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Covid and the Christian Conscience

Larry Beane

Note: Thank you to the Rev. Paul R. Williams of the Lutheran Church - Canada for sharing this theological dialogue regarding Covid with us. His country remains one of the most restrictive in the world. ~ Ed.

Pastor Williams writes:

Recently there has been a refreshing amount of spirited theological reflection about the current Covid pandemic, the vaccines and mandates blossoming forth from the Lutheran Church – Canada, which would likely be of interest and profit to confessional Lutherans throughout the world dealing with all the same issues.

Last fall the LCC’s President’s Ministry Council put forth the document Vaccine Mandates and the Christian Conscience (VMCC) - see below - which succinctly puts forth the status controversiae, the different positions, arguments and positions which are heard expressed in the church concerning the controversial aspects of the COVID vaccines and their use, inviting further healthy discussion on these matters.

The Ottawa circuit of the LCC East Region promptly took up this challenge by issuing a document, Response to VMCC (see below), authored by LCC pastor Rev. Paul R. Williams and signed by a majority of the pastors of the circuit, and one from the LCMS English District. The paper reflects upon the spiritual dangers present in the Covid vaccines’ close connection with the abortion industry, the overreliance on so called “settled science” and the illicit overreach of government interference through lockdowns which obstructs the Church’s Ministry of Word and Sacrament. This paper received some response from those disagreeing with parts of it, which has prompted a second paper, Further Response to the VMCC (see below), also authored by Paul Williams, with the assistance of LCC pastor and Ottawa circuit counselor Rev. David Smilek.

Also, from the other side of the country has come a resolution by the LCC Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley Circuit of British Columbia, Objecting to our Government for controlling our Conscience (see below). The topic of Church and State was also explored in a paper delivered by Paul Williams at a Lay Leader’s Conference in Pembroke, On, in October, 2021, Reflections on Church and State in Canada during Covid (see below).

These papers can be found here, and we hope they can contribute to the ongoing discussion concerning these matters among confessional Lutherans inside and outside of Canada.

Vaccination Mandates and the Christian Conscience

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into its second year, Canadian public officials are placing ever greater emphasis on the need for all eligible people to be inoculated against the disease through a public campaign of vaccination. The campaign is supported through increasing restrictions against the unvaccinated, which include not only barring them from non-essential activities (like restaurant dining) but also from school, university, or the workplace. Those who cannot or will not be vaccinated may therefore risk losing their livelihood. Some members of Lutheran Church–Canada who find themselves in this position have asked their pastors and their synodical leadership for help and advice in submitting a request for a religious exemption from vaccination and the resulting restrictions. This document is a brief response to these requests. It consists of a prologue exploring both sides of the issue from the perspective of theology and ethics, and concludes with a statement representing the public teaching of LCC that might be included in an exemption request.

Arguments in Favour of Receiving the Vaccine

The question of whether the Christian faith supports the conscience of those who do not wish to receive the COVID-19 vaccines cannot be answered without also considering the opposite proposition: Does the faith compel Christians to receive the vaccine?

Since Canadian political and public health officials are united in their advocacy of vaccination, the Christian must consider the obligation to submit under the Fourth Commandment. Our leaders carry out their office with God-given authority (Romans 13) and as an extension of parental responsibility (Large Catechism 1:141-150). The Eighth Commandment urges us to put the best construction on their motives and to believe that they have our best interests in mind. Their desire to use vaccination to lessen the overall impact of the pandemic on public health and to relieve the burden on the healthcare system (so that other illnesses may also be treated) is noble and God-pleasing. The admonition for Christians to obey their leaders is therefore compelling, though it is mitigated by two facts: (1) vaccination is not (yet) a legal obligation, but is only strongly urged; and (2)in a democracy all citizens (including Christians) retain the right to dissent from and dispute such public policy.

Many Christians have also advocated vaccination on the basis of the Fifth Commandment. As Luther explains it, following our Lord’s words (Mt. 5:21-22; 22:39), this commandment not only prohibits murder but also commands “that we do not hurt or harm our neighbour in his body, but help and support him in every physical need” (Small Catechism). If receiving a vaccine in order to remain free from illness can protect one’s neighbour from contracting the same, then a Christian ought to consider this an obligation under both the moral Law and the law of love. “Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10). The applicability of the Fifth Commandment to vaccination, however, must be qualified by a few considerations. Firstly, the commandment cannot be used to prohibit any and all risk-taking, as all actions in life involve some risk. An unvaccinated person might be a risk to his neighbour, but he does not intend to harm his neighbour. Nor does the commandment prescribe specific actions in aid of the neighbour; there are many ways to protect him from this illness (such as physical distancing). Finally, recent research has demonstrated that the vaccines do not entirely prevent transmission of the virus, and that vaccinated and unvaccinated people, when infected, may cultivate and transmit equal amounts of the virus. In other words, vaccination is more about protecting one’s own health than one’s neighbour’s.

There is, of course, a divine obligation to care for one’s own health that also makes the case for vaccination compelling for a Christian. Our bodies and lives are a gift of God that we hold as stewards. Christians not only recognise this gift more clearly than unbelievers, but we also learn from Scripture that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 6:19-20) and the dwelling place of Christ (Col. 1:27). We are to care for these precious vessels that God knitted in our mother’s womb and not despise them (like Gnostic false teachers and pagans). This argument, too, is not completely incontestable. While the ability of vaccination to protect people from serious illness and death is strongly supported by the evidence, some Christians may in good faith argue on the basis of medical uncertainty and evidence of adverse reactions that they are caring for their bodies by not receiving vaccination.

Finally, a strong case can be made in many circumstances that Christian charity (love) will compel a person to receive vaccination for the sake of service to others. Pastors may be required to be vaccinated to enter nursing homes or hospitals to provide spiritual care to their parishioners. Laypeople may likewise need vaccination to visit and care for their ill or elderly family members. Medical professionals may be required to be vaccinated to carry out their important duties. Christians will want to consider how God is using them in their vocations to exercise His fatherly care in this world. In some cases, then, Christian charity may require self-sacrifice of personal objections and acceptance of risk in taking the vaccine.

Arguments against Receiving the Vaccine

Those who do not wish to receive the COVID-19 vaccines cannot simply be lumped together under the pejorative term “anti-vaxxers”. There are, firstly, those who are strongly advised not to receive vaccination on medical grounds, owing to the likelihood of an adverse allergic reaction or other serious physical harm. Such dangers outweigh the likely benefit of receiving the medicine. Most current policies recognise the need for medical exemptions, though the admissible grounds may be overly narrow. Thus, some people whose medical condition is not currently recognised may seek exemption on other grounds.

A variety of other objections may lie behind a desire to avoid receiving the vaccines. Some people are concerned that the medicines were rushed to market, were not sufficiently tested, are not fully approved by medical authorities, and therefore entail unknown risks. Some believe that naturally-acquired immunity is superior to pharmaceutical vaccination. Some are sceptical of the motivation behind the monolithic reliance on vaccination as the solution to the pandemic and are suspicious of the pharmaceutical companies and the governments working with them. And some who may otherwise favour vaccination are opposed to mandates and coercion. Strictly speaking, these objections are not religious in nature. Though they may or may not be valid objections, neither Christians nor the Christian church ought to use a religious exemption as a thin veil for an objection to vaccination on other grounds. Nonetheless, Christians ought to be concerned—as citizens and as Christians—at the erosion of individual freedoms entailed in current vaccine mandates, inasmuch as religious freedom is itself fragile.

The most compelling objection to vaccination from a Christian perspective is the connection of vaccine development to abortion. LCC’s leadership commended to the church’s members a fine summary of the scientific evidence produced by the Missouri Synod, based on data collected by the Charlotte Lozier Institute (see references below). Some COVID-19 vaccines in use around the world were developed and produced using cell lines derived from the tissue of aborted human babies (foetuses). These include the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine (initially used in Canada, but now discontinued), as well as the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccines coming soon to Canada. A second category of vaccines, including those most widely used in Canada (mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna), were not derived or produced from such cell lines; but in their development, material from the HEK-293 foetal cell line was used repeatedly to test their effectiveness and safety. This line was developed from an aborted foetus obtained by a Dutch scientist in 1972. The immoral origins of this cell line make profiting from its use morally questionable.

In evaluating the moral status of receiving treatment connected to abortion, the Christian should consider a number of factors. On the one hand, some Christian ethicists have argued that the connection of the current vaccines to the original immoral act is extremely remote. The act took place many decades ago. The unborn baby was not killed for the purpose of making the vaccine, nor does the maintenance of current cell lines require ongoing abortions (though new cell lines are depend-ent on them). As in many ethical decisions, it is possible to conclude that the “good” (of preventing countless deaths from the disease) outweighs the “evil” (of an act that cannot be undone). It is possible for a Christian who recognises the fallenness of all creation to acknowledge that, even though the vaccines are tainted with evil, they may still be received for a good purpose—as God works in all things for His children’s good, even deriving good from evil actions (Gen. 50:20; Rom. 8:28). Furthermore, many aspects of modern medicine are similarly tainted, as many vaccines and pharmaceuticals have made use of these cell lines in their development and/or testing. Some might therefore argue that those who (rightly) object to the vaccines on these grounds should be consistent and abstain from all such medicines. If the argument were extended to include the doctors and institutions complicit in abortion, it might be impossible to receive almost any medical treatment in good conscience. St Paul’s conclusion could be applied to this dilemma: to avoid all contact with immorality, one would need to leave the world (I Cor. 5:10). Lacking a reasonable alternative, Christians might therefore choose to partake of such medical treatment for their greater good, albeit with a penitent and heavy heart.

Nonetheless, the ubiquity of evil should not be used as an excuse to tolerate, approve, or become complicit in it. The fact that one cannot avoid all evil does not mean that the Christian should abandon the struggle against any evil in this world. A Christian whose conscience has been informed of evil will act differently than one who is ignorant of it (I Cor. 8:4-7; 10:19-21). Inasmuch as Scripture teaches the sinfulness of abortion, which LCC has repeatedly confessed in convention (resolutions 88.3.04, 96.1.05, 02.1.02), Christians ought to use the means at their disposal (in their station in life) to speak up in defence of the defenceless. A Christian may choose the present time to make that confession in light of the extremity of the situation. It is therefore at least conceivable, even commendable, that a Christian might choose not to receive COVID-19 vaccination drugs on the basis of conscience and in protest against the ongoing evil of abortion in our society.

While the connection to abortion is the clearest point of moral objection to the current vaccines, there may be other legitimate reasons why Christians might resist vaccination mandates. Christians might argue that their governments are overstepping the authority that God has given them when they compel specific medical treatments. God has committed care of the body to the human soul He joined to it. Stewardship of one’s own body is a basic authority and vocation entrusted to a person created by God and in His image. God has likewise committed to parents responsibility for their children’s care and nourishment until they reach the age when they can care for themselves. Christians will therefore resist any attempts by public authorities to coerce or override medical decisions they make for themselves and their children. Christians may also be concerned about the specific nature of some modern medicines, such as the mRNA vaccines (PfizerBioNTech & Moderna) that are created through genetic manipulation rather than curated natural processes that follow the order of God’s creation. This is a difficult theological and ethical question, as the line between natural order and disorder (“playing God”) is not always clear or easy to discern.

Finally, the Christian must consider the eschatological signs that Christ calls His people to discern. According to biblical teaching, plagues can be sent by God as discipline for His people and an expression of His wrath against godless mankind. The Christian Church today has been understandably cautious in stating absolutely that the COVID-19 pandemic is an act of God’s judgement against the world’s rebellion—but it is our responsibility as Christians to discern how this might be true and to what repentance God is calling us and the world. A worldwide plague might rightly be interpreted as a sign of the end times (Rev. 6:8; 9:20; chs 15 & 16; etc.). The world that does not wish to repent seeks to stave off the plague by its own remedies; but God’s people are to heed the warning, choose the godly path, repent, and separate from the world destined for wrath (Rev. 18:4), to take refuge in God’s mercy. It is, again, not entirely clear what place vaccine mandates might have among the signs of the end times—and perhaps they are entirely meant for human welfare. But Christians should not hastily dismiss the possibility that such mandates are one of the signs of the end times in light of the prophecy that in those latter days “no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name” (Rev. 13:17). Certainly it is true that “this calls for wisdom” (Rev. 13:18), for which we pray. The Gospel grants the freedom that God desires for His people (Gal. 5:1)—freedom from sin and the coercion of the Law, certainly, but also freedom to live and enjoy the goodness of creation that God has redeemed for us. The devil despises and strives to rob us of such freedom.

Knowledge, Love, and the Christian Conscience

This survey of perspectives has presented a variety of arguments, but has deliberately avoided judging which is “correct” in each instance. In scientific matters the church is not competent to judge. In theological and ethical matters the church can only confess what the Scriptures give us to confess in order to guide the Christian conscience in areas for which Scripture offers no absolute answers. Christians ought to acknowledge these uncertainties in their dealings with each other. Paul has warned of the dangers of using personal knowledge as a weapon to denigrate or despise others within the body of Christ. In the matter of eating food sacrificed to idols he wrote: “we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up” (I Cor. 8:1). This admonition applies equally to our current divisions, and indeed to both sides of an argument in which each side might claim superior knowledge. We ought to be cautious lest our exercise of knowledge cause our weaker brother or sister to stumble in the faith and fall away from Christ (I Cor. 8:12).

