intake.

    So people who are most likely to get seriously ill of cold and flu viruses include people with “chronic psychological stress”. I wonder whether this might include being locked in for nearly a year. Maybe getting out and seeing friends and family is good for our health and general wellbeing, and would make people more able to withstand getting covid.

    My suspicion is, when all is said and done, that the government (aided and abetted by the media) will have done nothing but make things worse. Lockdowns, masks, closing down businesses, everything. Of course, at the moment we can’t know for sure.

    Can the government protect from a virus?

    Poster: Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives

    One of the things I’ve found most striking about the past year is that the government seem to have stepped into the role of protecting us from a virus very quickly. No-one seems to have noticed anything strange about this. I wonder if it’s because we Brits tend to see the government as being responsible if there’s a problem in society. Whenever there’s an issue, ultimately we blame the government.

    So, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that when there was a big problem – a new deadly virus – the government felt the need to step in to defend us from it. We expected it of them. We believed that it was possible to control a virus – they told us so.

    I fear that this is a lesson we may have had to learn the hard way. Perhaps a virus is just something that can’t be controlled – not by human beings, anyway. Humans and governments have limited power to change things. We can’t manage our way to a perfect world. When we try to create a perfect world through government – it always goes badly wrong.

    I wonder if that will be one of the biggest lessons of this pandemic – a lesson in humility. Maybe there are things which are simply out of our control.

    A lesson in Godly sorrow

    2 Corinthians 7:10 says:

    Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

    It’s right to grieve and feel sorrow, but even more importantly is how we grieve. Sometimes God uses events like this pandemic to bring us to our senses. Maybe part of the problem is that we have made idols of our government and safety, when we should have been trusting in the Lord.

    As Psalm 118 puts it:

    8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord
    than to trust in humans.
    9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord
    than to trust in princes.

    The difficult part is, repentance involves recognising that we’ve been in the wrong. That isn’t an easy thing to do. We like to cling to our idols. We in the UK kill two covids each year in abortions (that’s over 200,000 per year). We love our sexual liberation so much, we’d be prepared to kill for it – just so long as it’s killing of a kind that society considers acceptable.

    In recent years we have even considered assisted dying, for example Lord Falconer’s Bill back in 2014. Fortunately there is less public support at the moment for assisted dying – but there is still significant support for it (apparently 84% of the public support the choice of assisted dying for terminally ill adults).

    It seems that we as a society only care about numbers of deaths when it’s covid deaths we’re talking about. We’re happy with the government sanctioning killing, so long as it’s the kind of killing we approve of.

    We need to grieve, but – more than that – we need to search our hearts and repent.

    It seems that we as a society only care about numbers of deaths when it’s covid deaths we’re talking about

    A prayer in time of plague

    Over the last few weeks in our midweek service, we’ve been using the Morning Prayer service from the Book of Common Prayer. I love the BCP because it doesn’t shy away from things like plagues. The world is seen through a Christian lens.

    This is the prayer from the BCP, which is for “the time of any common Plague or Sickness”. I would suggest if we as a nation could get down on our knees and pray this prayer with all sincerity, it would do far more good than any lockdown measures the government could ever introduce.

    O ALMIGHTY God, who in thy wrath didst send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David, didst slay with the plague of pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest: Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

  • Essex Covid Data: Quick update

    Essex Covid Data: Quick update

    My previous post about Essex covid data generated a bit of discussion. In particular, the key question seems to be: why do the hospital admissions seem to go up 7-14 days after the case numbers go up? It struck me yesterday that there’s a simple and straightforward answer: people who have symptoms get tested. In fact, I understand that tests tend to track people who have symptoms, I’m not sure what the exact ratio is.

    So if people who have symptoms are getting tested, then when covid is spreading there will be more tests, which means more cases. That would be true even if every single positive case is a false positive (which I am in no way suggesting). But even if the testing regime is flawed, it doesn’t really matter because it’s actually tracking symptomatic people.

    I still find it strange that cases across different areas can seem to track each other so exactly. For example, the latest data shows cases across Colchester and Tendring:

    We’ll probably never know the answer.

    The key question to my mind is, does testing add anything which we couldn’t have if we just asked people who had symptoms to report them (maybe via the ZOE App), and then asked people who had symptoms to self-isolate? Testing could then simply focus in on those who are symptomatic, maybe if less tests were being run then it might help with some of the problems I mentioned.

    In all honestly there’s not much else to say without more data. The coronavirus dashboard doesn’t seem to provide local area data for the number of tests being run. It’s difficult to get a number of excess deaths for this time of year because that information isn’t broken down by region (as far as I can tell).

    This might be a fruitful area for someone to look into more – but not me. I just don’t have the time at the moment!

    Update to the update: the Probability and Risk blog have been looking into similar issues over the last couple of months. Check out this blog and the links at the bottom for more information.

  • Analysing Essex Covid Cases (Dec 20)

    Analysing Essex Covid Cases (Dec 20)

    Over the last week or two, I’ve started tracking the covid cases in Essex. I’ve actually created a little data tracker where you can track cases and deaths across every region in Essex. (The data is taken from official ONS data and uses the most up-to-date data available). I created it because I was curious about the number of cases in Essex, and especially the region of Tendring (where I live). All through the autumn, our rates of covid in Tendring were pretty low – but they shot up during December.

    This is the graph of cases, starting from when the ONS data goes back to – 13th March.

    Essex covid cases since March

    As you can see, for about the first seven months the line remains pretty flat – it doesn’t really move very much even during the height of the pandemic. This is because mass testing wasn’t available at that point. The numbers stay fairly low through til late September. Then there’s a steep rise in early December, until it peaks on 4th January. It looks like the numbers are beginning to drop off again.

    The figures certainly look worrying, don’t they? It definitely explains why Essex council wanted to put us into Tier 4!

    However, where it gets interesting to me is when you start breaking down the cases by region.

    Analysing the cases by region

    When you break it down by region, you see pretty much the same shape.

    Essex covid cases since March, broken down by region

    You can see that every region in Essex more or less follows the same pattern. What I find really interesting is when you start digging into the spike in December.

    Zooming in on the December spike

    This is the same graph, but with the date range zoomed in from 1st Dec until 12th Jan.

    Essex cases by region from 1st Dec 2020 – 12th Jan 2021

    Does anything strike you about the graph?

    What strikes me is how remarkably similar the lines are. If you look at the rising and falling of the lines, the curves seem to match each other. They all (with the exception of Basildon) seem to start rising at about the same time, and then seem to start falling at about the same time.

    Let me show you one more graph before we move on – this is looking at the raw numbers, not the 7-day average. (The 7-day average ‘smooths out’ the graph and means that extreme highs or lows don’t affect it so much).

    Looking at the raw case numbers

    You can see, for example, on 25th December there is a marked dip in new cases. Clearly not many people were doing covid swabs on Christmas Day! But there are many other places where the data seem to tally as well, e.g. Monday 21st and Tuesday 29th December, and Monday 4th January. I imagine this would be the ‘weekend effect’ in action – more people will send swabs on a Monday then on a weekend.

    But it does prove that there is a high correlation between the number of cases and the number of tests run.

    Unfortunately the ONS don’t seem to have the data about the number of tests by area, so I can’t compare this to the number of tests that were being run in this region. But for now let’s move on.

    Comparing proportion of cases by area size

    The graph on the left shows you how many residents are in each region of Essex, by percentage of population. The graph in the middle shows you the percentage of cases for that region out of the total. And the graph on the right shows you the percentage of deaths for that region out of the total.

    Again, does anything strike you about this data?

    What strikes me is that the cases and deaths seem to roughly follow how big the area is. So, for example, Basildon and Thurrock are two of the biggest areas in Essex. They have the most number of cases, and they also have a relatively high number of deaths. So the percentage of cases more or less seems to tally with the size of the area.

    How many tests are being run?

    As we saw, there seems to be a high correlation between the number of tests being run and the number of cases being found. It would be helpful to know how many tests were being run, as we would be able to compare it with the graph to see if it matched up. Unfortunately we don’t have that data. The ONS don’t seem to provide it.

    It looks like the average positivity rate for a PCR test is around 7% – so for every seven positive tests, there would have been 93 negative. If we apply that to the numbers above, at the very peak across Essex on 29th December, 3666 cases, that would mean about 48,000 tests would have had to be run.