In the current debates over vaccination, it is not always clear who is the strong party and who is the weak. But certainly those who are unable to be vaccinated or who choose not to be are facing increasing obstacles in our society and daily face attitudes that verge on prejudice, discrimination, or even abuse. Christian love compels us to resist such things. This is particularly true of the public gathering of the Christian congregation. We must not discriminate among the children of God who enter His house. What James writes concerning the despicable treatment of the poor in the divine service of his addressees is certainly applicable: “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (Jam. 2:1), for “has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which He has promised to those who love Him?” (Jam. 2:5). “For God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11). While there may be justification for temporarily excluding from public church gatherings those who are sick and contagious (as lepers were excluded from the congregation of Israel until they were clean), there can be no godly justification for excluding those who are simply more vulnerable to disease. Vaccine “passports” have no place in the Christian church.

The Christian conscience, properly informed by the Word of God, is a powerful tool which God has planted in us. Although the conscience can err, Christians ought to act against their conscience only when compelled by the clear teaching of Scripture (I Tim. 1:19). Who has expressed this principle more profoundly than Luther standing before the Emperor at the Diet of Worms (1521)?

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. (AE 32:112)

May God grant us knowledge from His Word, wisdom in wielding this sword of the Spirit, discernment in heeding our consciences, and love for our Christian brothers and sisters.

References and Resources

A Sample Statement concerning the Public Confession of Lutheran Church–Canada in the Matter of COVID-19 Vaccination Mandates

Lutheran Church–Canada in convention (resolutions 88.3.04, 96.1.05, 02.1.02) has repeatedly con-fessed and affirmed the biblical teaching that God is the creator of all things, that He made mankind in His image, that He gives sacred life to human beings from the moment of conception in their mother’s womb, and that to end the life of an unborn child deliberately is an act of murder in violation of the Fifth Commandment. God has also implanted in human beings a conscience which, when correctly guided by Scripture, aids Christians in making morally upright choices in life.

In addition to rejecting abortion as sinful and morally evil, LCC has urged her members “to make clear to our representatives and leaders in government our support for the living but unborn, and to urge upon those leaders our demand that they provide for those defenceless persons due protection under the law” (88.3.04). As other objectionable practices arose, LCC endorsed the formation of Lutherans for Life–Canada, warning against ongoing violations of sacred life such as “euthanasia-assisted suicide, eugenics, fetal tissue–embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, [and] in vitro fertilization” (02.1.02).

The COVID-19 vaccines currently used in Canada (Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna) used human cells derived from an aborted foetus in their developmental testing stages. Other COVID-19 vaccines previously used (AstraZeneca) and proposed for future used (e.g. Janssen/Johnson & Johnson) used cell lines derived from aborted foetuses more extensively in their design, development, and production.

While LCC has not taken a public position on the morality of vaccination itself, and while many LCC members have chosen to be vaccinated, it is consistent with LCC’s public teaching on human life that a Christian might choose not to receive COVID-19 vaccines that are connected to acts of abortion. LCC supports the Christian conscience making such a difficult choice on the basis of their sincerely held belief or for reasons they believe arise from Christian values. LCC affirms the Chris-tian’s God-given responsibility for the stewardship of their own bodies and affirms a parent’s God-given responsibility for the care of their children.

References

This statement may be adapted for use in exemption request letters. Drafted by Rev. Dr Thomas M. Winger, President, Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary St. Catharines, Ontario

A RESPONSE TO VACCINATION MANDATES AND CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE

The pastors and people of the Lutheran Church - Canada will certainly be thankful for the excellent summary of the issues and positions concerning the ongoing COVID situation, “vaccines” [Note: Moderna Spikevax, Pfizer BioNTech, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria, and Jansen (Johnson & Johnson) are derived from a new and novel technology which are not, properly speaking, vaccines as that term has been traditionally defined, but are more accurately described as “experimental gene therapies.” Therefore, when using the term “vaccines” to refer to them, it shall be expressed in this paper with quotation marks.] and mandates which is found in the document Vaccination Mandates and Christian Conscience (VMCC) Since the discussion of any issue, but most especially those concerning eternal matters of theological truth, must first begin with a clear, fair and succinct presentation of the status controversiae, the issues and arguments used to argue for various positions of the point under consideration, we will find VMCC which does so most helpful in placing us on solid footing for continued discussions on these matters within our synod.

The status controversiae addressed by VMCC concerns the recently mandated Covid “vaccines” for which there is presented arguments for and against their use. The initial temptation is to use VMCC as a preparation for accepting and tolerating together these very different viewpoints within the synod on this matter, and that all discussion of it should proceed only upon the assumption that the issues are an adiaphoron or open question.

However, it is crucial to point out that the VMCC itself, as it frames the issue, will not permit itself to be used in such a way, nor allow such an assumption. Adiaphora are matters neither commanded nor forbidden by Scripture; open questions those things upon which Scripture simply does not speak clearly enough. VMCC speaks of both positions in favour and against the use of the COVID-19 “vaccines” to be convictions believed by some of those who hold to them to be to a certain degree drawn from Scripture, indeed, from the very same text in Scripture [Note: VMCC notes that on the basis of the Fifth Commandment, some can be found to argue for the use of the “vaccines,” concluding that “faith compels Christians to receive them,” while others argue on the basis of the same commandment that they should not be received]. One cannot call an adiaphoron left unresolved as an open question to be tolerated within the church a matter which has contrary positions held, which both sides believe to be taught by Scripture, simply because they are unable to resolve such disagreement, or wish to leave doing so to further study or to a future consensus. Such would result in a sort of Delta Variant of Unionism.

Therefore, the historic Orthodox, Catholic, Confessional Lutheran approach to this issue, reflected in traditional Missouri Synod/LCC practice, would be to inquire whether, in fact, neither of the positions expounded in the document can be supported and mandated by Scripture (in which case they both can and must be regarded as an adiaphoron and open question, and tolerated within the church), or whether one of them can be supported and mandated by Scripture (in which case it must be unanimously confessed by the church). What conclusion VMCC will not permit to be considered is that both positions are completely reconcilable and can be regarded as supported and mandated by Scripture, since Scripture cannot at the same time both compel and forbid the same thing. (I Tim. 3:16-17, Rom. 3:4, Acts 17:11, II Cor. 10:5)

We begin with the arguments in favour of receiving the “vaccine,” indeed that “faith compels Christians to receive the vaccine,” on the basis of the Fourth and Fifth Commandments, “divine obligations to one’s health,” and “Christian charity.” It must be pointed out that those arguing for this position simply presume that the vaccines are efficacious in addressing current health concerns, so that the real basic premise which is the necessary presumption of everything argued is not these maxims of Scripture themselves nor any theological principle, but rather an underlying assumption drawn from an observation of nature. Only upon the prior premise that the COVID “vaccines” are vital and necessary to “help and support our neighbour in every physical need” can the Fifth Commandment be used to support the “vaccine’s” use, or that love would compel one to use them.

Quite in contrast to the doctrinal truths of the Christian faith revealed and drawn from the infallible Holy Scriptures which are always unshakably solid, true and sure, matters observed in nature, along with the scientific propositions which describe them, are intrinsically tentative, provisional, subject to correction and refutation, and therefore always to some degree uncertain. Indeed, the scientific method can only work and scientific knowledge only advanced when scientific propositions are repeatedly questioned, tested, so that one can seek to falsify them. When one speaks of something being “proven” by science, one has ceased to speak scientifically about it.

VMCC is quite right to say that it is beyond the intrinsic competency and vocation of the church herself to try to adjudicate between the bewildering and competing claims in current scientific discourse on the topic of the COVID-19 “vaccines.” On such purely scientific matters, the church must patiently listen to, be guided by, and honour the vocation of those who can speak competently on such matters --scientists themselves (and Christian scientists should not hesitate to use their learning and expertise which God has entrusted to them to speak on this matter, sanctified with the insights and wisdom of their Christian faith). Nevertheless, just as the church encourages the informed laity to keep clergy accountable for doctrinal matters on the basis of Scripture even if they are not theological “experts,” (Acts 17:11), so also, the church here gives a healthy pattern which encourages and supports intelligent and informed people to responsibly critique and test the science and interpretation of data based on logic and reason even if they are not “experts.”

But though the church has no specific calling and expertise to speak as scientists on scientific matters, she does have the calling and obligation to speak theologically about the scientific enterprise and its place with and relation to the church’s confession of faith. (II Tim. 4:3-4, Col. 2:8, II Cor. 10:5) Firstly, the church recognises that the scientific enterprise inquires and researches into a natural world created by God, (Gen. 1:1, II King 19:15, Col. 1:16) which reflects His order and beauty, (Psalm 139:13-14, 65:5-7, 95:4-5) and which God made for man’s benefit and blessing so that in nature Christians perceive signs of His love for man. Science is a wholesomely God-pleasing enterprise. But secondly, because all of nature is created by God and is therefore created good, (Gen. 1:31), Christians will want to observe in the scientific enterprise all of what is evident about nature. And yet, one observes that the tiresome well worn phrase to “follow the science” is routinely used not to encourage open, honest and transparent discussion of all scientific evidence and healthy debate concerning the issue of COVID and the “vaccines” but rather is employed for the exclusive adherence to an official narrative, convenient for a narrow political agenda, while any scientific evidence which rather indicates that the “vaccines” have doubtful effectiveness, and dangerous side effects, from scientists with unsurpassed competency to speak on such matters, [Note: For instance, Dr. Robert W. Malone, who in fact designed and created the very technology of the COVID “vaccines” and who very well may know more about them than anyone else in the world, (see https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/fully-vaccinated-are-covid-super-spreaders-says-inventor-of-mrna-technology/), also prominent cardiologist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter A. McCullough, one of the top five most-published medical researchers in the United States and editor of two medical journals (see https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/eminent-doc-covid-vax-is-bioterrorism-by-injection-and-has-likely-caused-at-least-50k-deaths-in-the-us/ ), Dr. Tara Sander Lee, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences, Lozier Institute (see Ethics of Fetal Tissue Research, A Conversation with Tara Sander Lee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdFCT-XY_Pk&t=12s,) and many others.] has been systematically censored, vilified and condemned, effectively stifling true scientific enquiry into this important matter. Indeed, much of the current discourse and public conversation about the COVID pandemic, the current “vaccines,” along with the mandates for them, seem to resemble the kind of “officially sanctioned” pseudo-scientific narratives motivated by secularist agendas which Christians have routinely seen in narratives concerning evolution, gender theory, homosexuality, abortion, and the like, held by those who will rarely respond to any challenge to such narratives with sober scientific enquiry and clear reason but rather with derision, censorship and persecution. Against such, the church must insist that all of scientific enquiry of all that is observed of nature by empirical observation be fairly considered, for all nature is God’s good creation which should be seen and appreciated for all that it truly is. In that way sound theology contributes to keeping the integrity of sound science.

But what also follows from this is that the Synod can never make any official resolution about any specific scientific observation or conclusion, and for that reason also any resolution commending the use of the “vaccines,” and indeed, must disavow and condemn the position that “faith compels Christians to receive the ‘vaccine.’” Synod can only speak where Scripture speaks, and she has nothing from Scripture which states such a thing, nor even a plausible basis in Scripture which could form a premise upon which such a conclusion could be drawn, for the premises on any argument commending the “vaccine” rests not on a certain truth from Scripture but upon a scientific hypothesis based upon observations from nature which can never be absolutely certain and beyond correction. At the most, arguments in favour of the use of the “vaccine” are opinions which members are free to hold, advance and believe for themselves, but only if there is also nothing in Scripture which indicates that the “vaccine” should not be used. Only then.is the matter an adiaphoron or an open question, free to be believed or not.

Is there, then, a clear basis in Scripture for arguing that the COVID vaccines should not be used? One immediately notices the very significant point that “the most compelling objection to [the COVID] vaccination from a Christian perspective” is formulated assuming a basic premise far more certain than mere scientific hypotheses drawn from observations of nature. Indeed, it is based upon a position universally and passionately held by rank-and-file LCC pastors and lay persons and indeed all devout Christians throughout the world of all times and all places—the clear teaching of Scripture that human life begins at conception, the taking of which constitutes a violation of the Fifth Commandment and is therefore murder. (Jer. 1:5, Psalm 139:16, Luke 1:41-44) Upon that unquestionably solid basic premise the arguments against the use of “vaccines” produced and developed from the human remains of aborted babies are advanced. But do the arguments formulated from that basic premise of this clear Scriptural teaching argue conclusively and clearly enough against the use of the “vaccines” that one may say that such conclusions are also taught by Scripture?

It has been argued that since the abortions were not done for the purpose of providing the stems cells used to produce the “vaccines,” and since those using such “vaccines” are too remote from the act of the abortion to be considered complicit with it, granting the illicitness of the abortion, should not some good be salvaged from it which the “vaccines” can provide? In his essay As Long as Vaccines Are Tied to Abortion, Christians Need Exemption, published in the Federalist, LCMS seminary professor Dr. Gifford Grobien notes that the issue involves more than just one isolated abortion occurring 50 years ago. Grobien observes that “researchers and abortionists recognize the benefit of fetal tissue for vaccine development, and have established relationships to facilitate the supply of this tissue to researchers.”

In other words, there is presently a whole industry of fetal cell research which demands a supply of fetal tissue, and which has facilitated and active trafficking of aborted baby body parts. Evidence of this can be found from sworn testimonies from two expert witnesses in a court case in 2015 involving Planned Parenthood which indicated extensive and routine instances of “beating fetal hearts used in research, harvested from living babies,” [Note: this is not a case of simply body parts salvaged for medical use from an already aborted and dead child, but rather removed from an infant while it is still alive, just removed from the mother’s womb, for the express purpose of removing such body parts from such a still living child for medical use, which will then bring about their death. Evidence is given of a 2012 Stanford University Study which made use of “live human baby hearts provided by StemExpress, a human tissue procurement company. As part of the study’s methods, it used a Langendorff apparatus,” which was “designed to keep fluid pumping through a heart that has been cut out of a body” and that “the fetus would have to be alive at the time the organs were harvested” for use in a Langendorff apparatus. The it was very clear the abortionists’ tactics were intentional. “They want those babies coming out with beating hearts.”] and the “selling of whole fetuses and attached baby heads.” [Note: Under oath, the CEO of StemExpress, admitted that StemExpress provided completely intact embryos, fetuses, beating hearts, and babies with their heads still attached to their bodies to Stanford and other universities for research.]

As Grobien notes, “promoting products of abortion encourages the partnership between abortion providers and medical researchers, as well as the social acceptance of this partnership.” The ongoing use of products derived from such abortions, such as the COVID-19 “vaccines,” increases the demand for the fetal tissues which are used to produce them. By using these “vaccines” derived from stem cells from the remote past, one gives cover, incentive, and encouragement for abortions to occur in the present and in the future in the continued production of such products.

Observing that “developing and manufacturing vaccines that do not use fetal cell lines is quite possible, “and giving concrete examples of such, Grobien concludes that “Christians should make clear that the perpetuation of objectionable vaccines and the lack of alternatives is a kind of coercion. A strong Christian voice can restore a situation in which churches have nothing to do with abortion, no longer accepting health benefits at the cost of others’ lives.” Grobien pleads that such “vaccines” derived from abortion not be used by Christians so that incentives can be made to develop vaccines without the use of stem cells derived from abortions. In this way one puts one’s pro-life position into practice, and works concretely to save the lives of the unborn in the present and the future. [Note: Furthermore, even if there were just one isolated murdered child whose bodily remains were exploited for use in the production of the “vaccines” and even if it could be made certain that never again would such abortions happen for such use, still “an assessment of cooperation with evil in terms of distance from the original abortion is a necessary but ultimately insufficient criterion because there is another distinct and more immediate category of sin involved. [...] The recipient is an immediate participant in the commission of continuous theft of human remains obtained through a deliberate killing, their desecration through exploitation and trafficking, as well as ultimate omission to respectfully bury them. While the original killing establishes the illicit character of using the remains, their possession and use becomes a distinct evil in itself, the circumstances of which do not cease as a form of theft, desecration, exploitation, and refusal to bury, regardless of the consumer's distance in time from the abortion, or the number of cell divisions, or the merely sub-cellular fragmentary inclusion of the child's DNA and protein in the final dose.” Copenhagen, Michael Restore Ye to Its Owners: on the immorality of receiving vaccines derived from abortion. 16 Oct 2019. https://cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/vaccinefrcopenhagen.pdf, quoted from Pamela Acker, Vaccination: A Catholic Perspective, 2020 Kolbe Centre for the Study of Creation, Jackson, VA, p. 61]

The LCC and the Missouri Synod have repeatedly made very clear their steadfast and unwavering commitment to the prolife position and to the protection of the unborn. Consistent with such a position, the LCC has seen it necessary, long before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, to also more specifically condemn in principle the use of stem cells derived from infants murdered from abortion. [Note: In 2002, the Lutheran Church- Canada passed in convention a resolution entitled “That Lutheran Church–Canada Provide Leadership In The Formation Of An Autonomous Canadian Lutherans For Life Organization” which included as one of its Whereases that “God’s sacred gift of human life continues to be cheapened, ignored, and destroyed on a variety of fronts such as: deteriorating sexual and family-life values, medical-surgical abortions, euthanasia-assisted suicide, eugenics, fetal tissue embryonic stem cell research…” (Resolution 02.1.02). Therefore, through this resolution, the Lutheran Church Canada has assumed an official public stance against such embryonic stem cell research in general, and therefore by implication, the particular practice of the same in the production and use of the COVID-19 “vaccines” and have raised it to the level of a vital pro-life issue. It therefore cannot be accurately said that the Synod has no official stance on this issue; it is those who argue against the production and use of the COVID-19 “vaccines” who continue to follow faithfully in the LCC’s public position on this matter, and those wishing to commend their use who are opposing the Synod’s public stance.]

The church has done so not as her mere opinion, nor as something whose Scriptural grounding might be debatable, but with the confidence that such a position is firmly grounded in the Scriptures and that faithfulness to the Scriptures and a consistent pro-life position make it necessary to confess such a thing. If on the basis of Scripture, the Synod has consistently seen it necessary to condemn in principle the use of stem cells derived from slain unborn children for the production of “vaccines,” would it not be clearly and unquestionably consistent and necessary to then also condemn a particular instance of the very same? Is there not such a close, natural logical consistency from one to other that any hesitancy to condemn in particular the production of Covid-19 “vaccines” from the body parts of murdered unborn human beings will inevitably throw into question the commitment to our opposition in principle to such a practice at all, and indeed, therefore also to our pro-life position to begin with?

Christians also cannot but be concerned about an ever-present tendency of the state to vastly exceed the limited roles which God has given to it, and assume an overarching authority over all aspects of man’s existence, including spiritual dimensions, so that the state may feel free to regulate and restrict any part of it. In this way, the church is pressed into the image of the purely secular, indifferent and even increasingly antagonistic views which the world has of it, and what is more, Christians are pressed by society and the state to view themselves and fit themselves into this very same perspective and none other. When the state compels for instance, “specific medical treatments,” it assumes a view of man which erodes the noble and holy view of him as created in the image of God, Who, as VCCC expresses so well, “has committed the care of the body to the human soul He joined to it” and therefore also that each person has stewardship of one’s own body. It is an essential aspect of the confession of our faith to the world that we robustly and forthrightly resist this pressure and retain the integrity of who God says we are and what we are all about as Christians and as the church—if the church neglects to do so, she will inexorably be shaped and warped into something completely different and alien to what she has been called by God to be.

In the past two years the church has at times witnessed the state imposing lockdowns which forbid gathering at worship services and suggestions that worship be restricted to those with “vaccine passports.” The state does so by asserting that such worship services involve health and safety issues of the public at large over which they have interest and jurisdiction. Whether or not there actually are health dangers or not in worship services is beside the point. Even if one concedes that there are health dangers with gathering for worship services and that the government has jurisdiction and interest in such things, nevertheless church services also at the same time involve spiritual and eternal health and life which are infinitely more important than such earthly concerns, over which the state has no jurisdiction nor competency whatsoever. They must be decided by the church herself, led by Scripture, which after all, alone must decide all things done in the church. Can one imagine the premier leading his cabinet in an earnest and prayerful study of the Scriptures to determine what measures are God-pleasing which should be enacted with worship services in the church? Of course, the thought is absurd, and because the state lacks any remote competency to determine such things, how even more absurd and dangerous it is for the church to abdicate her competency and jurisdiction over such things and fall in line just because the government tells them so! Indeed, even if the Lord’s house is infected by killer germs, it is still worth risking the infection to receive the true and priceless healing of Word and Sacrament. God commands for our good that we remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy and not to neglect the hearing of His word but to gladly hear and learn it, and that there is in such His blessing. Even if Christians do become ill because they worshipped in God’s house, they can nevertheless still embrace that as His gracious will.

Nothing is ever to obstruct the free course of the Ministry of Word and Sacrament, and the only response of the church to such obstructions to her ministry is simply to continue that ministry nevertheless. She has no mandate from the Lord to do otherwise. So, if and when the state crassly forbids the church to meet for services, or require vaccine passports to attend them, no matter what the reason or pretense, the state remains instituted by and in subordination to the Lord whose servant they are and therefore lack jurisdiction and competency from the Lord to decide on such matters, and the church is respectfully yet firmly to “obey God, rather than man” (Acts 5:29), disregard such illicit orders and continue offering services to those who wish to have them and who wish to attend them, (Heb. 10:25, Acts 2:42) no matter what the consequences may be, as a catacomb church like those in ancient Rome, if necessary.

Always, of course, the church should proceed with wisdom and caution with this issue, and with all sensitivity and love towards each other, and especially towards the weak in faith. (I Cor. 8:9) If it is those arguing against the vaccines who are to be regarded as the weak, and those in favour who are the strong, then guided by the Apostle in I Cor. 8, it follows that it is such strong who should, out of love, willingly give up receiving the “vaccine” for the sake of the weak, that their brothers not be led to stumble. If it is those arguing for the “vaccines” who are the weak, and those against it who are the strong, then the latter shows tolerance and forbearance with patience and understanding by not pressing the former too rigidly and strongly, but always such with the implicit understanding that avoiding technologies derived from aborted children along with products derived from them is what is most proper and good In other words, it does not matter who is identified as strong or weak, the result is the same—on the Scriptures’ teaching of how each should approach and relate to one another as members united together in the Body of Christ, the church, all things being equal, finds it most right, true and wholesome to lean against the production and use of “vaccines” connected with the taking of the life of the unborn. If anyone is to be identified as the weak, it is above all the unborn, and it is the born, (indeed, the born again!) who are those strong called to protect them!

It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that one cannot seek any benefit from the Covid “vaccines” without at the same time placing oneself into the position of accepting benefit from an act of abortion. Any advantage from the Covid “vaccines” depends upon the abortion having taken place without which such “vaccines” would not exist to profit anyone. Therefore, because the Covid “vaccines” depend upon an abortion for their existence, it also follows that those seeking advantage from the “vaccines” by receiving them will necessarily also be in the position of needing to depend upon such an abortion to have taken place for such advantage. This cannot help but dull the conscience, and perilously endanger Christian faith and confession.

This gives us a glimpse of the trajectory which the church should seek to continue in her confession concerning this difficult and perplexing issue—to focus her trust on the sure and eternal things, the direction which the VMCC already poises her to go. With love and grace, it seems clear that the LCC should gently and sensitively, yet unambiguously, firmly, and publicly, indicate her preference for and natural alignment with the position of those arguments against the “vaccines” expressed in VMCC, which, after all, would only find the synod continuing in the same position and confession she already has through her history, and to provide such help for the people of the LCC consistent with such a stand, such as, for instance, guidelines for exemption requests as indicated and promised in the introduction to VMCC. Based upon the Scriptures and our own synodical resolutions, opposing the “vaccines” for conscience’s sake is the position most consistent with our most holy faith, more steadfast to our confession, and most closely adhering to our Synod’s own resolutions which condemn abortive technologies which are clearly used in the production of the “vaccine.” In the midst of this pandemic, our chief concern should not so much be a short-sighted focus upon measures to save and preserve earthly health and welfare which moth and rust (and pandemics!) can and will destroy in any case. (Matt. 6:19-21) It is rather, that we respond to this recent pandemic with a call to repentance, and mindful that as the Last Day draws ever nearer, with the real virus of sin and death coursing through our veins, that we be not anxious and troubled about many things but have a renewed faith in and confident commitment to the one thing necessary, (Luke 10:42) the healing Gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ and His resurrection, the blessings of which He dispenses through the sure vaccine and medicine of Word and Sacrament, and in which we are given the true and enduring life and peace.

Further Response Concerning Vaccine Mandates and the Christian Conscience

I thank the author of the paper Regarding Ottawa Circuit Pastor’s Vaccine Paper (RegOC) for his contribution to the continuing discussion invited by the document Vaccine Mandates and the Christian Conscience (VMCC) and his critique of the response to this document by the Ottawa Circuit Pastors (OCP). I offer here a response to RegOC.

The central claim of RegOC is that the authors of OCP base their arguments on false statements and do not know their topic well enough to avoid spreading falsehoods. By attempting to cast doubt on the historical facts of Covid vaccine development, RegOC’s arguments serve to downplay the intrinsic connection of the vaccines with the sin of abortion and thereby draw one’s attention away from the spiritual and theological matters involved in this crucial issue which must be the centre of the church’s discussion of this topic. Even if all the allegations made by RegOC, that OCP contains false statements were true (and I will offer here evidence to disprove such claims), it would still leave the basic arguments of OCP intact, unrefuted, and indeed, unaddressed.

First, RegOC claims that “the HEK-293 cell line, for example—the only fetal cell line associated with the mRNA vaccines—is a kidney cell line isolated from a fetus who died either by miscarriage or elective abortion in 1973.” This claim of RegOC is dangerously misleading and inaccurate in at least two ways. First, the suggestion that the fetus might have died from merely a miscarriage almost certainly cannot be true; it is certain that the unborn child was killed by an elective abortion. Biologist Pamela Acker (author of the book Vaccination: A Catholic Perspective) noted in a recent interview:

“the success and longevity of HEK-293 suggests that the specimen was remarkably well-suited for culturing, and anyone who has studied cell theory should know that you cannot derive a living cell culture from tissue that is already dead. Because of the biological impossibility of creating a live cell line from dead tissue, and the practical and biological implausibility of obtaining live tissue from a spontaneously miscarried fetus, it is far more likely that the baby from whom HEK-293 was derived was electively aborted and alive at the time of tissue extraction.”2

Dr. Jose Trasancos, CEO of Children of God for Life (another highly reputable Roman Catholic pro-life group) emphasized the same point in her article Cell Lines from Miscarriages? Nonsense! She succinctly points out that claims suggesting HEK-293 may have been established from cells taken from a miscarriage are nonsense, “simply because it would never occur to a biologist to even try to establish a living cell line from dead tissue. This cannot be done.” The rest of the article briefly outlines why this is the case.