    What can we make of it?

    What I find bizarre about these graphs is that it doesn’t really seem to be tracking a virus moving across an area. If it did, I would expect to see more regional variations. Why is it that across the entire region of Essex – that’s 1.8 million people – the case numbers start to rise on pretty much the same day, then peak all at the same time, then seem to decline all at the same time?

    If we were looking at actual cases of covid moving across an area, I would expect to see the cases start to rise and fall at different times across all the regions as it moved through. But that’s not the case.

    No, this looks to me like something to do with testing. Imagine that you had a testing laboratory where every test had a 5% chance of coming back positive. Then multiply that by the number of tests and the number of people in an area. You would end up with a graph which looked very similar to the graph I showed above.

    The big question in my mind is, why did the numbers seem to all go up at the start of December (and then come down in January)? Did they change something with testing? Did they start running more tests in Essex? Did they change something in the laboratory? What happened?

    I find it entirely implausible that this is anything to do with the number of people across Essex who have had covid. If it were, there would almost certainly be far more variance in the data. To end up with the data that we have seems, to my mind at least, beyond anything we could reasonably consider a coincidence.

    The problem with mass testing

    The website PCR Claims was started to the problems with mass PCR testing. Earlier on someone sent me the video with the pathologist Dr Clare Craig. (I can’t link directly to the video – as I write it’s the top-middle video from that page).

    PCR Tests were never designed to be used to mass test asymptomatic people. Add to that the fact that there have been serious problems in UK test centres, and you have a recipe for just this kind of thing. Will we ever find the answers? I don’t know. What worries me is that no-one in government seems interested in actually getting to the bottom of it.

    It wouldn’t be such a problem if the government weren’t basing so much of their policy at the moment on the number of “cases”. We should be looking far more at the number of excess deaths and where things are with hospitals, rather than relying on testing to tell us everything.

    If we carry on relying on PCR tests, I think we’re never going to get anywhere.

    You can check out my Essex covid data tracker for yourself if you like. Please bear in mind that it was just developed out of interest, not to be used by the general public, and it is more than a bit rough and ready.

  • Covid and Biblical Principles: Being Human

    Covid and Biblical Principles: Being Human

    In the third part of my short series on Covid and Biblical Principles, we are looking at what it means to be human. (If you missed them, parts one and two were on safety and truth). This is something fundamental to the discussion, and yet it is often assumed or ignored. I think this issue in particular is one where the Christian faith has a lot to say.

    One of the things that has struck me over the last few months is that, for many people in our society, our understanding of what it means to be human has changed. Let’s delve into the basics of what the Bible says about being human.

    The Bible and Being Human

    Made in the Image of God

    So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

    Genesis 1:27

    This is the most foundational verse about humanity in the Bible. This verse has shaped Western civilisation more than you can imagine. (Read Tom Holland’s book Dominion if you need to be persuaded). For now, let’s think about what it means to be made in the “image of God”. Theologians have been debating this for thousands of years! Part of the reason I think this short verse has had such an impact on our society is that there is no one simple explanation of what it means.

    At the very least it means that in order to understand who we are as human beings, we need to understand something of who God is. We only begin to understand ourselves when we understand God. This is how John Calvin began his famous theological work Institutes of the Christian Religion:

    Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves

    If we only know ourselves, our knowledge is incomplete. If we want to know ourselves truly, we need to know the God who made us. So let’s spend a moment thinking about him.

    Who is God?

    One of the interesting things about Genesis 1 is that God speaks of himself in the plural. For example, in the verse just before the one I quoted: “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). What does this mean? Does God have some kind of multiple personality disorder, or is it more like the royal ‘we’? It’s neither of those. Over the last 2000 years, theologians have understood from the Bible that God is Trinity. That is, there is one God, who exists in three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

    We can’t spend hours going into all the Biblical evidence and so on here. If you’d like to read a bit more on that, you can see my post introducing the Trinity on Understand the Bible.

    The important point I want to make here is simply this: the Trinity means that God is fundamentally, from eternity, a community of other-person centred love. You could say that God is fundamentally relational. Relationships are not something which are foreign to him, but intrinsic to his nature.

    Now if we bring that back to human beings, we see how big a difference that makes to us.

    We are fundamentally relational

    Because God is relational, and because we are made in God’s image, we too are made to be relational. Relationships are in our DNA, so to speak. Our relationships define us. Think about it: a baby, from the very moment it is born, has various relationships. It has a mother and father; grandparents; maybe brothers and sisters, cousins, a wider family. We are only beginning to understand how important those initial relationships are to its development.

    The Beatles

    But there are also other relationships we have even from birth: a relationship with our wider community (e.g. churches, baby and toddler groups), health services, and so on. As the saying goes, ‘no man is an island’ – and that’s true of the very youngest to the very oldest. We need each other. Human civilisation is built on relationships, that’s the way it was meant to be. The Beatles had it right: “I get by with a little help from my friends”.

    If our relationships are stripped away, you take away what it means to be human beings. It may be appropriate to do this in some circumstances, e.g. prison inmates cannot see their friends and family as they wish for obvious reasons. But we need relationships to thrive and survive, normal human life should be full of healthy relationships.

    If you’d like to read a more in-depth look at this, have a read of this article written by former principal of my theological college, Mike Ovey: The Human Identity Crisis: Can we do without the Trinity?

    We are made to love

    Closely related to the previous point, we are made to love. The second greatest commandment is “love your neighbour as yourself”. This is more than simply having relationships with others in a distant sense: we are supposed to actively love others. As John says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

    Sometimes love means refraining, as in the Ten Commandments: “Do not murder”, “Do not steal”. Love means NOT doing things to other people. But it also has corresponding obligations: don’t murder someone – instead, treat them with love, as you would like someone to treat you. Instead of bearing false witness, stand up for the truth. And so on. Love involves both the positive and negative aspects of action – doing as well as not doing.

    We have dignity

    Like I said, the idea that we human beings are in the image of God has changed Western civilisation beyond recognition. Think about some of the ideas we hold most dear, e.g. democracy. I love democracy: it’s the idea that Richard Branson’s cleaner has as much say about the leadership of our country than Richard Branson does. This is a profoundly Christian idea, which flows from the idea of us all being made in the image of God: we are all equal, we are all given infinite dignity by our Creator.

    I think William Shakespeare expressed something of this in Hamlet:

    Shakespeake quote from Hamlet: "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties"

    So what does it look like to have human dignity? I’ve already talked about this in my previous post on freedom so I won’t repeat myself too much. There I said that our dignity as human beings means that we should be given freedom – we are not to be caged up like animals. Our dignity also entails responsibility: we are creatures who have been given responsibility to make decisions, to do good rather than evil, to love our neighbour.

    If our freedom is taken away, if our choices are taken away, then so is our dignity as human beings made in the image of God.

    Faces matter

    Man with face covered

    The final thing before we move onto how all this relates to covid is the way that our faces matter. Western countries have tended not to wear face coverings in the way they do in Islamic or Eastern countries. This is because of the influence of Christianity. Our faces have significance – we are not faceless drones or to be ashamed of our appearance, but made special and beautiful in God’s sight.

    The Bible doesn’t really talk about face coverings or masks. Moses did wear a veil over his face occasionally (you can read about that in Exodus 34). This was because his face was “radiant” because he had spoken with the Lord (Exodus 34:30). The good news is that Christians have been given privileged access to God. Where once we could not see God’s face and live (Exodus 33:20), now we can contemplate the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces (2 Corinthians 3:18).

    In fact, God hiding his face is a sign of his displeasure – so we see the Psalmist in Psalm 102 crying out: “Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress!”

    How are we doing with covid?

    Let’s take these principles and think about how they’re working out with covid.

    Freedom

    I’ve already written about freedom before, so I won’t go over old ground. As a society we have endured two lockdowns (so far), where it has been illegal to leave your house except for certain circumstances. But outside of those lockdowns we have also been under various legal restrictions which have restricted who we can see and when. Where I am currently living, it is basically illegal to go into someone else’s house to pay them a social visit.

    Not only that, but the government has seen fit to use a Behavioural Insights Team to try to coerce us into obeying them. Rather than being presented with the facts and given the dignity to make our own decisions, the government have made an intentional decision to ‘twist our arm’. In other words, manipulation.