Furthermore, we have testimony from the scientist who cultured the line, Dr. Alex van der Eb himself. In their article A guide to human fetal cell lines from aborted children used in vaccine development, pro-life group Live Action have a helpful summary of the various cell lines, including HEK-293. Along with a brief description they provide a link to a PDF transcript of an FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee which contains testimony from Dr. Alex van der Eb stating:

"The kidney of the fetus was, with an unknown family history, was obtained in 1972, probably. The precise date is not known anymore. The fetus, as far as I can remember was completely normal. Nothing was wrong. The reasons for the abortion were unknown to me. I probably knew it at that time, but it got lost, all this information." [Note: Original URL: https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3750t1_01.pdf ; Archive.org URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20030329164343/https:/www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3750t1_01.pdf (If the archive.org link is not available, the PDF can be supplied.)]

Thus, while the father of the child may be unknown, the precise date may be unknown, and the exact type of kidney cell may now be impossible to pin down, it is a known FACT that they originate from a "completely normal" aborted fetus whose living tissue was used to establish the HEK-293 cell line.

The idea that the fetus might have died from a miscarriage likely stems from the inaccurate Wikipedia entry for “HEK 293 cells.” Unfortunately, researchers tend to obscure inconvenient details when those details threaten to stain their research legacy. A good example of this comes from the deposition of vaccine research pioneer Dr. Stanley Plotkin. In the nine hours of video now made available on YouTube, one can see how Dr. Plotkin initially will only admit to having used two fetuses for vaccine development but after diligent cross examination he admits to using at least 76 aborted fetuses in research leading up to the two used in vaccine development. Hence when RegOC states that HEK-293 involves “a fetus” (implying only one), it disregards the important point that far more abortions took place in developing the technology enabling the development of HEK-293 than just the one from which the human embryonic kidney cells were derived. The fact remains that vaccines dependent on immortalized fetal cell lines are the product of hundreds of children killed by abortion.

That said, the concern is not how many abortions took place in vaccine production but that any did at all. There is certainly something very troubling with the argument that for the sake of the “good” which vaccines may bring, one can “live with” the abortions which produced them because, after all, there were “only” one, two, or a few of them. Would it be the same reaction if, say, millions of aborted children were needed to achieve the production of such vaccines? One would hope that many more would have serious moral qualms with such and hold the conviction that this would most definitely not be OK. If so, how low would the number of aborted children have to be to still be OK and excusable? The only way to answer this last question without shame and moral compromise, and without trivializing the sacredness and value of all human life, is to say even “one” abortion is too many.

Most important here is not this or that detail or scientific point but rather the moral and theological issues involved which need to be confessed, which RegOC leaves completely unaddressed. Dr. Ryan MacPherson, a scholar and professor at Bethany College of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, in his essay Aborted Human Fetal Tissue in Vaccines, A Summary of Medical Science to Inform Pro-Life Moral Reasoning, notes that arguments justifying the good coming from an abortion assumes a crassly utilitarian point of view. The idea that a few may be made to suffer for the good of the many (abort several hundred babies to bring life-saving vaccines to millions of people), is a line of argument condemned as immoral by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Helsinki Declaration.

More decisively, it also completely contradicts the Christian viewpoint that all persons are created in God’s image and are intrinsically precious, and that one voluntarily gives up one’s own life for the sake of another, as did Christ for us, rather than seeking advantage from what others are made to sacrifice. [Note: Clearly the aborted child did not consent or volunteer to be murdered, nor did he consent to having his body violated and his body parts used for any medical or scientific purposes.]

Second, RegOC asserts that “historical fetal cells lines have been used to develop a wide array of treatments, including many routine drugs” and that “those who refuse the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine on ethical grounds must also refuse the many routine drugs and treatments whose development employed historical fetal cell lines.” This line of argument and conclusion seems similar to (and perhaps is even influenced by?) a recent popular and frequently cited article If Any Drug Tested on HEK-293 Is Immoral, Goodbye Modern Medicine, by Fr. Matthew Schneider.

One of Schneider’s critical errors is that he fails to distinguish between products tested on HEK-293 for their production and which brought them into existence, and tests on those products already developed and in existence, and then lampoons those opposing the Covid vaccines by saying they will also have to oppose such common products as Tylenol, Tums, and Pepto-Bismol. Coupling the latter products together with the Covid vaccines into one common category is unhelpful, misleading, and at worst, deceptive since it does not take into account the decisive difference between the two that without aborted fetal cell lines, we would have none of the present Covid vaccines, but we would still have Tylenol, Tums and Pepto Bismol. Yet the very same misleading line of thought is followed by RegOC when it says that “the person who objects to the use of fetal cell lines on ethical grounds . . . must also (for example) never take acetaminophen,” a drug which was developed in 1877, and whose production obviously has no connection whatsoever to HEK-293, nor the Covid vaccines!

Schneider’s article and his fallacious line of argumentation are thoroughly refuted and demolished in the following articles:

A. Debunking the lie that all medicines were tested on fetal cells by Paul Casey M.D.

B. Debunking more lies about medicines being tested on fetal cells by Paul Casey M.D.

C. Let’s get a few things cleared up: Testing, cell lines, and fetal tissue by Jose L. Trasancos Ph.D.

D. 14 Medicines Fr. Matthew Schneider Claimed Use Aborted Fetal Cell Lines – But Do Not by Jose Trasancos Ph.D.

E. R&D, Testing, Production, and the “But For” Distinction: Defining Our Terms by Stacy A. Trasancos Ph.D.

RegOC’s comments on this topic are inaccurate and misleading. No one opposing abortion tainted vaccines is suggesting such a radical leap, and arguments against abortion tainted vaccines do not inherently lead to the conclusion that one must “say goodbye to modern medicine.” That is a false and misleading train of thought advanced by those who wish to conveniently dismiss the moral arguments surrounding the use of aborted fetal tissue.

Third, RegOC’s assertion that “the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines do not use aborted baby body parts in any way” is, strictly speaking, simply not true.

In footnote 1 RegOC helpfully provides a link to the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) chart that documents the various stages during which a vaccine can become entangled with the abortion industry [Note: The corresponding updated PDF can be found here: https://s27589.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CHART-Analysis-of-COVID-19-Vaccines-02June21.pdf]. The chart provides information on the type of strategy/technology that each company used to develop their vaccine. Focusing on the vaccines available in Canada, one can see that both AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson use the Viral Vector strategy/technology to develop their vaccines. CLI has also published a straight forward document that explains the biotechnology underlying various strategies.

In short, in the Viral Vector approach, "Cultured human cell lines (e.g., PER.c6, HEK293) are used like ‘factories’ to produce large quantities of the engineered viruses" which then constitute the payload that is injected into the recipient [Note: See p.6 - https://s27589.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Viral-Infection-and-Vaccine-Production_On-Science_1_FINALv2-CAD.pdf]. As a result, the final product of this approach, if it uses cultured fetal cell lines, is inextricably dependent on aborted fetal cells for its development and production. Hence these vaccines have been labeled as "ethically controversial" (a term that is euphemistic at best.)

Additionally, researchers have pointed out that (not by design but by limitations of the technology) fragments of the cells used to culture the virus end up in the final product. Furthermore, there is such common knowledge in the scientific community of the DNA of the aborted child within such vaccines that there are even safety limits established by the World Health Organisation, as noted by Pamela Acker in her article Scientific truths, logical fallacies, and acquiescence to evil: A reply to Emmanuele Barbieri, where she notes that, “the safety limit established by the WHO is 10 ng of DNA per dose — a limit that has been revised upwards by a factor of 1000 since the original establishment of the safety limits in the 1980s.” She also notes that there has been a complete lack of oversight of these guidelines, which has “led to vaccines being produced that contain a much larger quantity of residual DNA.” As of this writing, a video by Dr. Theresa Deisher and her colleagues at Sound Choice Pharmaceuticals can still be found here discussing the startling medical problems resulting from this approach [Note: See also: Deisher TA, et al. Impact of environmental factors on the prevalence of autistic disorder after 1979. J Pub Health Epidem , 2014; 6(9): 271-286].

Since of course, each individual has distinct DNA common only to them and derived from their body, such DNA residue is a part of the aborted child’s body which is present in the vaccine and in those who receive it. RegOC’s assertion to the contrary is therefore false and inaccurate.

It would seem only fair that those receiving these vaccines should be aware of this fact before they make the decision to receive it. But more important are the grave offenses against moral law discussed in the articles referenced above, and the point made in footnote 8 of OCP which discusses the argument of Fr. Michael Copenhagen, and which RegOC nowhere addresses:

“While the original killing establishes the illicit character of using the remains, their possession and use becomes a distinct evil in itself, the circumstances of which do not cease as a form of theft, desecration, exploitation, and refusal to bury, regardless of the consumer's distance in time from the abortion, or the number of cell divisions, or the merely sub-cellular fragmentary inclusion of the child's DNA and protein in the final dose” [Note: See Copenhagen, Fr. Michael. Restore Ye to Its Owners: on the immorality of receiving vaccines derived from abortion. cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/VaccineFrCopenhagen.pdf. cited in Acker, Pamela. Vaccination: A Catholic Perspective. Imprimatur, 2021].

Turning briefly to the RNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna; while it is true that the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines makes no use of fetal cell lines in their production, they still made heavy use of such cell lines in their “confirmatory testing” and are therefore also inextricably linked to abortion [Note: Summaries of how the Moderna and Pfizer products’ existence is dependent fetal cell lines can be found at: cogforlife.org/guidance/. For a more detailed explanation see: Point 3: Focus on “confirmatory testing” derailed the ethics in cogforlife.org/2021/01/07/covid-19-vaccine-hek293-testing-and-production-are-ethically-equal/. Detailed scientific evidence is also presented in Pamela Acker’s article www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/scientific-truths-logical-fallacies-and-acquiescence-to-evil-a-reply-to-emmanuele-barbieri/, see section titled: The use of ‘confirmatory testing’ in Pfizer and Moderna vaccines]. In her article, COVID-19 Vaccine and HEK293: Testing and Production are Ethically Equal, Dr. Trasancos outlines in detail the process of such “confirmatory testing” in the development of both the Pfizer and Moderna products and concludes:

the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are no different ethically than the AstraZeneca vaccine or any other vaccine grown in fetal cell lines. In both cases, the production of the vaccine depends on the ongoing use of the illicit fetal cell line. To accept the vaccine means accepting the continued use of cells originating from an aborted child. Given the horrifying way aborted children are still being butchered for scientific research, this is not a time for complacency.

And finally:

To bring this idea into the COVID-19 vaccine and aborted fetal cell line debate, I propose that the pro-life community get back zero-tolerance of the evil of abortion. Stop arguing about whether testing is better than production and specifically demand that all testing and production be ethically performed. Then focus energy on demanding an end to the use of aborted children in research and an end to abortion absolutely.

This last point must be emphasised since RegOC seems to want to divorce Covid vaccines from the act of abortion and assure its readers that any moral complications are tenuous at best. Such claims are simply not supported by evidence and sound reason [Note: For evidence of aborted fetal tissue use in other vaccines see: https://cogforlife.org/prove-it/].

Fourth, RegOC states that “the claim of the OCP—that producing these vaccines increases the demand for fetal tissue—is false,” but offers no evidence, support, or arguments for this assertion other than “the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines do not use aborted baby body parts in any way” (which is addressed above). OCP offers evidence and robust arguments that the use of vaccines derived from abortion will increase such demand for abortion and therefore also the practice of it, quoting from LCMS Ft. Wayne seminary professor Gifford Grobien who makes the same argument. A good discussion could result in any evidence provided to the contrary, but strangely RegOC never responds in any way to Grobien’s arguments but simply makes its assertion with no evidence. Without presenting evidence, RegOC has no basis for saying that the OCP position “is false.”

RegOC seems to believe that it is offering a response to this point by pointing out that in “the Health Canada-approved SARS-CoV-2 vaccines currently in use, lab-multiplied human cells were employed in lab testing,” that “these human cells were multiplied only from historical fetal cell lines” and not fetal tissue itself, and that “the development/testing/production of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines did not and does not depend on new or continued abortions.” Apparently, RegOC assumes this to be a convincing argument because it further assumes that the current cell strains are sufficient to provide an endless supply of future vaccines, never in need of replenishing from more fetal tissue, and more aborted babies to supply them. Hence, the assertion that using such vaccines will not create the demand for more abortions to provide further tissue.

However, such an assumption is completely false. Cell lines are very much mortal. In fact, as noted by Thomas Seidler in his article, Vaccines using fetal tissue: 12 faulty assumptions:

“Despite claims to the contrary, normal cell strains “are in fact ‘mortal’” bound by the “Hayflick Limit” of about 50 cell divisions. Since HEK-293 becomes cancerous after time, it will need replacing — just as other early cell strains did. The use of vaccines eventually creates a need for further abortions to replace depleting stocks” [Note: See point #9 and related references: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vaccines-using-fetal-tissue-12-faulty-assumptions/].

Therefore, RegOC’s distinction between fetal tissue and fetal cell lines is completely beside the point and simply does not comprehend nor respond to the central issue addressed in OCP. In fact, the very quote from the Lozier Institute which RegOC cites concludes by saying “in order to increase the rates of Covid vaccination among the public, many of whom are opposed to the use of fetal cell lines, policymakers may want to encourage the production and availability of vaccines that do not use fetal cell lines.” (Italics mine) — precisely OCP’s very point!