    Relationships

    Bob Moran Cartoon

    One of the worst things to happen over the last nine months is that our relationships have been curtailed. We have been unable to see each other in the way we used to. I’ve seen some absolutely horrible footage over the last few months: e.g. at a funeral, someone was prevented from putting a comforting arm around someone else. There was a woman who was arrested for trying to take her grandmother out of care.

    But it’s not just the big things, it’s also our everyday lives: we have been kept away from even casual friendships. Things which we used to be able to do – e.g. pop out for a coffee with a friend – are now impossible. As we saw, life is all about relationships. We literally need each other to survive. Keeping us from each other is dehumanising.

    There are times when this is appropriate (e.g. prison). Is it appropriate during a pandemic? I don’t believe so – not to force people to stay away from their friends and family. Keeping us from our nearest and dearest is leading to some serious ill effects. For example, the Guardian reported recently that Covid poses the greatest threat to mental health since the second world war. When you dehumanise people, you break them.

    You simply can’t isolate people from their friends, family and support networks and then expect them to cope with a pandemic.

    Covid is a serious disease, but dehumanising people is worse. We need each other, especially at a time like this. Lockdowns may stop the spread of a disease to some extent (although I believe their effect is very small indeed, which is why we seem to keep needing them). But forcing human beings not to be human has far worse consequences.

    Masks and social distancing

    One of the interesting things about masks is that they are not simply neutral items of clothing. As soon as you put one on, you feel different. I’ve had to stop wearing one now because of health issues, but when I wore one to go to the shops it had a noticeable effect. It made me want to keep quiet and not talk, for one.

    Whenever you see someone wearing a mask, it’s a constant reminder that they are a potential bearer of infection. This is a far cry from seeing each other as people to be loved! As the second greatest commandment says, “Love your neighbour as yourself”. One of my biggest worries about covid is that we will end up as a society staying away from each other. This is not how we were designed as humans! It’s deeply damaging and destructive.

    But aren’t the restrictions necessary?

    There may be people who reading who agree with the points I’ve made, but still think: but aren’t the restrictions necessary? No-one likes masks and social distancing, no-one likes having to stay home. But we do these things to protect others. Isn’t that a good enough reason?

    I don’t believe so, for the following reasons:

    Firstly, I believe that dehumanising us is never right. Remember that lockdowns first originated in China, which was then copied by Western societies (as “Professor Lockdown” Neil Ferguson recently pointed out). China is not a country known for its good human rights record! China does not have a history of seeing people as God’s image bearers. Even if lockdowns work (and I’m not sure they do), I don’t believe it’s right to treat people in this way.

    Secondly, I believe that dehumanising us makes things worse. As I said, when you cut people off from their families, friends, and support networks, it makes them much less able to cope with life. This is why we’ve seen the issue of mental health grow like never before. But I also believe that keeping us away from our relationships may have negative physical health consequences. Spending time with people is not just good for our mental health, it’s good for our physical health too. When we are isolated, it causes problems.

    Thirdly, I am not convinced the restrictions are even helping. So much of the restrictions depends on the existence of asymptomatic transmission – that is, you could be transmitting the virus even if you don’t feel ill. This is certainly not proven science – the BMJ wrote about it just before Christmas. The point they were making is that things are unclear. Certainly not clear enough to justify asking everyone to undergo these extreme measures, beyond sensible precautions (e.g. staying home if you are ill). More worryingly, there is evidence that face masks and the like are actually causing more problems.

    We don’t have time to go into it all now – I mentioned a few other issues in my previous post on truth.

    I hope that this post has been helpful in at least setting out some of the issues, even if you disagree!

  • Thank God that Jesus did NOT maintain a safe distance

    Thank God that Jesus did NOT maintain a safe distance

    Over the last couple of weeks I have written about Biblical principles and covid (safety and truth). After Christmas I will, God-willing, continue – but for now I just wanted to share a brief thought. This is what it says in John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

    Jesus, the Word of God, became flesh – a human being, like us – and lived as one of us. What an amazing thing to think about, especially in 2020.

    Jesus didn’t keep his distance

    One of my favourite Christmas carols is Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour.

    This carol tells the story of how Jesus, who was rich beyond all splendour, came down to us for love’s sake. It begins:

    Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
    All for love’s sake becamest poor;
    Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
    Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.

    Jesus Christ, the Son of God, could have kept a safe distance away from us. His were ‘Sapphire-paved courts’ – all the treasures of heaven. And yet he exchanged that for the lowly birth – a manger and a stable floor. Why? “All for love’s sake”. Because, out of love, he couldn’t keep away.

    Jesus came to us to heal us

    In Matthew chapter 8, we read of how Jesus healed a man with leprosy:

    When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’

    Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.

    Leprosy in those days was a horrible disease – but not just because of its physical effects. It meant that you had to live away from the community, and it even separated you from God (you couldn’t go into the temple). Lepers had to shout ‘unclean, unclean’ to keep people away from them. Lepers, you might say, were doing social distancing before social distancing was a thing!

    Jesus, however, did not keep his distance. Jesus even comes up to the man and touches him. But Jesus doesn’t get ill – instead, Jesus’ touch makes the man clean. The leper was healed of his disease, and able once again to enjoy life in the community and life with God.

    The leprosy was symbolic of something deeper which is wrong with all of us: sin. Sin separates us from each other, and it separates us from God. But Jesus comes to us in our sinfulness, forgives us, heals us, and restores us to right relationships with God and each other.

    Go and do likewise

    Christians are commanded to love one another as Jesus loved. As Jesus said: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). Jesus’ love is the model for our love.

    One of the things I have found most difficult about the last year is the social distancing and masks etc. It’s changing the way that we see each other: rather than seeing each other as people to love, we are starting to see each other as people to avoid because they might be bearers of an infectious disease. I think long-term this will cause far more damaging effects than covid.

    What I want to say, this Christmas-time, is simply this: Jesus could have kept his distance. He could have stayed away from us – it was his right to do so. He didn’t have to, as a hymn puts it, “exchange the joy of heaven for the anguish of a cross”. He could have stayed away. But he didn’t – because he loved us.

    My hope and prayer is that covid will not change the way that we see each other. The restrictions may be necessary at times, but fundamentally we are all human beings in need of love. When you look at another person you are seeing someone made in God’s image who needs love. We mustn’t let the restrictions interfere with how we see each other.

    Jesus came into a world which had a sickness far worse than covid. He came to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). He came to heal and to forgive. Let’s follow his example.

  • Covid and Biblical Principles: Truth

    Covid and Biblical Principles: Truth

    In my previous post I looked at the Biblical principles of safety. In this post we’re going to look at another principle which is very relevant to the current situation: truth. I want to outline a few Biblical principles for truth, and then if there’s space at the end talk a little about how we’re doing with the current situation.

    Biblical principles of truth

    God’s existence is the basis of all truth

    I’ve just been reading the Francis Schaeffer Trilogy. In the first book, “The God who is there”, Schaeffer basically says that the whole concept of truth depends on God’s existence. If God doesn’t exist, anything goes: we can’t trust our senses, we can’t trust our intellects – eliminating God ultimately undermines any basis we have for rationality. On the other hand, if God does exist, that is the God of the Bible, then truth exists: he created the universe in this way and not that way. He gave us minds and he wants us to use them. The ultimate foundation of all truth in the universe is God.

    As a side note – I wrote a post on Understand the Bible last week: Why you should read Schaeffer – True Spirituality. If you’ve never read his writings, they’re well worth reading.

    The whole scientific method ultimately depends on God’s existence. This is why science flourished in a Western, Christian society – and many of the early scientists were Christians. Science requires a belief that there is a world out there and that we can discover something true about it. Only God, the Christian God, can provide the foundation of that belief. (If you’d like to know more about that, check out Part One of the session I posted last week about Genesis and Science).

    The X-Files

    The fundamental, take-away point here is that (to borrow from the X-Files) the truth is out there. It’s never pointless to try to find out the truth. The truth is not political, or determined by those who have the most power. It’s out there, and we can discover it. And, what’s more, it is the truth whether or not people believe it or not. My daughters like to listen to an artist called Colin Buchanan, and his song Truth is still true says truth is still true even if you don’t believe it. This is fundamental to science.

    God is truthful

    God is not just the fount of truth, he is also truthful. That means he is truthful in what he says. You can see this many places in the Bible. For example, Titus 1:2 talks about God “who does not lie”. One of the conditions for testing whether a prophet was truly from God or not was whether what they prophesied came true or not (Deuteronomy 18:22). The Psalms often associate God with truth, e.g. his laws are true (Psalm 119:142).

    Jesus himself said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Jesus claimed to be the truth (John 14:6), and that anyone who followed him would be living in the truth which brings freedom.

    So God is not just the foundation stone of truth, but he speaks truth to us. When we listen to God, we listen to the truth. In particular, this means that the Bible is true and trustworthy: when we listen to the Bible, we are listening to God’s words – words which are true.

    Satan is the father of lies and enemy of truth

    “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

    John 8:44

    If God is the foundation of truth and always truthful, by contrast Satan is the Father of lies. It is, in fact, his “native language”. You can see that from the beginning – when he deceived Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (Genesis chapter 3).

    God is truth, anything less than the truth does not come from him but from the evil one. I think it’s important to make the point that there are forces of evil out there who are seeking to lie and suppress the truth. Romans 1:18 says we human beings “suppress the truth” – we don’t want to know the truth about God, so we suppress it. We exchange the truth about God for a lie (Romans 1:25).

    Whenever truth is honoured in a society, God is honoured, because God is truth. Jesus said “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37). Whenever truth is not honoured in a society, it is not God who is honoured but Satan.

    Christians should be concerned with the truth

    Because God is truthful, Christians should also be concerned with the truth. I like to read a Psalm every day, and recently I’ve been struck by how many of them speak of our truthfulness. For example, Psalm 52:3 says of wicked people: “You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth.” By contrast, Psalm 15 says that God loves someone of integrity, who “speaks the truth from their heart”.

    When God rebukes the people of Israel through Jeremiah, he says “Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning.” (Jeremiah 9:5). The people routinely lying to each other was evidence of how depraved they had become. The people of God are to be different – Ephesians 4:15 says we should speak the truth in love to one another.

    The ninth commandment forbids us from bearing false witness against our neighbour. This is how the Heidelberg Catechism interprets it:

    I must not give false testimony against anyone, twist no one’s words, not gossip or slander, nor condemn or join in condemning anyone rashly and unheard. Rather, I must avoid all lying and deceit as the devil’s own works, under penalty of God’s heavy wrath. In court and everywhere else, I must love the truth, speak and confess it honestly, and do what I can to defend and promote my neighbour’s honour and reputation.

    If you’re interested in learning more, you might enjoy the Understand the Bible session on Commandment #9 here.

    Those who fear the Lord, who know that what he says is truth, should be concerned about truth – not just the Bible, but all truth. All truth is God’s truth. There is no sacred / secular divide when it comes to truth – if something is true, then it is God’s truth. We should stand up for and defend the truth wherever it is necessary.

    Truth is sometimes difficult

    The final point I want to make is that truth is not always welcome. As Jesus said in John 8:45, “Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!” Because truth is godly, there will always be ungodly people who want to lie or distort the truth. The truth can be hard for us to hear.

    This is why Proverbs 27:6 says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” The path of wisdom is recognising that sometimes telling the truth wounds us – yet it is good for us. This is why we should trust and appreciate friends who love us enough to tell us the truth. People who want to manipulate us will never tell us the truth. They will only ever want to tell us what we want to hear. The people who love us enough to tell the truth should be prized.

    This doesn’t mean we should seek to be offensive in telling the truth! It’s possible to tell the truth in a nasty way. The film The Invention of Lying is interesting about that – just because something is true doesn’t mean you have to just come out with it! If the truth is going to be offensive, we might as well try to make sure that it’s the truth causing the offence, not the way that we say it.

    So, how are we doing with covid?

    One of the interesting things about the covid-19 situation is the way that truth has become politicised in the extreme. I wrote a little about this in my previous post about political truth. Let me expand on that a little.

    Whenever I post up something on Facebook which is from a more ‘lockdown sceptical’ perspective (the whole fact that there are sides to begin with is a bad sign), it usually gets jumped on. The thing is, most of the time people don’t respond to the actual scientific or logical points being made. Instead, people often focus on the people. (In football speak, the play the man – not the ball).

    For example, a few weeks ago in a discussion someone pointed me to this piece on the Byline Times. It largely focusses on the politics of people who question the science of lockdowns. There are very few facts or logical arguments. So, for example, Carl Heneghan and the Oxford University Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine come under fire because it receives money from a close Trump supporter. Karol Sikora, who has been outspoken about the lockdowns, comes under fire not because of science but because he has campaigned for conservative political issues.

    Social media “fact-checkers” have got in on the act. For example, Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson’s piece (they are both from the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) has been labelled as “false information”. Even though I don’t find any false information in it! And scientists who question the lockdown have received some horrendous abuse online, for example Sunetra Gupta (one of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration).

    It is as if truth no longer matters – the only thing that matters is agreeing with the establishment.

    Why the truth matters

    A recent editorial in the BMJ (the British Medical Journal – a prestigious medical journal) said: “When good science is suppressed by the medical-political complex, people die”. This is why the truth matters, especially with covid. The stakes are too high – it is literally people’s lives. But not just people who are dying from covid, but all the other factors e.g. the mental health cost of lockdown as well as the people who have died (or will die) due to not receiving the treatment the need. I talked about this in my post about the risk of lockdown.

    The stakes are high for any course of action we take. Which is why it is so important that we base our decisions on the truth. The truth IS out there when it comes to covid. Christians especially have a duty to expose and live by the truth, even when it is swimming against the tide in our society.

    Proclaiming Christ the truth must mean that we are concerned with truth everywhere – not just ‘gospel’ truth or Biblical truth but truth in the world as well. And, if we seek the truth, perhaps people will listen:

    “the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

    John 18:37

    Postscript: Truth issues around covid

    I didn’t want to go into too much detail in my post about issues around the truth and covid. It’s easy to get bogged down. My problem is that there is so little truth in this whole situation. Let me give a few pointers, you could just go on and on about this. I suggest Toby Young’s website Lockdown Sceptics for a starting point.

    Why is so much of the government’s response reliant on PCR tests? We know there are problems with the tests – for example, there is a false positive rate. There are also problems with tests being run by people with very little training. See, for example, the recent Channel 4 Dispatches programme about covid testing. In other words, when a test comes back positive, if the person in question has no symptoms, how do we know it’s a “case”? Dr John Lee wrote about this back in October. Here’s a good video from Dr Clare Craig talking about the problem with testing:

    https://vimeo.com/490158841

    How can we be confident that the number of covid deaths is accurate? A covid death is currently defined as someone dying within 28 days of a positive test. Regardless of whether the cause of death was actually covid or not. I have personally heard of two stories from people I know (clergy) who have done funerals recently: one died of a heart attack, one of a road traffic accident. Both of these were listed as covid deaths – even though covid had nothing to do with the cause of death. From what I hear on social media, this kind of thing is happening enough to get noticed. Why are we not actually looking at people who are actually ill? The ZOE app from Kings College London, for example, tracks people with actual symptoms rather than just test results. That tells a somewhat different story.

    Covid cases according to ZOE app, as of 14/12/2020

    Why are the official statistics unclear? Just this morning I read an interesting thread about excess non-covid deaths. Why are these not being picked up on? And why do the government rarely ever put deaths in context, e.g. comparing the number of actual deaths against the number we usually expect at this time of year?

    Do lockdowns have any positive effect at all? There are lots of scientific studies on lockdowns now, and they show that lockdowns make little (if any) difference to mortality, and they have huge harmful effects. Ivor Cummins has a summary on his website. (Check out the rest of his YouTube channel for lots of analysis of the data).

    You could carry on and on. So much of what most people seem to believe about covid is scientifically disputable, or at least, more complicated than what we are led to believe.

    A final plea…

    Please don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not trying to say the very existence of all these opinions makes them right. However, as I said, the stakes here are too high. Why are these things not being discussed or addressed by the government? Why does the establishment narrative not get questioned with the rigor it deserves? As the BMJ said, when truth is suppressed, when it becomes political, then people die. I want to seek the truth wherever it lies, not whatever is politically convenient.