MacPherson shares many of Grobien’s concerns by giving further clear evidence that “abortion-for-vaccines is not just a ‘thing of the past.’ Industry-leading scientists have based their careers upon prior abortions-for-vaccine-development and have made their intentions clear to continue to harvest tissue from new abortions.” He also debunks the very serious faulty premises and assumptions outlined in the well-known and employed Olshansky-Hayflick syllogism used to defend the continued fetal cell market and industry: [Note: Found expressed by its proponents, for example, in S. J. Olshansky and L. Hayflick, “The Role of the WI-38 Cell Strain in Saving Lives and Reducing Morbidity,” AIMS Public Health 4, no. 2 (2017): 127–38; See p.6: https://www.intoyourhandsllc.com/download/Use-of-Aborted-Human-Fetal-Tissue-in-Vaccines.pdf].

1st Premise: The health of the world’s population depends upon vaccines.

2nd Premise: Vaccine research and mass-production depends upon human fetal tissue, including new sources from new abortions.

Conclusion: Therefore, the health of the world’s population depends upon the continuation of abortion and human fetal tissue research.

MacPherson shows conclusively that both premises above are false since “alternatives to vaccines exist,” and “at least some vaccines have been developed without any direct dependency upon abortion,” so that therefore also false is the final conclusion. MacPherson further notes:

“Although immunity does not require vaccination, and vaccination does not require abortion, the leading scientists in the vaccine industry tend to promote abortion-dependent vaccination as if that is the only means of saving (postnatal) lives. Sound reasoning, by contrast, requires that we bring their fallacies to the surface, scrutinize their assumptions, and then seek an alternative, and moral, means toward the end of promoting human health” [Note: See p.7: https://www.intoyourhandsllc.com/download/Use-of-Aborted-Human-Fetal-Tissue-in-Vaccines.pdf].

Fifth: a few responses to statements made by RegOC that are not central to the moral/ethical/ theological argument laid out in OCP, but which nevertheless must be addressed as they are erroneous and/or misleading:

A. Regarding RegOC’s criticisms of OCP’s use of the term “gene therapy:” RegOC boldly asserts, “These vaccines are not gene therapy. Not in any sense of the term.” The author then goes on to make several other assertions: (1) that the spike protein is harmless, (2) that “the messenger RNA is degraded (in a matter of hours or days),” and (3) that “the vaccine does not and cannot interact with our DNA or genes” and that “it is biologically impossible for any of the Health Canada-approved SARS-CoV-2 vaccines to alter our DNA or genes.” One can understand that the author would take such a position since these are the talking points that Pfizer and Moderna have given to the medical community and media, which they have been repeating since the public conversation surrounding this technology began [Note: The disconcerting part in all this is that throughout the approval process the pharmaceutical companies are effectively tasked with policing themselves and have been authorized to essentially write their own report card.].

If one insists that the definition of “gene therapy” is a therapy that is specifically designed to replace an “abnormal gene” responsible for debilitating illness with a “good gene” to end the abnormality and cure the illness, then mRNA Covid vaccines do not meet that definition. However, critics of the mRNA vaccine approach use terms like “gene therapy” or “gene-based therapy” [Note: It is significant that even in the hostile WebMD article: Chance That COVID-19 Vaccines Are Gene Therapy? 'Zero', there is nevertheless conceded that “messenger RNA is genetic material, so in that sense, the vaccines are genetically based therapy”]. to highlight the similarity and technological overlap between the genetic tools used to accomplish traditional “gene therapy” and the mRNA “vaccine” approach to stimulate an immune response. Since there are many risks associated with gene therapy, the FDA normally requires genotoxicity studies. However, since the FDA did not treat the mRNA vaccine technology as a gene therapy product no genotoxicity studies were required and only time will tell if real risks exist.

A key assumption behind the lack of caution is that “mRNA is typically degraded quite rapidly once manufactured or released into a cell.” Hence, the observation made by Katharina Röltgen and colleagues that “Vaccine spike antigen and mRNA persist for weeks in lymph node GCs” is quite troubling and alarming. In his article “When is mRNA not really mRNA?” Robert Malone notes that one of the possible reasons that the Pfizer/Moderna mRNA can persist in lymph nodes for 60 days after injection is that it incorporates the synthetic nucleotide pseudouridine. He writes,

This is not natural, and this is not really mRNA. These molecules have genetic elements similar to those of natural mRNA, but they are clearly far more resistant to the enzymes which normally degrade natural mRNA, seem to be capable of producing high levels of protein for extended periods, and seem to evade normal immunologic mechanisms for eliminating cells which produce foreign proteins which are not normally observed in the body [Note: Malone, Robert W. When is mRNA not really mRNA? https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/when-is-mrna-not-really-mrna?s=r].

Similarly, other studies have emerged that have called into question other fundamental assumptions. In theory, the “vaccine” payload was supposed to stay in the intramuscular tissue of the injection site where the “harmless” spike protein was to be manufactured. More recently biodistribution studies have come to light indicating the presence of spike protein in various tissues in the body,37 [Note: One of the first to blow the whistle on this was Dr. Byram Bridle of the University of Guelph. For a summary of Dr. Bridle and his team’s findings see: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-vaccine-spike-protein-travels-from-injection-site-organ-damage/] and there is increasing evidence that the spike protein itself is cytotoxic and possibly responsible for at least some of the vaccine related adverse events [Note: For a peer reviewed study see: Jiang, Hui, and Ya-Fang Mei. “SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro.” Viruses 2021, 13(10), 2056; https://doi.org/10.3390/v13102056 . For a discussion of the wider implications of this study see: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-vaccines-immune-system-cancer-risks/. For another discussion surrounding the problems with using the spike protein in vaccines see: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/moderna-pfizer-vaccines-blood-clots-inflammation-brain-heart/. Also see: Flavio, Cadegiani. “Catecholamines are the key trigger of mRNA SARS-CoV-2 and mRNA COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis and sudden deaths: a compelling hypothesis supported by epidemiological, anatomopathological, molecular and physiological findings.” ResearchGate, Preprint.]

Finally, the possibility that the mRNA used in the vaccines may travel into the nucleus, be reverse transcribed (RNA to DNA), and insert or recombine with a cellular genome may not be as far-fetched as once thought. In a recent study published in Current Issues in Molecular Biology, Markus Alden and colleagues present evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 is able to enter the human liver cell line Huh7 in vitro. BNT162b2 mRNA is reverse transcribed intracellularly into DNA as fast as 6 h after BNT162b2 exposure. A possible mechanism for reverse transcription is through endogenous reverse transcriptase LINE-1, and the nucleus protein distribution of LINE-1 is elevated by BNT162b2 [Note: Alden, Markus et al. “Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line.” Curr. Issues Mol. Biol. 2022. 44(3), 1115-1126; https://doi.org/10.3390/cimb44030073; Note: Many proponents and detractors have misrepresented the Alden et al. study cited above as evidence that Pfizer/Moderna mRNA can alter cellular DNA. This is not the case. However, the research indicates that further studies must be done. For a good discussion see: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/pfizer-vaccine-potential-alter-dna-human-liver-cells/].

Given the available evidence and pharmaceutical company history of hiding inconvenient research (see next point) it seems prudent to exercise caution regarding the novel mRNA approach – cavalier “biology textbook” waving notwithstanding.

Finally, OCP’s preference for calling the mRNA approach a therapy instead of a “vaccine” reflects the reality that these products do not meet the classical definition of vaccine as something that confers immunity and prevents infection and transmission. The past two years have seen an evolution in the definition of “Vaccine.” The one-and-done promise of immunity (with frequent comparisons to traditional vaccines such as polio) has given way to a stunning admission that Covid “vaccines” neither confer immunity nor necessarily prevent infection and transmission. Much like the slowly boiled frog we have come to accept that at best these products may, for a short time, reduce one’s chances of infection and may offer the therapeutic benefit of reducing the severity of possible symptoms should one get infected.

In any case, while it is crucial that scientists continue to investigate and debate these issues, and while they are of great importance to individual health outcomes; in the interest of keeping our focus upon the central moral issues, OCP authors would be willing to revise the footnote to read: “experimental therapies.”

B. RegOC asserts that Covid “vaccines are not experimental,” and that “they have been tested as rigorously as other vaccines.” Although public health officials have emphasized that the currently available Covid vaccines are ‘tested’ and ‘safe’ – with some news reports even claiming they are 100% safe and 100% effective [Note: For example: MSNBC | Pfizer says their Covid vaccine is 100 percent effective in kids ages 12-15. Such claims are clearly nonsense. No vaccine is 100% safe and no vaccine is 100% effective] – this does not address the fundamental criticisms that have been leveled against the Operation Warp Speed approach. Ethical issues aside, running several phases of short-term clinical trials in rapid succession and with some overlap has saved some time, [Note: “For example, some clinical trial phases overlapped with each other and with animal studies to accelerate development.” See: Operation Warp Speed: Accelerated COVID-19 Vaccine Development Status and Efforts to Address Manufacturing Challenges. U.S. Government Accountability Office. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-319] however, without a time machine there simply is not a way to gather the long-term safety data that would normally be necessary for a new vaccine product to enter the market. As time passes, an increasing number of scholarly articles have pointed out possible problems [Note: For example, several peer reviewed articles have highlighted the lack of data relating to female fertility; See: Riley, Laura E. MRNA Covid-19 Vaccines in Pregnant Women. NEJM, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejme2107070].

Though the world may not value fertility or see it as an afterthought, Christians operating from a Biblical worldview regard protecting fertility as part of our Lord’s mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.” .

Equally troubling is that all companies have insisted on secret contracts that completely indemnify them from any liability and have consistently refused to publish their full trial data, a list of possible side-effects, and a full list of ingredients. Nevertheless, troubling information continues to trickle out. In November the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published an article highlighting whistleblower testimony concerning serious problems with Pfizer’s vaccine trials [Note: Thacker, Paul D. Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial. The BMJ, https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635 ; See also: Taylor, Luke. Covid-19: Trial of experimental “covid cure” is among worst medical ethics violations in Brazil’s history, says regulator. The BMJ, https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2819.] More recently Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have forced the FDA to publish their information regarding Covid vaccine trials.48 While it will take time for researchers to carefully analyze the data as it becomes available, it has become clear that much has been kept from the public, and that, as Steve Kirsch put it, “Pfizer’s own data does not support the claim their COVID-19 vaccines are ‘safe and effective.’” One of the Pfizer documents obtained titled Cumulative Analysis Of Post-authorization Adverse Event Reports Of Pf-07302048 (Bnt162b2) Received Through 28-feb-2021, lists 1,291 possible side-effects. [Note: See Appendix 1, p.30: https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf. See also: https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/vaccine-choice-canada-calls-for-ending-pfizer-shot-amid-report-showing-it-caused-more-than-1200-adverse-reactions/, and https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/pfizer-analysis-vaccine-data-safety-concerns/]. Suspicions raised by such data are certainly not allayed when Pfizer and the FDA fight hard to keep these documents from being released.

One final note on this topic is that approval from the FDA and its Canadian counterpart does not necessarily ensure that a product will prove safe in the long run. One can recall the tragedy surrounding the approval of Thalidomide during pregnancy in the 50s and 60s, or the more recent Opioid epidemic caused by fraudulent research put forward by pharmaceutical companies, approved by the FDA, and supported by a network of complicit physicians who all were more concerned with profits than patient safety. One must also not forget Pfizer’s own extensive criminal history of putting profits ahead of patients [Note: Pfizer has a long and storied history of being found guilty of criminal behaviour: See: Pfizer Unit to Settle Charges Of Lying About Heart Valve. NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/02/business/pfizer-unit-to-settle-charges-of-lying-about-heart-valve.html Achive.org snapshot (not paywalled): https://web.archive.org/web/20200915210708/https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/02/business/pfizer-unit-to-settle-charges-of-lying-about-heart-valve.html; See also: Manufacturer of Faulty Heart Valve Barred Data on Dangers, F.D.A. Says. NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/21/us/manufacturer-of-faulty-heart-valve-barred-data-on-dangers-fda-says.html; Archive.org snapshot (not paywalled): https://web.archive.org/web/20141203010321/https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/21/us/manufacturer-of-faulty-heart-valve-barred-data-on-dangers-fda-says.html; See also: Pfizer Pays $2.3B, but Will It Change the Pharmaceutical Industry? abcNEWS, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/pfizers-23-billion-settlement-change-practices/story?id=8476391; See also: Pfizer: Corporate Rap Sheet. https://www.corp-research.org/pfizer; See also: Pfizer: Six Scandals To Remember. https://corporatewatch.org/pfizer-six-scandals-to-remember/]. The faulty dynamics in play surrounding drug research, peer-reviewed publishing, and drug approval have been well described by Jureidini and McHenry in their seminal book The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine: Exposing the Crisis of Credibility in Clinical Research, (and summarized in their recent BMJ article with the same title.) [Note: Jureidini, Jon, and Leemon B. McHenry. The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine: Exposing the Crisis of Credibility in Clinical Research. Wakefield Press, 2020. Jureidini, Jon, and Leemon B. McHenry. The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine. The BMJ, https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o702.] As Lutherans who have a robust theology of the body [Note: See Chapter 2, Section: Duty of Care for the Body, pp.49-50 in: Kleinig, John W. Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology of the Body. Lexham Press, 2021] we ought to be aware of and concerned with the uncritical use of pharmaceuticals that have the potential to do more harm than good.

Considering the above, OCP’s use of the term “experimental” in connection with Covid vaccines simply deals with the current lack of safety data and the fact that key clinical trials are still ongoing, not a classification by a government agency. As stated previously, we are willing to engage the scientific debate on these points as evidence merges, but these points are not central to the ethical and moral issues raised by OCP.