  • Covid and Biblical Principles: Safety

    Covid and Biblical Principles: Safety

    Over the last few months, I’ve seen a lot of talk about safety. It’s important to keep everybody safe. We especially need to keep those in vulnerable groups safe. But not many people have been thinking about what safety actually is, or putting it in context. I thought it might be helpful to think a little about safety from a Christian perspective, and then look at how that might apply in our churches and communities.

    Biblical principles of safety

    We should take safety seriously

    Ancient houses with flat roofs

    When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.

    Deuteronomy 22:8

    The book of Deuteronomy contains various practical laws, such as this one. Obviously it was written for a people who lived in a hot climate, where flat roofs were the norm! But I think the principle here is a good one. If you are building a house, then you should consider safety. If you don’t, then if something bad happens the guilt will be yours. And that’s no small matter – you would be guilty of bloodshed.

    The point to take away from this it’s not just right but essential to take reasonable precautions. They flow from the second greatest commandment – to love our neighbour. Loving our neighbour means protecting them where possible. Failing in this duty is a serious business.

    We should quarantine the sick

    ‘Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.

    Leviticus 13:45-46
    Stay Home message

    Another law from the Old Testament. There is a whole section in Leviticus about ‘defiling diseases’, diseases which could spread through a community. If someone caught one of these, they were to isolate. (The ancient Israelites were doing self-isolation before self-isolation was cool.) In fact, quarantining those who are sick with an infectious disease is just common sense.

    Now I’m not advocating someone letting their hair be unkempt and shouting out “unclean! unclean!” But the principle of quarantine is sound. If you have symptoms of an infectious disease such as the flu or covid, don’t go out. That’s a sensible precaution, and it’s for the benefit of the community.

    There is just one thing to add here: the Bible does not talk about quarantining healthy people. I guess that’s because, if you don’t know who is sick, you would end up quarantining everyone! I think this is a sensible way of looking at things – maybe we can come back to this at a later date.

    Safety must be proportionate to enjoying life

    Recently in our midweek service, I preached through the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is a fascinating book, if you want to get into it I can thoroughly recommend David Gibson’s book Destiny (“Learning to live by preparing to die”). I was really struck by Ecclesiastes 9:1-12 when it comes to safety.

    That passage makes a few points which are relevant:

    • “The race is not to the swift” – in other words, the fastest runner doesn’t always win the race. You could also say, the one who takes the most precautions isn’t always safest. “Time and chance happen to them all”
    • “No one knows when their hour will come” – dark times can meet all of us, and we don’t know when. We can’t always protect against in, in fact very often we can’t. The hour of our own death is not in our hands.
    • So – we should enjoy life: “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do.” Death is inevitable, it will happen. Rather than trying to put it off at all costs, we should remember that ultimately it is in God’s hands and seek to enjoy life in the here and now as a gift from him.

    The big take away from this passage for me is that it’s pointless to try to prolong our lives at the expense of enjoying our lives. A modern way of putting it would be to say quality of life matters as much or perhaps even more than quantity. Life is there to be enjoyed as a gift from God.

    Safety is only found in God

    In the Bible, safety is not defined as “no bad things happening”. Safety depends on our relationship with God, ultimately. Over the last few months I’ve been working my way through the Psalms in my Thought for the Week series on Understand the Bible. What struck me is how many of the Psalms were written because David (or whichever Psalmist is writing) is going through a hard time. Just this morning, for example, I read Psalm 3. That starts out:

    Lord, how many are my foes!
    How many rise up against me!

    Does that sound safe to you? It doesn’t to me! But then David goes on:

    But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
    my glory, the One who lifts my head high.

    For David, safety wasn’t about stopping bad things from happening. It was about a confidence and trust in God that he would protect him even through those times. There’s a line in Psalm 112 which I often think of: “They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.” I like it because it assumes that we will get bad news from time to time – but we have no need to fear it. We can trust in the Lord despite everything.

    At the end of the day, safety comes from God. Psalm 4:8, “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

    So – safety is something which transcends our circumstances. Safety is a secure trust that, whatever we do or wherever we go, God is in control and working for our good. Even if bad things happen, they will turn out for good. Even death itself is in God’s hands – all our days are numbered.

    We shouldn’t worry

    Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin
    Bobby McFerrin: Definitely not Jesus!

    Jesus famously said in Matthew 6:27: “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” We can’t add any time to our lives by worrying. In fact, as Psalm 139 puts it: “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” God has all our days in hand, virus or no virus. Those who believe and trust in Jesus have no need to worry. God will keep us safe. Alec Motyer once put it this way: “With God, there is no such thing as an untimely death.” This is our confidence – that God is the one who decides the day we die, not us or the safety precautions we’ve taken.

    For Christians, at the end of the day death has no power over us, and we should not fear it. As Hebrews 2:14-15 puts it:

    Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

    We no longer need to fear death or be held in slavery by it.

    Better to fear God than be safe

    ‘I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

    Luke 12:4-5

    Christians should fear God more than we fear death. Over the years, this has caused many Christians to act in very self-sacrificial and heroic ways. Hebrews 11:37-38 says about some of the heroic people of faith:

    They were put to death by stoning; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and ill-treated – the world was not worthy of them.

    These people obeyed God and did not fear death. They were more concerned to do the right thing then to remain safe. Throughout history, Christians have eschewed their own personal safety for acts of love, kindness, and bravery. In times of plague, for example, they might have been the only people who were willing to stay and help the victims. (Richard Turnbull’s lecture for the Christian Institute on plagues and Christian history is worth watching).

    Disobedience to God is not safe

    One thing which is explicitly named as not being safe in the Bible is disobeying God. For example:

    However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you … The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.

    Deuteronomy 28:15, 21-22

    So plague is named as one of the things which God could bring upon the Israelites as a result of their disobedience. Several times in the Old Testament God sends a plague upon the people for their sin (e.g. Numbers 16).

    Book of Common Prayer - prayer in any time of common plague or sickness

    Traditionally, plague has been seen by the church as a sign of God’s judgement and displeasure. The Book of Common Prayer, for example, contains this prayer to be said “in the time of any common plague or sickness”:

    O ALMIGHTY God, who in thy wrath didst send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David, didst slay with the plague of pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest: Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

    Drawing it all together

    Safety is a Biblical concept. I think it’s right to be concerned about it, as we saw with the laws from the Old Testament. We have a duty of care to each other. It’s also right to take sensible precautions like quarantining the sick. However, the precautions we take should not be so extreme they stop us from living and enjoying life in the way God wants us to.

    Ultimately, safety is something that can only go so far: we may think we are safe and secure, but – like the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12) – our lives may be demanded of us. Our safety is found ultimately in Christ, and in fact however ‘safe’ we may be, it is never safe to be disobedient to God.

    So, what should our response to covid be in society and in the church?

    In society

    We know that it’s important to take precautions. At the same time, we know it’s possible to be over-cautious. Quality of life is important. There is a sensible ‘middle ground’ which isn’t going too far either way.

    Here’s the question: what IS being too cautious or too reckless? I’ve been going on too long now so that will have to wait for another time. But I think what we’ve seen here has laid the groundwork for an answer.

    In the church

    Safety is an important principle, but there are more important things. In particular, where safety conflicts with obedience to God then we must obey God. I would suggest the church needs to look carefully at what it means to sing, worship, have fellowship with each other, and so on. How important we see these things will determine how we should relate them to safety.

    The next part of the series is on Truth.

  • Covid has given us what we (thought we) wanted

    Covid has given us what we (thought we) wanted

    Have you ever got exactly what you wanted, only to find that it wasn’t actually what you wanted? That’s a bit like how I’ve been feeling recently. It seems to me like covid has, in a funny kind of way, actually given us what we wanted. Only we found out we don’t actually want it after all.

    Let me explain:

    Things which covid has given us

    Social isolation

    "Social" media cartoon

    One of the trends that’s been happening over the last few years is people looking at their phones instead of talking to each other. It’s now common for two people to be sitting next to each other on their phones, rather than talking to each other. We now interact with each other far less than we used to, largely because of the smartphone.

    In fact, it’s actually getting to be a problem – a study back in 2018 showed that young people feel lonelier than any other age group. More recently, back in September research suggested that those aged 18-30 were most likely to feel lonely. Why should this be the case? I think social media and smartphones have to play a part. In fact, we’ve known about this for some time, as I mentioned in my review of the Social Dilemma.