C. RegOC also takes strong issue with the writings and claims of Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Peter McCullough. It is important to note that OCP makes no commitment to the writings of either Malone, McCullough or, for that matter, to any other scientist or scientific observation or theory. The only reason OCP refers to Malone and McCullough (and this only incidentally in a footnote) is merely as examples of censorship of ideas in scientific discourse which OCP believes should not take place. Most Christians are not trained scientists able to speak authoritatively on scientific matters or adjudicate between competing claims. We can only, to best we can, attempt to read the literature of various scientific authorities and differing sides on controversial issues, and their responses to each other. But we can only do so if there is, in fact, free discourse of ideas allowed without one side repressing and censoring the other or claiming the other side as “conspiracy theorists” so that they do not deserve to be heard and considered. Indeed, it has often been the case that unpopular ideas of the past derided by their detractors as conspiracy theorists have turned out to be true after all. So, if RegOC, for instance, were to give evidence for arguing against Malone and McCullough’s scientific and medical points we would consider that to be a welcome and productive contribution to the continued discussion of the scientific dimensions of this issue. When RegOC simply derides and dismisses them as “conspiracy theorists,” and their audience as the “vaccine hesitant,” it stifles much needed debate and is not helpful [Note: An astute follower of the scientific debate will notice that virtually all the popular articles claiming to “fact check” or “refute” Robert Malone and Peter McCullough do not engage with their scientific or medical criticisms but rather engage in 8th commandment character assassinations questioning their motives etc. or focus on parenthetical comments outside their areas of expertise. For Dr. Malone’s rebuttals please see: https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-the-daily-mail-article?s=r and https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/bushwhacked-by-alex-berenson-on-fox?s=r].

All alert Christians have long been aware of the biases, distortions, and falsehoods which are routinely propagated by our modern Canadian society, press, and government on the topic of abortion (and on so many other topics such as evolution, homosexuality, transgenderism, doctor assisted suicide, and the like) shaped by assumptions and worldviews uninformed by and often directly opposed to Christian viewpoints, and Christians would be naive to suppose that discussions on the current Covid vaccines so closely connected with abortion would be carried on by the same people without those same biases. Christians need to be constantly on guard with discernment when listening to the prevailing narratives on these topics which will bend and shape information and data for the purpose of pushing such secular anti-Christian narratives like those concerning abortion in view of making them acceptable to the public at large. Such discernment can only happen with clear thinking and reasoning on these matters, but such will increasingly be subverted by the deep sub-rational and even irrational “woke” worldviews pressed in our society today which lead Christians away from their sober, rational confessions of the truth, away from the perspectives about the sanctity of all human life created in the image of God, and away from things eternal. In other words, the only way to see our way clear through these matters is a robust theological discussion and perspective of them, anchored by Biblical truth, informed by our Lutheran Confessions, shaping in us a thoroughly Lutheran Christian worldview, all within the ministry of Word and Sacrament in Divine Worship, which recognises sin, leads to repentance and faith, and rejoices in the forgiveness of the Gospel.

Forming such a theological perspective is, in fact, how the Lutheran Church–Canada has handled these matters in the past, and in doing so, the Lutheran Church–Canada has formed and does have an official public position on the matter of fetal tissue embryonic stem cell research. At her 2002 Convention she passed Resolution 02.1.02 entitled That Lutheran Church–Canada Provide Leadership in The Formation of An Autonomous Canadian Lutherans for Life Organization, where it is stated in its third whereas that “God’s sacred gift of human life continues to be cheapened, ignored, and destroyed on a variety of fronts such as . . . fetal tissue embryonic stem cell research.” This whereas expresses firm opposition to the process of fetal tissue research and makes it urgent to create Canadian Lutherans for Life in order to warn and speak out against this very thing. It is certain that such fetal tissue research was involved with the production of the Covid-19 vaccines, so that this resolution also expresses opposition to the production of such vaccines in this manner. Furthermore, it can scarcely be denied that if consistently carried out, this resolution would result in there being no vaccines derived from aborted baby body parts in existence to be used, and therefore none around being used, and also then no one using them. That is the situation for which the resolution, and the Synod which passed it, fervently seeks, hopes, and for which she prays [Note: In a pre-Covid (May 2019) interview for Live Action, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Dr. Tara Sander Lee argues that the longer we allow the practice of using aborted fetal tissue in research, the more entrenched and embedded this practice will become. It will also become harder and harder to move researchers away from using aborted fetal tissue, and people are going to become more numb and blinded to the atrocities that accompany this research. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdFCT-XY_Pk]

It is OCP’s goal that this historic public position of LCC continues to be supported, reaffirmed, believed, taught, and confessed by the clergy and the laity of the LCC, and that we together firmly resist all attempts to ignore, forget, or quietly lay it aside. OCP signatories strongly encourage that the PMC and leaders of our Synod lead and promote free and wide discussion of these theological issues among both LCC clergy and laity on the basis of Holy Scripture for the building up of unity in our midst and for the free course of the ministry of the Holy Gospel.

Rev. Paul R. Williams

Objecting to Our Governments for Controlling Our Consciences

To: The President and Regional Pastors of Lutheran Church-Canada

From: The Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley Circuit, 17 March 2022

Regarding: Objecting to Our Governments for Controlling Our Consciences

1. According to Romans 13:1-7, Christians should "be subject to the governing authorities ... instituted by God" (v. 1), who are "not a terror to good conduct, but to bad", so "do what is good, and you will receive approval" (v. 3) "for the sake of conscience" (v. 5).

2. Our human consciences are not infallible ("... to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled", Titus 1:15). Even the consciences of us believers may not be pure, for they can easily be defiled by our own lustful selfishness, by Satan's lies, or by the culture in which we live, which is influenced by our acquaintances and the brainwashing of one-sided media. Our consciences are only godly if they are informed and defined by the Word of God ("... we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honourably in all things", Hebrews 13:18). For we can "act honourably in all things" only if our consciences are guided clearly by God's will. Evil people are guilty of evil deeds, even when they sincerely believe that they are guided by their consciences. When we honestly investigate our own actions, we shall find some that were influenced by a conscience that was not guided according to God's Word. That is why we must daily educate our consciences by studying God's Word and with His help trying to conform them to His will.

3. Our godless government promotes abortion-on-demand (which violates the Fifth Commandment), and physicians who by their conscience refuse to perform abortions are often pressured by their hospitals to do them.

4. Our Prime Minister has directed his Ministers of Finance and of Women to put into effect from the Liberal Party Platform that pregnancy clinics who "dishonestly" counsel pregnant women be denied their charitable status. However, the many pregnancy care centres provide a safe environment for women to make pregnancy decisions that are fully informed, giving them medically accurate information on abortion, adoption and parenting. No legitimate charity should be considered dishonest because it disagrees with the government's position.

5. The BC government and Fraser Health Authority forced the Irene Thomas Hospice in Delta, BC, a leader in providing conscientious high quality palliative care until natural death, to include euthanasia (Medical Assistance in Dying, MAiD; violating the Fifth Commandment).

6. Our government promotes homosexuality, also in foreign relations (violating the Sixth Commandment), and may prosecute anyone who speaks against it for "hate speech" and anyone who counsels concerning homosexuality, including even parents (violating the Fourth Commandment) and pastors, according to their conscience and calling. Mr. William Whatcott is currently on trial before the Toronto Court of Appeal, charged with "hate speech" because he publicly distributed flyers that truthfully warned of the physical and psychological suffering caused by the LGBT lifestyle.

7. Our government's Law C-4 promotes transgenderism, violating God's creation of male and female, by

prohibiting any treatment or service designed to reduce or repress a person's non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour, or to deny one's non-heterosexual orientation or gender identity, so that it confirms one's sex at birth. It criminalizes "conversion therapy" by anyone for counseling minors concerning it, even parents (violating the Fourth Commandment), counselors, physicians and pastors according to their conscience and calling.

8. The Public Health Officer of BC prohibits physicians from issuing medical exemptions from Covid "vaccinations", preventing them from practicing their profession according to their conscience.

9. By publicly influencing behaviour through the mandating of the Covid (so-called) "vaccinations", our governments prevent refusal by reason of conscience.

10. THUS, our governments oppose the will of God by being a terror "to good conduct" and by disapproving of "what is good" (see Romans 13:3). They are thereby trying to educate the consciences of our people and to control them against the Word and will of God, so that we can justly declare with the Apostles: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).

11. Christians of the early Church were persecuted in the Roman Empire for refusing to offer sacrifices to the emperor as lord (and even god), for they honoured only Jesus Christ as Lord and God according to their conscience ("... God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus ...", Acts 2:36; "... we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God ...", Hebrews 4:14).

12. Martin Luther took his stand on the truth of God's Word at the Diet of Worms by which his conscience was directed, because one should not act against one's conscience as directed by God's Word and will (see Romans 13:5; Hebrews 13:18).

13. THEREFORE, because our governments try to control our people's consciences in the place of God and His Word, we pastors and the Church of Christ are duty bound to object publicly against this godless authority that tries to produce a tyranny of our consciences.

14. The Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley Circuit hereby respectfully requests the President and Regional Pastors of Lutheran Church-Canada to give careful attention to this document and request and to publicize to all pastors and congregations appropriate objections to our governments for tyrannizing the consciences of our people.

REFLCTIONS ON CHURCH AND STATE IN CANADA DURING COVID

Rev. Paul R. Williams

Grace Lutheran Church

Locksley, Pembroke, Ontario, Canada

October, 2021

We welcome you all again this year to our annual Ottawa Valley Lay Leader’s Conference.

The purpose of this annual conference, no matter what the individual topic may be, is always one thing-- that pastors and lay leaders together remain steadfast in the most holy Christian Faith and stay faithful to the orthodox and apostolic doctrine of the Christian faith taught in the Scriptures and confessed in the Lutheran Confessions. To impress upon all of us that we are indeed always a Church Militant, fighting the good fight of faith; with the devil, the world and our own sinful flesh within us always making war against us, seeking to rob of us of our faith, and that we must wield our weapons, the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and keep that sword sharp with our doctrine pure and our hearts and minds ready with a clear knowledge and confession of the true faith.

I would think that it is the common impression and experience of most all of us that we have seen the society around us grow increasingly indifferent and even hostile to the Christian faith. Until recently, Christians have been accustomed to find support for Christian values and teachings in our public institutions of school, the media and press, government, marriage and family. But now, poisoned by inane political-correct ideology, and utterly irrational “wokeness”, it is not only these very same institutions by which faithful Christians will find themselves marginalized and even persecuted, but they will even now find the same inflicted upon them by the apostate paganism prevalent in mainline liberal Christian churches!

How are Christians to respond in these dire times? Well, only what has been given to us to do always in any situation, continue to confess the faith faithfully, the doctrine which we confess which proclaims to us that our Lord has already won the victory and we will share in it to the full, indeed, we already do in Word and Sacrament, the Feast of Victory for our God!

What causes so many in the church to miss this transcendent wonder these days is, as Kurt Marquart observes, the church’s very comfortableness which she has enjoyed until recent times. “Assured of her temporal well-being,” the church has often not had “to bother about the transcendent grounds of her existence.” She grew "soft, flabby and compliant. It was as if a vertebrate organism had been strapped for centuries into an artificial skeleton, leaving its own backbone to atrophy from disuse” [Note: See Kurt E. Marquart, The Church and her Fellowship, Ministry and Governance, p. 2] But if we are now in times of uncomfortableness for the church, we must not forget that the church always thrives during persecution when she lives under the cross, and has nothing but the Gospel! It is an opportunity for us get a backbone and confess!

In our Lay Leaders conference this year, we will focus upon confessing clearly concerning one of the two institutions in particular in addition to the Church with which we Christians interact in our calling and vocations in this life— the government, the state [Note: This is commonly referred to as the Two Kingdoms, the church being the Kingdom of the Right, and the state, the Kingdom of the Left. However, Luther’s understanding of God’s rule in this world is more fully understood as three Kingdoms, including also the family, as can be seen expressed in the Table of Duties. We fully endorse that perspective here, but also here focus only upon two of Luther’s three kingdoms, church and state].

God at first created all things good and man very good so that all would live in willing harmony and peace under God’s sovereign rule which manifests itself in God’s Self-giving love and blessing to man. God’s creation of Adam immediately brought into existence the Holy Christian Church, where God is with His word gathering Sheep who hear Him. And note that this church in the beginning was none other than what we call today the Lutheran Church, confessing from the beginning her timeless and eternal doctrine! Here the Christian faith has a fundamentally different understanding of God from every other religion in the world. It involves not man’s submission as a slave to a god who rules as a stern master, but the submission of man as a son to One Who rules as a loving Father. From Adam’s rib was created Eve with the mandate to be fruitful and multiply, and thus the institution of the family. Note that the temple is earlier than the home, both created before the fall, part of God’s good and perfect will for man, and both predate the state, at this time not yet existing for without sin there was no need for it.

But Adam and Eve fell into sin, attempting to declare independence from God’s rule, as did the prodigal son from his father. But there is no place in the universe possible outside of the reach of God’s sovereignty, domain, and jurisdiction. The only thing one can declare independence from is God’s gracious rule in His family of love, and that independence is called hell, where God is still eternally sovereign with His rule over man (and over the devil and the demons), but it is a rule of judgment and curse.