    So I find it interesting that over the last few months, we’ve been forced to see each other over a screen rather than face-to-face. It’s ironic, isn’t it? The past few years we’ve spent interacting more and more online – and now we’ve been forced to interact online like never before. Earlier this week I was chatting to a university student, who was telling me all her courses are now online – she hasn’t actually met any of the other students on her course physically yet. Even in church, we have Zoom meetings. It’s got to the point where Zoom Fatigue is a real phenomenon!

    Online shopping

    An empty high street

    People have been worrying about high street shops for a long time now. Over the last few years in my own town, quite a few shops have closed. A couple of years ago, Marks & Spencer closed down its store here. Back then there were 15 commercial retail properties for sale – I hate to think how many it is now. Several companies have announced during the lockdown they are closing – the latest one is Debenhams.

    In that particular case, Debenhams has been in administration for over a year. The lockdown has probably finished off many companies which were struggling anyway.

    By contrast, one company which has done very well out of the lockdown is Amazon – their shares reached a record high. Again, this is a trend which began well before the lockdown, but the lockdown has simply brought forward. I wonder if this will spell the end to the traditional high street.

    A big government

    One thing which I notice about my own generation (“millenials”), as well as younger people, is that everything is the government’s fault. Whatever the problem is in society, it’s because the government haven’t done enough. They’re not providing enough benefits, or health care, or counselling support, or community services… whatever the problem is, we blame the government.

    We seem to look to the government to solve all our problems: climate change – needs the government to solve it. Inequality in society – need the government to solve it. And so on. I think it’s got to the point where the default position of anyone of a certain age is to see a problem in society and think that the government should do something about it.

    Well, in covid we’ve certainly got a government who want to solve the problem. To the point that we have – by law – been restricted from seeing our family and friends, restricted as to where we can go and what we can do. I believe that the lockdown introduced the strictest measures ever put in place during peacetime.

    But here’s the thing: this is exactly what we wanted. The government have got the message – they need to solve everything. So, covid becomes a problem they’re going to solve, even if lockdown causes more problems than it solves.

    What can we learn?

    I don’t think any of this is a coincidence. As a Christian, I believe that God lets things happen for a reason. I believe that these things have happened in order that good may come from it. I am hopeful that we may learn the lessons that we need to learn. Let me suggest three.

    Lesson #1: Face-to-face contact is vitally important

    Friends group hug

    Sometimes you don’t appreciate something until it’s taken away from you. In this case, I don’t think I really appreciated the importance of face-to-face contact until it was taken away. I mean, if you asked me I would probably have said it was important. But I didn’t really know from experience how important it was.

    Spending the last few months doing meetings via Zoom and church services via YouTube have convinced me that face-to-face cannot be replaced by technology. There is a place for technology – it has some advantages. For example, I know a few people who are housebound who have been able to join in with our services when they wouldn’t have been able to get to church. I think that’s brilliant. And technology is better than not seeing people at all.

    But – you can’t really hug someone via Zoom. You can talk to someone, but it does still feel a bit like talking to a screen. It’s just not the same as a face-to-face conversation. And I think face-to-face interaction is especially important for children – I’ve noticed how our little Zoe (age 3) doesn’t really engage with the screen. Since she started at nursery, it’s like she’s a different girl! It’s been so good for her. Children need physical contact for their development.

    So, the first lesson I want to learn in a post-covid world is, face-to-face, physical interaction is vitally important.

    Lesson #2: Convenience is not the most important thing

    Over the last few years I’ve been guilty of ordering something from Amazon just because it’s convenient. I’ve thought it was better than popping down to the shops. Well, it seems like a lot of other people have thought that, and look what’s happened.

    I don’t know what the future of the high street will be. All I know is that I think physical shops are important, not just because it gets you out to see people (see Lesson #1!). It’s easy to live your life online because it’s convenient: to shop online, to chat online, etc.

    But – at the same time – when we do that, we are losing something important. I want to resolve to become better at doing things in real, physical life – not online.

    That doesn’t mean never shopping online, but I hope there will be a place in my life (and for all of us in society) to support local shops.

    Lesson #3: Remember the government can’t do everything

    If we’ve learned anything over these last few months, it’s that the government really do have limited power. They haven’t been able to “control the virus” – in fact, no government in history has ever tried to control a virus in quite this way. And, it seems to me, everything they’ve done seems to have made everything worse. The cure has been worse than the disease!

    Whatever your perspective on the lockdowns, I think everyone is agreed that the government have not handled things well over the last few months. They haven’t seemed to be competent for just about anything related to the pandemic!

    The important lesson here is to put a bit less faith in the government to sort out our problems. As I mentioned in a previous post, there is only one governer who is able to bear the weight of responsibility to fix everything. His name is Jesus. As it says in Isaiah 9:6, a passage which is often read at Christmas time:

    For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.

    I hope this is a lesson that we can re-learn as a society. At the end of the day, the government is not on Boris’ shoulders, or Matt Hancock, or Chris Whitty, or anyone else. They have been given a particular responsibility by God, but their power is limited.

    The only one who can actually sort out the problems in our society is the one who can sort us out.

    It is said that a newspaper sent out to various authors, asking them to answer the question “What is wrong with the world today?” G.K. Chesterton wrote a short reply: “Dear Sir, I am.” The greatest problems we have as a society are not problems with everyone else which can be solved by government, but problems with the human heart. The traditional world is sin. That’s a problem which can only be solved by Jesus – who can forgive us our sin, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

    So the final and most important lesson I want to remember is, the government cannot solve our every problem – only Jesus can do that.

  • Political truth vs Actual truth

    Political truth vs Actual truth

    I had another one of my epiphanies yesterday. As I was chatting to my wife, something became clear to me which I hadn’t really seen clearly before. That is: there are now two kinds of truth in the world – political truth and actual truth. They’re not the same thing at all. To some extent there’s always been political truth, but it’s been getting worse over the last few years and covid has put it into overdrive.

    Let’s start by thinking about what political truth is.

    What is political truth?

    1. Believed by the establishment

    Monty Python
    Monty Python’s vision of the Establishment

    The first mark of political truth is that it is general held by the establishment. I think ‘the establishment’ is quite a hard thing to define, so let me try to give a few examples:

    • the government and MPs in general;
    • most of the mainstream media, especially the BBC;
    • most of the university-educated middle-classes.

    The establishment are the people who are generally the movers and shakers in a society: they’re the people who run the country, manage companies, and so on. The fact that it’s difficult to define precisely doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!

    2. Has little resemblance to actual truth

    Political truth has got a love/hate relationship with the facts. It loves facts which support it; it tends to gloss over facts which contradict it. In general, political truth only looks at a subset of the facts and evidence available – it cherry picks.

    Political truth is narrative – a story which is constructed from facts and evidence, but is more than that. It’s the ‘bigger picture’. But the problem is that the bigger picture does not necessarily reflect the actual data. The bigger picture in fact has been chosen for political reasons, rather than because it relates to the data.

    3. Cannot be questioned

    Political truth cannot be questioned. Not seriously, anyway. If you dare to question political truth, you could end up being cancelled or losing your job. At the very least, no-one will really take you seriously if you question it. We’ll look at a few examples of this in the next section.

    The point is that the establishment see it as their job to police conformity to political truth. If a member of the establishment questions political truth, they risk losing their place as part of the establishment.

    This doesn’t just apply in government or the mainstream media – I think it trickles down into society as well. There are certain opinions which are difficult to question on social media – mainly those opinions which question political truth.

    4. Those who do question political truth will be labelled outsiders

    One of the most interesting things I’ve found with political truth is that people who question is will be cast as outsiders. Sometimes they’ll be called “far-right”. Sometimes their academic credentials will be called into question. In general, someone who questions political truth will be labelled as a terrible person, beyond the pale. Their arguments won’t be considered – it will just be a character assassination.

    So – political truth will be defended by labelling anyone who questions it as with an unfair association.

    5. Most ordinary people hold a different view

    The final thing to say about political truth is that it’s a view which is held primarily by the establishment. The working classes generally hold a view which is closer to actual truth.

    1984 – the Ministry of Truth

    1984 by George Orwell

    One of George Orwell’s most famous books is his dystopian novel, 1984. The book is about a future where the government control what truth is, through the Ministry of Truth. This is what Wikipedia has to say about it:

    As well as administering “truth”, the ministry spreads a new language amongst the populace called Newspeak, in which, for example, “truth” is understood to mean statements like 2 + 2 = 5 when the situation warrants. In keeping with the concept of doublethink, the ministry is thus aptly named in that it creates/manufactures “truth” in the Newspeak sense of the word. The book describes the doctoring of historical records to show a government-approved version of events.

    The government manufactures and determines the truth. In Orwell’s novel this was a dystopian future – but it looks a bit like what is happening now!

    Three examples

    I’m going to look at three brief examples. These are all things which I’ve written about on this blog before.

    Transgender

    One thing which the establishment seems to believe at the moment is that men can become women and women can become men. Even to the point of changing your birth certificate. Don’t believe me? The UK Government guidance explains, “you will also be able to obtain a new birth certificate showing your recognised legal gender.”

    So the UK Government believe that it is actually possible to change your sex, to the point where they will issue you a new birth certificate. This has been the case since 2004, when the Gender Recognition Act came into being. Over the last few years it’s become contested as more and more young people are being encouraged to transition. I wrote about this four years ago, and things haven’t changed much since then.

    I believe we can see all five elements of political truth at play when it comes to transgender ideology:

    1. The establishment believe it;
    2. It’s not supported by the science – see, for example, the Transgender Trend website;
    3. Very few people in the establishment question transgender ideology, and if you do…
    4. such as J.K. Rowling, you get called transphobic / cancelled / etc.
    5. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to about this issue (mainly parents) has been concerned about the effect of transgender ideology on children.

    Now, fortunately I think actual truth is beginning to reassert itself. Some high profile people have begun to question the narrative. But there is still a long way to go.

    Brexit

    I don’t want to open a can of worms here! This isn’t about trying to take a side on Brexit. But it is fairly obvious to me that there is an establishment view of Brexit. It goes something like this: “Brexit is a disaster. It was only voted for because low-information idiots saw a misleading slogan on the side of a bus. And it was only voted for by racists. Any right-thinking person should support the EU.”

    I wrote about this also back in 2016. It’s not about the rights and wrongs of leaving the EU – it’s about the narrative which is constructed about Brexiteers.

    And again, I think we can see all five elements of political truth with the establishment’s position on Brexit. Things are changing a little: since the Conservatives won a comprehensive majority a year ago on the promise “let’s get Brexit done”, I think attitudes have changed a little. But, again, there’s still a long way to go.

    Islam

    A few years ago I wrote a piece about Islam. There I lamented the fact that most politicians know virtually nothing about religion. They just think all religions are basically the same.

    This has a massive impact – for example, just a few months ago I wrote about Dr Ella Hill, a grooming gang survivor. She, and many other young women, found the police overlooked rape and other horrible things because they didn’t want to appear racist. The police would prefer to observe political truth rather than deal with actual truth.

    Just a few weeks ago, a French teacher was beheaded by an Islamist extremist. Has there been much of an outcry about this from the establishment? No. It doesn’t fit with political truth, so it’s sidelined and forgotten.

    Coronavirus: political truth on steroids?

    One of the things I’ve found striking about the coronavirus situation is the fact that it does seem to hit all the marks of political truth.

    Believed by the establishment

    Of course! The government and most of the mainstream media (especially the BBC) have portrayed covid-19 in a particular light. There is an established line on the coronavirus, which goes something like this: it’s a disease which is so dangerous that, if we let it run wild, it will overload our health system and cause thousands of deaths.

    Has little resemblance to truth

    There’s a lot of disagreement about the truth when it comes to covid-19. But you wouldn’t know that by listening to most of the establishment voices! They’re so keen to promote a particular view that even the UK Office for Statistics Regulation had to give them a slap on the wrist for the graph presented a few weeks ago.

    Neil Ferguson’s original model (which the government based their decision to lockdown on back in March) has been shown to have many flaws and is “fundamentally unreliable”. Various scientific studies have shown little-to-no benefits of lockdown. There are many scientists who question the lockdown strategy, for example supporters of the Great Barrington Declaration.

    The fact that there are voices contrary to the establishment view doesn’t mean that they are correct. But it does seem to me that upholders of political truth have an agenda which is not to find the actual truth, but rather to punish those who question political truth.

    Cannot be questioned

    How many MPs have spoken out against the lockdown? How many pieces have you read in the mainstream media which bring up the some of the points I mentioned above? On my own personal Facebook page, whenever I post up anything about the lockdown there is always some kind of backlash.

    Fortunately I think there are a number of papers who are questioning the establishment view. Things are beginning to change.

    Those who do question will be labelled outsiders

    If you do question the lockdown, you will be labelled. It might be as a “lockdown denier” or “covid denier”, or maybe “granny killer”. Earlier on today I read an article on UnHerd, The trouble with ‘Covid denialism’. What’s interesting about this piece is that it explicitly sets up Michael Yeadon as a ‘denier’, before going on to set him straight.

    This is how it always works: “No, you’re wrong. Let me give you the proper facts.” I can’t really comment on the actual points made – that would take someone who knows more of the data than I do. I’d like to see them talk it out and debate these points. To my mind the problem is more the whole framing of the debate as “us vs them”: we are the reasonable people, you are the denier. It’s not intending to get to the truth, it’s intending to set someone straight.

    It’s actually a kind of heresy hunting, like the inquisition.

    Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition!

    Most ordinary people hold a different view

    Polls show consistently that people approve of the lockdown measures. I don’t know where the pollsters are finding these people, because the people I talk to often have a different view. (Maybe part of the problem is the questions you ask – as Yes Prime Minister explains!) I think a lot of people, even those who are concerned about covid, just want to get back to some kind of normality. A lot of people want to get back to jobs, families and friends, doing the things we used to do.

    Christians and the truth

    “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.“

    John 18:37

    Christians should have a commitment to the truth. The ninth commandment forbids us from bearing false testimony against our neighbour. Titus 1:2 states that God “cannot lie”. Jesus said that he himself is the truth (John 14:6), and that anyone on the side of truth should listen to him. By contrast, the world “suppresses the truth” (Romans 1:18).

    I believe it is the duty of every Christian to stand up for the truth – the actual truth, not political truth. We should not simply be content to stand by and let political truth go unchecked. I believe we should challenge where necessary.

    This doesn’t mean that we should simply be contrarians – contradicting the establishment view just for the sake of it! But, in a world where truth is not valued as it should be, I believe it is our duty to stand up for it.

    Where the world does not value truth, we should value it. Even if it costs us personally. We should seek it – because when we are seeking the truth, we are seeking God. Our God is a God of truth, and the Spirit of truth lives in us. Let’s pray for God’s wisdom in challenging political truth and telling the actual truth.

  • Is the risk of lockdown being ignored?

    Is the risk of lockdown being ignored?

    What I want to look at in this piece is the way politicians and the media are talking about risk in relation to the lockdown. We are constantly being told of the risk that covid poses and the need for more lockdown. What is often sidelined or ignored completely is the risk that a lockdown poses in itself.

    Let’s start with Keir Starmer’s press conference yesterday:

    The number of Covid cases has quadrupled in the last three weeks. Cases may be doubling as quickly as every seven to eight days. There are now more people in hospital with Covid than on 23 March when we went into national lockdown. And while the number of cases is rising more sharply in some areas it is increasing across all regions of the UK and in all age groups.

    We know from bitter experience and great personal loss where all this leads. Three things are now clear: the Government has not got a credible plan to slow infections. It has lost control of the virus. And it’s no longer following the scientific advice.

    The SAGE minutes from 21 September – published yesterday – underline this. They warn that: ‘A package’ of ‘stringent interventions’ is now urgently needed. SAGE also says that: ‘not acting now… will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences.’

    Focussing on what might happen

    The first thing I notice is that the focus is based on predictions of what is going to happen in the future. He says “we know … where all this leads”. If we don’t act now, according to SAGE, it will result in a “very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences”. It’s as if his prediction of the future is a foregone conclusion.