But God, in His great love for fallen man, wishes to restore a fatherly rule over him by restoring His relationship with man which He intended and created him to have from the beginning, the rule of the Kingdom of God, which comes never in judgment but in grace, mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ in the ministry of the church. This Kingdom is made up of all Christians and is exactly identical and synonymous with the Christian Church and is ruled by the Gospel and the Word of God. This Kingdom, the church, is not of this world, and yet, just as was Christ in His earthly ministry, the church is present within this world in a humble and lowly way, her glory hidden living under the cross, but which at the Saviour’s return will be fully revealed in transcendent glory. This Kingdom is eternal and will last forever.

Distinguished from this is another way that God rules fallen and sinful mankind through temporal authority which exists because sin exists. The common secular perspective on the state is that it is a humanly devised institution fashioned for man’s own enlightened self interest in any way he pleases to create and provide for his own happiness with things of this world. Directly contrary to this, central to a Christian perspective of government, is that man’s own self-interest is deeply flawed, self-destructive and evil, and furthermore that such sin is so deeply rooted in man’s nature that the government can never hope to solve it (and simply compounds evil when it attempts to create utopian societies—such as in communism) Government is instituted by God in His gracious mercy to restrain and hold in check man’s innate self-interest, and at best channels his sinful selfishness to productive ends. It rules by means of law, force, compulsion, rewards, punishments, even capital punishment in indeed, sometimes even war!

But it is vital to point out that regardless of how indifferent or hostile present government officials may be to the Christian faith, Christian norms and the things of God, the government is, as St. Augustine pointed out in his magisterial City of God, never some “autonomous zone of uncontrolled evil” [Note: The phrase is by Marquart, p, 175. Marquart quotes from Augustine: “nor did God remove man from his power, even when he made him subject to the Devil by way of punishment; for God has not put even the devil outside his dominion.” (Augustine, City of God, 595,1070)] outside or independent of the authority of God. “There is no authority except that which God has established” (Rom. 13:2), and God has established and provided government to be “hardwired” with certain definite duties and responsibilities, to wit, to “bear the sword” and be an “agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” Furthermore, God is always sovereign over the government, and they are always God’s servant through which God exercises His divine rule.

Indeed, it is in part through the stability and order provided by the state through which God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, exercises His First Article work to secure for us “clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and home, to richly and daily provide me with all that I need to support this body and life and to defend me against all danger and guard and protect me from all evil; and for this it is our duty to thanks and praise Him” . . . for, in part, those ruling authorities themselves! And furthermore, it is for “pious and faithful rulers,” and “good government” that Luther reminds us to be among the things we pray to God for when we petition Him to “give us this day our daily bread.” and which provides the stability for many of the long list of other things included in his explanation to this petition. In this way, God has provided the state and many of the other stations of those in life, most all family, father and mother, as bulwarks against the devil who is constantly attempting to assail God’s good creation and bring to it disorder, chaos and destruction.

In our modern world, it is the tendency to look at the religious or spiritual as one little side of life, and then only with some people’s life and not others, and that it is only this dimension of life that has anything to do with God. Then there is supposedly the non-religious, the secular, and god (by whatever name or understanding of him) is considered far removed from this—He is quarantined into the religious side of things, and He is to stay there and leave us alone in the non-religious. And the government is considered non-religious and secular, so that God, and by extension also the church, have nothing to do with it. Much of this idea finds its root in medieval Roman Catholic practices which viewed true religious life only to be found in the holy orders of priesthood and monastic life, and outside of that even ordinary Christians were involved with the secular life, and such was the case with government. The only way to have God control the state was if the church had power and control over it and sanctified it.

In direct opposition to this was Luther’s Two Kingdoms teaching where God is in control of every aspect of life, in particular the state through the earthly ruler who is God’s instrument and servant. Indeed, government cannot really “work” when it is seen as nothing more than the expression of the fickle will of the people, the voter, or popular will (Communists and Fascists routinely appeal to such things to defend their tyranny); government can only truly operate when there is recognized above those who rule a higher authority to whom they are subject, a moral authority and rule to which both government and society must align themselves. So, for instance, the Canadian constitution anchors its Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the bold and confident declaration that “Canada is founded upon principles that recognizes the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”

Now to be clear, this does not mean that the church is to attempt to use the government to impose the Christian faith upon the people of Canada in a misguided attempt thereby to “build up the Kingdom of God.” This is not a role that God has given the government to have. It is through the church and her ministry of Word and Sacrament which alone can reach down to the heart and produce Christian faith and build up the Kingdom of God. Conversion to the Christian faith is wrought only by the Gospel; if the Law preached in the church can never bring repentance and faith in the heart, it will then certainly never come about when legislated by the state! The government is “concerned with other things than the Gospel. The state protects not souls but bodies and goods from manifest harm, and constrains men with sword and physical penalties.” (AC XXVIII.10-12). Such constraint is concerned only with the outward behaviour of man and nothing more; the policeman only cares that you stopped at the red light as you should, he will not give you a ticket because he suspects that in your heart you did not want to and did so grudgingly!

Therefore, it is never the God-given role of the state to attempt to produce Christians, or even engender the good works of the fruit of faith—it is simply incapable of doing so, and which God has not designed the state to be capable of doing. The most that the state can do is merely coerce persons not to commit destructive crimes which hurt others (do not rob, or kill) and to coerce them to do things which must be done for the well-being of society at large (pay taxes, etc.), and threaten them with the sword if they do or do not. The state requires and engenders only an outward civil righteousness.

Furthermore, God has so designed the rule of the state so that it does not and must not attempt to rule on the basis of merely the revealed Word of God, Scripture, and Christian truth for the simple reason that most people are not Christians and they have no access to these truths, must less have the heart to receive them, but still God must rule over them for their good in ways that the average pagan can understand and which he can accept. The basis which God uses to rule is the law written in man’s heart which St. Paul describes in Romans, “for when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness.” From within the context of this innate sense of right and wrong embedded in man’s irreducibly moral nature, citizens and government legislators and rulers makes judgments according to reason and common sense.

So, for instance, it is upon the basis of the obvious conclusion of sound reason which anyone can see that abortion is the murder of an innocent human being, a cruel evil injustice which must not be allowed to remain legal. Being pro-life is not simply a Christian stance, that one is then pressing Christianity upon the public at large by insisting that Canada must protect the unborn; a non-Christian does not excuse himself of needing to be pro-life simply because he doesn’t recognize Biblical teaching and authority—that abortion is wrong is written in his heart. One does not need to be a Christian to be against abortion—simply a decent human being—on appeal to that must the state press for such human justice. The unique life-giving and most crucial message of the church which only she can give on the matter of abortion is the forgiveness, repentance and renewal of life for those who have committed abortion which they have in Christ.

Also, it is on the basis of the obvious conclusion of sound reason and common sense which anyone can see, that same sex “marriage” is simply unnatural and should not be legally recognized. A man and a woman evince a design in their anatomy in which they mutually “fit together,” and what shows that there is purpose to such design is that life is created in the process. There is an intrinsic heterosexuality hardwired into the design of the human body, and when people say that their emotions or desire go in a different homosexual direction, they are simply admitting themselves to be emotionally torn asunder within. We, of course may be sympathetic and compassionate towards them (and as Christians we need to be) but we do not form public policy and shape social institutions on the basis of and to support and encourage unhealthy distortions of wholeness within persons. Recognizing marriage to be between a man and a woman alone is not just a Christian issue, that one is pressing Christianity upon the public at large by insisting that Canada must recognize only heterosexual marriage, it is self-evident from natural law and reason. One does not need to be a Christian to be against sodomy “marriage”—just a rational thinking human being—on appeal to that must the state press to uphold true marriage. And what the church has more to say on this topic than what is found written in man’s heart is forgiveness, and renewal of life for those who struggle with the sin of homosexuality.

The reason that such things as the killing of unborn children and sodomy “marriage” have now become so accepted in Canadian society is not simply because Canadian culture has lost its Christian moorings—it is because society has lost its ability to think; we have become sub-rational, even irrational. We cannot think and see reality any more, which sin will tend to do to us as it drives us behind the fig leaves, into the darkness, into blindness so that we will hide from God and not see Him, and therefore not see His created nature which bears witness all too clearly to His existence and sovereignty over our lives. It is that self-evident existence of God which the Canadian Charter of Rights still sees clearly enough to see and which undergirds the reason and common sense which form the basis of government’s rule. The Christian faith doesn’t just save us; it helps us to keep our reason and sanity so that we can think clearly again, and so serve the world in our callings and vocations all the more effectively.

So, the specific roles and duties of each of the two kingdoms must be clearly distinguished from each other and not allowed to be confused. Luther remarks that “'I am constantly obliged to beat, hammer, drive and knock in the distinction between these two kingdoms, even though I should write and speak about it so often that it becomes wearisome. For the accursed devil is unceasingly cooking and brewing these two kingdoms into one” [Note: WA 51. 239, 22-25]. The basic distinction between them is Law and Gospel. God rules the church only through the Gospel, forgiving sins, justifying and sanctifying, always giving to those who deserve nothing, never threatening nor demanding through the Law except to drive to contrition and repentance in order to show the need for the gifts of the Gospel. But the state is ruled only through the Law, demanding, coercing, punishing, threatening with the sword, rewarding only those who deserve it and have earned it with commendable behavior. If the law is used to rule the church, it will result in chocking the Gospel and life out of the church and from each Christian, for the Law only kills and puts to death and cannot bring forth faith and spiritual life. Likewise, if one attempts to use the Gospel to rule the state, the Gospel would be turned into the Law and we shall lose the Gospel. As Luther notes,

“What would be the result of an attempt to rule the world by the Gospel and the abolition of earthly law and force? It would be loosing savage beasts from their chains. The wicked, under cover of the Christian name, would make unjust use of their Christian freedom.” [Note: Temporal Authority (1523) AE:45:91]. “To try to rule a nation, or the world by the Gospel would be like putting wolves, lions, eagles and sheep all together in the fold and say to them, ‘now graze, and live a godly and peaceful life together, the door is open and there is pasture enough, and no sheepdog around that you need to fear. The sheep would keep the peace, but they would not live very long!” [Note: Temporal Authority (1523) AE:45:91-92].

So, the question arises, does the church and do individual Christians have any role at all in influencing things in the state? Indeed, Luther’s Two Kingdom’s teaching has been accused of surrendering the government to secularism, but nothing could be further from the truth. Though the roles and duties of the two kingdoms must be distinguished, they are never to be separated, never confused, but also never isolated one from the other, for it is the same one God ruling over each. In Luther’s first and most important treatise on the two kingdoms, in his almost first line of introduction he says that here will write about worldly authority and its sword, and how to use the same in a Christian manner,” [Note: Temporal Authority (1523) AE:45:81] and with a specifically Christian way of exercising power, there is therefore also by contrast a non-Christian way of doing so. It is not the role of the church to bear the sword but it IS her role to teach the Christian way of bearing it, to remind the authorities of the Law of God, written in their heart but expressed more clearly in Christian teaching to which they are subject.

As Luther scholar Nygren notes, commenting on Luther’s theology: on the role of the church:

“it is not merely to protest when the temporal authorities interfere with its own freedom to preach and to live as a church; it is commissioned to interpret the will of God in regard to the various ordinances which He has instituted in the world to regulate man’s relation to his neighbors, and to stand forth uncompromisingly against injustice and tyranny.’ [Note: Anders Nygren, “Luther’s Doctrine of the two Kingdoms,” in One Lord, Two Hands?” ed. John T. Pless, Matthew Harrison, (St. Louis, MI, Concordia Publishing House, 2021), p. 29].

“To rebuke authorities” writes Luther, “is certainly not a revolutionary act when it is done at a divine command and in accordance to the Law of God, openly, honestly, and fearlessly. It would, in fact, be must more dangerous to the public weal if a preacher were not to rebuke authority for its injustices” [Note: Quoted by Nygren, p. 29].

It is chiefly in the faithful living out of their ordinary vocations in which a Christian has opportunity for influencing the work of the state. What one can do to influence the government is dependent upon the vocation one has to do so. In the Table of Duties, we see the vocation Of Civil Government, directed to those who have offices or vocations in the state. Interestingly, and perhaps at first perplexingly, what it says seems to be directed more to everyone else under the state’s authority and what they are to do in obedience to the state, not what the government is to do for them. But if one reads carefully, one will see that it is speaking of a judicious and just wielding of the sword for the benefit of the public under their authority and for their good, and to commend those who do right and encourage it, and this under God’s authority as His stewards so that God’s will is done through them. Again, this all God has arranged civil authorities to do whether they believe in God or not, and whether they are aware that they are God’s stewards or not, because following the light of natural law, they will be so. What distinguishes Christian magistrates is that they do such things as a fruit of faith and as their vocation with supernatural motivation of love towards God and their neighbors under their authority.

Furthermore, it is chiefly in the faithful living out of his ordinary vocations in which a Christian will have the best opportunities for evangelism and confessing the faith which will bring new members into the church. He does the same ordinary things as others in his occupation and job, but God does more through him in his work, and this is what makes it a vocation, “calling,” indeed, a “holy order.” One sees this very thing in Joseph working under Pharoah, Daniel for the rulers of Babylon and Persia, and Esther and Mordecai for the King of Persia.