    This is the kind of language I see all the time. It’s the primary reason why many people are against a herd immunity strategy. For example, as this New Scientist blog published today says, “We don’t yet know whether natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (or the experimental vaccines) will halt transmission. Until we do, assuming that herd immunity will automatically appear is unscientific and, frankly, irresponsible.”

    So a herd immunity strategy is “irresponsible”, because we don’t know if it will happen or not. We don’t know – so let’s play it on the safe side. Let’s be safe and not take the risk. This is the message which we are hearing all the time from the government, from scientists, from the media. “Better safe than sorry”.

    The problem with ‘better safe than sorry’

    I think “better safe than sorry” is generally good advice. But, like a lot of good advice, you can go too far with it. There’s a funny scene at the start of the film Ratatouille.

    An old lady spots a rat, and so she decides to deal with it in a perfectly proportionate way… with a shotgun. She ends up basically destroying her house! The action she took ended up doing far more damage than the danger.

    You could think of many other examples. If you take the principle to its logical conclusion, you’d never do anything risky. In fact, you’d probably never leave the house – but wait, staying in the house carries an element of risk! And that’s the point: being alive carries an element of risk with it. We can mitigate against some risks, but there has to come a point at which we say “well, that’s a risk we’re just going to have to take”.

    I know that driving is risky, for example. But I weigh up the risks and, in general, decide that the risks are pretty low and that it’s of more value to me personally to get somewhere quickly. Everyone has to accept a measure of risk in everything, but in general most of us don’t think about the risks too much. And we survive!

    There’s more than one kind of risk

    Add to that the fact that risk applies in more than one way. Let’s go back to the example of driving. Driving a car carries a risk. But then, what if I decide to walk? Walking carries a risk too – in fact there might be a greater risk of being run over. If I decide to cycle, again – there are risks involved. But think about it more deeply: if I drive everywhere, maybe I’ll become obese. Maybe I’ll die early of heart disease. Cycling or walking may be a bit more risky, but I’ll get more healthy.

    The point is that there are risks in every area of life – no matter which course of action we take. We have to balance those risks every day. Most of us are pretty good at it – we decide what level of risk is appropriate for us, and we act accordingly. But the point is that we all have to balance risk no matter what we do.

    So this brings us onto the question of the lockdown. In the speech I quoted at the start, Keir Starmer said a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown would avert one risk – of people dying from covid. However, what he didn’t say is that there will be risks of another lockdown. I think we should consider those risks.

    Also – just to re-iterate: the risks of not locking down are a “maybe”. We’ll think a little about the actual chances of that happening below. But we can see the risks of lockdowns right now.

    Risks of another lockdown

    The Economy

    The UK has plunged into the largest recession on record since the start of the lockdown. There could be over 700,000 redundancies in the autumn alone – bringing the total for 2020 to over one million. I don’t know anyone personally who has died of covid – I do know several people who have either lost jobs or face extreme uncertainty about whether they’ll be going back to jobs.

    And we should say that a strong economy has health benefits: where does the money for the NHS come from? From the taxpayer. If the government are spending more money for people who are unemployed, and collecting less tax, the NHS is going to suffer. A recession is not going to help public health.

    Health in other areas

    The lockdown has meant that many people who would (and should) have been treated for other conditions have been staying away from hospital. For example, Prof Karol Sikora warned that cancer was the next big crisis facing the NHS, because of the number of people who had not received a diagnosis. The Sun reported that hundreds of stroke and heart attacks have gone untreated.

    This is what a registered nurse had to say:

    The hospital had speciality wards for medical emergencies such as strokes, which were always full (before Covid). An emergency episode like a stroke can be easily diagnosed and treated with thrombolytic therapy, a hugely vital service preventing death and worsening brain injuries. The stroke ward was virtually empty. … It makes me shudder to think that these people, mainly the elderly again, collapsed and likely died at home as coming into hospital for treatment no longer seemed an option for them.

    I nursed a 50-year-old lady last week who was diagnosed in January with aggressive breast cancer. Her mastectomy was planned for early March but was then cancelled. She had no contact with the Oncology Team and only just had her mastectomy 3 weeks ago. When I met her, she was waiting on the results of her recent MRI to see if her cancer had spread anywhere else. She has really experienced a lot of fear this year.

    I have heard anecdotally from people I’ve spoken to that these experiences are not uncommon. Someone I know from the school gate says a friend has been delayed treatment due to covid. People are being discouraged from visiting GPs. I’ve read reports of nearly-empty GP surgeries. Where are all the people who would normally be there? Surely illnesses are not simply going away?

    Mental Health

    I think mental health is quite possibly the biggest risk which is not being talked about. I think there is a massive issue bubbling away under the surface. The ONS, for example, reported on 9th October:

    Average anxiety scores for adults have increased to their highest level since April at 4.3 this week, according to the latest Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN).

    Of those who reported that their wellbeing has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, 63% said they felt stressed or anxious, while 64% said they felt worried about the future.

    Over 60% of people are feeling stressed and anxious. Now that’s an epidemic – a mental health epidemic. Similarly, ONS data from June says:

    Almost one in five adults (19.2%) were likely to be experiencing some form of depression during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in June 2020; this had almost doubled from around 1 in 10 (9.7%) before the pandemic (July 2019 to March 2020).

    One in eight adults (12.9%) developed moderate to severe depressive symptoms during the pandemic, while a further 6.2% of the population continued to experience this level of depressive symptoms; around 1 in 25 adults (3.5%) saw an improvement over this period.

    Many British people right now are feeling anxious and depressed. I can testify to this from my own experience! But I’m particularly worried about the effect this is having on a younger generation. For example, one of my wife’s co-workers said her daughter’s class (primary school age) are all really anxious at the moment. Someone at church said before the summer, her granddaughter refused to go back to school when she had the opportunity (she was in year six) because she was so terrified.

    The lockdown directly impacts our mental health. I know of several people who are really struggling at the moment. Another lockdown would compound the mental health problem. We shouldn’t be surprised about this given that a lockdown essentially prevents us from doing what human beings are supposed to do.

    Is the risk worth it?

    This is the million dollar question, so to speak. I wouldn’t like to be a politician at the moment, to have to balance these kind of things. Personally, I don’t think the risk of another lockdown is worth the benefit of maybe saving lives. I say maybe because, as I said at the start, the ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown is based on a prediction of the future. This is a complicated subject, and it’s one I’m not a specialist in. But I think there are a few reasons to be optimistic.

    The death rate is nothing like it was at the peak

    This graph shows the number of weekly deaths which name covid on the death certificate. As you can see, it climbs very sharply at the beginning of April, and then in the middle of April things begin to fall off again. As you can see on the graph, deaths are beginning to climb a little but it’s nothing like what we saw in April. There’s a similar picture in other countries, too, such as France and Spain.

    Graph to show number of weekly deaths from Covid
    Graph to show number of weekly deaths from Covid

    In fact, some people say that the peak actually happened before the full lockdown restrictions were introduced (if you take into account the typical time between infection and death).

    Lockdowns don’t work

    Recently the WHO Covid-19 envoy David Nabarro said they did not recommend lockdowns apart from a short measure to ease pressure on health services. Some scientists are now saying that there is little to no evidence that lockdowns actually work:

    In a National Bureau of Economic Research paper published last month, UCLA economist Andrew Atkeson and two other researchers, after looking at COVID-19 trends in 23 countries and 25 U.S. states that had seen more than 1,000 deaths from the disease by late July, found little evidence that variations in policy explain the course of the epidemic in different places.

    There are other voices saying the same thing. There’s very little correlation between the way a country has responded to the virus and the number of deaths.

    Even in the UK, there is some doubt as to whether local lockdowns have done anything to actually slow the spread of the virus.

    There are many other angles we could talk about here, such as the fact that the average age of death from covid is about 82 (average life expectancy in the UK is about 82). We could go on – but let’s leave it there.

    Let’s wrap this up

    One of the problems with a lockdown is that it’s a blunt instrument. It’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut: you might crack the nut, but you might break a few other things in the process. My feeling is that many of our politicians and the media are keen to use the sledgehammer of lockdown without considering the risks of that strategy. I think this is doubly the case given that it’s unclear how much benefit lockdowns actually bring. Is it actually possible to control the virus?

    Would a better strategy be something such as what the Great Barrington Declaration says? I’ll leave you to make your own mind up.