And this is true not only for Christian’s rulers, but also the Christians who are ruled, as we see in “of Citizens,” in the Table of Duties. The original reference by Luther and early Missouri Synod catechisms up until the 1943 version, was “of Subjects.” Of course, through most of church history, most people did not often have the privilege of citizenship, let alone the right to vote, but that does not relieve them of the obligation to obey the governing authorities, to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to “give to everyone what you owe him,” even paying taxes. Of course, everyone, citizen or not, Christian or not has the obligation to do so, but distinctive of Christians is that they do so willingly and from the heart, and this because they can see that behind Caesar is the authority of the God Who is their Father, the King of Kings, in whose Royal Family they are princes and princesses. Christians have higher status and authority than the office of earthly kings, but like Christ while in His earthly ministry, have it hidden and who humble themselves before such magistrates, willingly obeying, honouring, and respecting them. If they do not deserve such respect, the Christian gives them respect which they do not deserve as a gift for the sake of reverence towards God Who is above them and Who set them in office. For this reason, Christians pray and intercede for the authorities, and obey them with such consistency, even when they receive no earthly advantage in doing so, that it will so astound such authorities that through such faithful vocation as subjects, people are brought to the faith

But the “of citizens” of modern catechisms indicate one other vocation for Christian subjects in our day. In seeking their neighbor’s welfare, Christian citizens can, in their various callings, press for basic human decencies and for values most people will intuitively recognize as sound and sensible, but in doing so, also “shine forth” a Christian confession of their faith. In the same way that St. Paul made use of the privileges and opportunities of his citizenship in Caesar’s kingdom for use of the work as a citizen in Christ’s Kingdom, so can modern day Christians in Canada. Indeed, as not only citizens, but also, in fact, voters, we can have a small say in the vocation of “civil government,” at least in choosing who they may be. Nevertheless, in the same way that one would rather receive surgery from a competent and skilled atheist surgeon than a godly pious Christian butcher, so also the rule of a personally amoral pagan, yet competent and just ruler, is to be desired over a pious incompetent and bungling Christian ruler (and God very well may choose for us the former, or perhaps also the latter to humble us!)

Now, the ultimate and most vital reason for keeping clear and distinct the differing roles of Church and State, between the Gospel and Law through which God rules each respectively, is not just to keep the integrity of the state’s work, but even far more importantly the Gospel-centred free course of the ministry of Word and sacrament of the church. “The whole Left-Hand kingdom is secondary, provisional, ancillary, penultimate,” and is but a “vast scaffolding for God’s ultimate purpose: the eternal salvation of His church. Everything else must ultimately subserve this saving purpose of God” [Note: Marquart, p. 178]. Everything in the Christian church is so ordered that we may daily obtain full forgiveness of sins through the Word and through signs appointed to comfort and revive our consciences” (Ap. XII.51-53)

There is an ever-present tendency of the state to have overarching authority over all aspects of man’s existence, including the spiritual dimension. Along with this is the marginalizing of spiritual matters, putting them on par with “hobbies,” and “personal interests” along with other activities like “playing hockey” and “enjoying coffee at Tim Hortons,” so that the state may feel free to regulate and restrict it along with other non-essential activities. In this way, the church is constantly pressed into the image of the purely secular, indifferent and even increasingly antagonistic views which the world has of it, and what is more, Christians are pressed by society and the state to view themselves and fit themselves into this very same perspective and none other. It is an essential aspect of the confession of our faith to the world that we robustly and forthrightly resist this pressure and retain the integrity of who God says we are and what we are all about—if we don’t, nobody else will, and we will be shaped and warped into something completely different and alien to it. Let’s look at a few matters in particular where such challenges are found in our day.

One of the benefits of the Covid-19 pandemic is that all of us have been forced to concentrate on the central, necessary and primary things in our life and in this world, and especially for what is most needful and central to our life as Christians and to the life of the church. Put very well by the President’s Ministry Council of the Lutheran Church Canada is this very point:

“One of the blessings of this pandemic is that it has served to reorient and direct all of us to this ‘one thing necessary’ (Luke 10:42); that is, the Lord’s people gathered together in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day to receive the Lord’s gifts through the hearing of the Lord’s Word and the partaking of the Lord’s Supper and to respond by praying the Lord’s Prayer and singing the Lord’s praises.”

The one thing needful is the very same thing that it was for Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus—always, hearing the word of God and treasuring it, not to be distracted like Martha by all of the pressing earthly needs of getting back to “normal life. In other words, “the one thing needful” which above all else must never be compromised or surrendered is the ministry of Word and Sacrament. No one ever may come between the Good Shepherd with the One called to speak in His stead and by His command and the sheep who hear His voice. No one may stand between them and say to the sheep, stop, you may not hear, and to the Lord, back off, You may not speak.

So, when Caesar deigns to step in to regulate aspects of the church’s life, the central questions must be, “Does the state have jurisdiction and competence to deal with this matter, and above all, does this enhance or suppress the one thing needful which the church has been mandated from God to do, the pure confession of the one true faith and its doctrine in all its articles and the free course of the ministry of Word and Sacrament?

So, for example, when it is over such mundane matters as building codes of the structure, regulating the fire extinguishers in the church building, clearly the state has clear jurisdiction over dealing with the health and safety of members in the building, and competency to deal with it, and there is nothing directly obstructing here the ministry of the church. So, such regulation by the state is to be cheerfully allowed by Christians and they would be boorish fools to oppose the state’s jurisdiction over such things. In temporal matters, all Christians and the church herself are under the authority of the state.

But, on the opposite extreme would be something like a complete lockdown of churches and forbidding the gathering of worship services as has been seen in various provinces in Canada from time to time in the past couple of years. The state does so by asserting that such worship services involve health and safety issues of the public at large over which they have interest and jurisdiction. Whether or not there actually are health dangers or not in worship services is beside the point. Even if we concede that there are health concerns with gathering for worship services and that the government has jurisdiction and interest in such things, nevertheless church services also at the same time involve spiritual health and life which are more important than the earthly concerns and over which the state has no jurisdiction nor competency whatsoever. They must be decided by the church herself, led by Scripture, which after all, alone must decide all things which are done in the church. Can one imagine the premier leading his cabinet in an earnest and prayerful study of the Scriptures to determine what measures should be enacted with worship, liturgy and services of the church! Of course, the thought is absurd, and because the state does not have any remote competency to determine this, how even more absurd it is for the church to abdicate their competency and jurisdiction over such things and fall in line just because the government tells them so!

Only the church, and not the state, has jurisdiction from God over matters of the ministry of Word and Sacrament, and only she, when she exercises such jurisdiction faithfully led by Scripture, has competency from God to decide with things concerning such ministry [Note: Of course, one must face and grapple with the fact of history that much of the early Lutheran reformation was initiated and overseen by princes and rulers of various states. However, one may consider such princes operating not as princes per se, but rather as lay leaders of the church, who rose to the occasion to lead the reform of the church as laymen in their earthly vocations, which happen to be as princes . When bishops and pastors will not lead the church with the reform she needs, the lay leaders must step in and do so with the vocations they have to do so]. Always the central question for the church to consider in any situation must be, what gives the most full, free, faithful and unobstructed course to such ministry of Word preached and the Sacraments administered to God’s people?

Nothing is ever to obstruct the free course of the Ministry of Word and Sacrament, and the only response of the church to such obstructions to her ministry is simply to continue that ministry nevertheless. She has no mandate from the Lord to do otherwise. So, if and when the state crassly forbids the church to meet for services, no matter what the reason or pretense, they are in subordination to the Lord whose servant they are and therefore lack jurisdiction and competency to decide on such matters, and the church is to respectfully yet firmly disregard such orders and continue offering services to those who wish to have them, no matter what the consequences may be, as a catacomb church like those in ancient Rome, if necessary.

Christians must exercise a basic posture of profound reluctance of offering any civil disobedience to the government. Luther notes that “we must bear the power of the prince. If he misuses his power, I should for this reason not bear him ill will or avenge the misuse on him or actually punish it. One must obey him for God’s sake, for he stands in the place of God. No matter how intolerably they may tax, they are to be obeyed, and everything is to be borne for God’s sake. Whether they are doing right or wrong will no doubt appear in due time. Therefore, if the government takes your possessions, your life and limb, and whatever you have, say: I gladly give it to you. I recognise you as my masters. I shall gladly obey you” [Note: From revised Halle or Walch edition of Luther’s Works, published in St, Louis, 11, 1813f].

Reflected here is a marvelous display of the posture of true Christian faith--not living and grasping for things of this world, but rather holding firmly to the treasures of Christ, living under the cross, finding quiet contentment in present circumstances and trusting in Christ in the midst of it all. Indeed, as Christians see the hardships, losses and crosses of daily life as a “practice” or “trial run” for one’s last day when he will lose everything in this earth (and gain everything in heaven!), he can recognise God working through such bad government to help him learn how to die well in the faith!

However, Luther goes on to ask, “what are we to do if they [the governing authorities] want to take the Gospel from us or forbid its preaching?” Then, the Reformer indicates, “you should say: The Gospel and Word of God I will not give you. Nor do you have any power over it: for your rule is temporal rule over worldly possessions. But the Gospel is a spiritual, heavenly possession. Therefore, your power does not extend to the Word of God. We recognise the emperor as a lord over temporal possessions and not over God’s Word. This we shall not permit to be torn from us” [Note: From revised Halle or Walch edition of Luther’s Works, published in St, Louis, 11, 1813f].

And further along such lines, Luther proclaims in a sermon in 1533 on Matthew 22:

“Above all things, God demands of us that we hear His word and follow it at all times and in every instance. If the government makes this impossible, subjects should know that they are not obliged to obey its commands; for it is written, We ought to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29) And in the passage before us, to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, so if temporal government wants to be angry because of this attitude and wants to punish its subjects by putting them under lock and key or even by taking their lives because of it, matters must be permitted to take their course and people must hold to the comfort of the thought: the Emperor or temporal government is our master, that is true, but nevertheless he is not our only master. For we have an additional Lord, Who is greater, namely, our Lord God in heaven. Now, if one of these two Lords must be incensed by our becoming disobedient to either God or the Emperor, it is better to anger the emperor with our disobedience than to anger God” [Note: From revised Halle or Walch edition of Luther’s Works, published in St, Louis, 13a, 968f].

Even if Christians are compelled to offer such civil disobedience against the governing authorities for the sake of the Gospel, it is to be done always with reluctance, always wishing to comply with the government even to suffer inconvenience to do so as long as and when conscience permits, and the church’s ministry is not compromised, and showing Caesar continued utmost respect, forbearance and reverence. Furthermore, it is always a passive thing which never involves active aggressive and provocative actions against such authorities or the police force, although it can involve firm and appropriate demonstrations and remonstrations and petitions towards them. The basic obedience and voluntary heartfelt deference to the state by Christians should be such a routine characteristic of them that the governing authorities will find it to be a startling, shocking “out of character” thing to witness the spectacle of Christians engaged in civil disobedience, so much so that they will be intrigued enough to want to find out what possibly could be the reason for it, which is, of course, the Gospel!

Another matter is regarding the Covid-19 vaccines. Without at this time getting into the whole question of the vaccines themselves (and Christians cannot avoid the extremely serious and very grave moral issues involved with the fact that stem cells derived from unborn children murdered by abortions were involved with the production of all current vaccines in use in Canada, either directly derived from them, or involved in their confirmatory testing), one other matter involves requiring vaccination before welcoming persons into church services. As the LCC’s President’s Ministry Council have also said, “we strongly recommend and advise that this not be done. Such would not only be contrary to the principle that St. Paul sets forth in the above cited passage from Romans; “Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him” (Romans 14:3). but also, to that which the Epistle of St. James warns us against in chapter 2, verses 1-4, that is, ‘showing partiality’ and ‘making distinctions’ as to who can “come into your assembly.”

Finally, the church, the Kingdom of God, is always infinitely so much more than any of the various political agendas of the kingdoms of this world, which always involves tinkering around with the things of this world which moth and rust destroy and which will pass away. Such work of the Kingdom of the Left is always merely Palliative Care for a dying terminally ill patient by those who have no cure nor medicine for him, only pain-killers. Such Palliative Care is an immensely important and loving work, to be supported and cherished—however, never is it to replace, nor draw away from the dispensing of the true healing and curing medicine. The ministry of the church IS that true medicine from the Great Physician not of this world, and the medicine which He dispenses is Himself, His Body and Blood broken and shed for us which has already defeated death. Therefore, the church will always be distorted and neutered when she is forced into any narrow partisan political agenda. Like the communist regime which thought it could neutralise Christian influence in society by forbidding the church from any activity in society and quarantining them to Divine Services alone—which actually resulted in keeping them strong and alive!-- the church combats anti-Christian political agendas not with “Christian” public agendas in the public square, but by proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom that is not of this world, and to be faithful to the ministry of Word and Sacrament for the life of the world.

When the state presses, restricts and persecutes the church, it very well may be its intention, and also that of the devil behind it, to press the church into an alien secular image and mold, to force her to lose her confession of the truth and Christ, but with a faithful church it is precisely the opposite that will happen. The church will be shaped and pressed by such persecution ever more firmly through such suffering into the mold and image of the cross of Christ. She becomes ever more resolutely faithful in all that she is called to be. Persecution is meant for evil, but God uses it for the good; through it the church is kept strong and faithful, pressed into having nothing but the one thing needful, and here, such atheistic rulers were still unwittingly God’s servants doing His will, exercising His rule over His domain, for the good of His people. And that is why we still honour evil rulers, for the sake of the good that God is doing through them in spite of them.

Indeed, it is only the Gospel alone which Christian can ever be sure of and depend upon. All states will pass away when sin is finally over and we have just the Kingdom of God in heaven, and since there is no marrying nor giving into marriage in heaven, so also even all the blessings of earthly families will be eclipsed and outshone by the splendour of the eternal marriage of Christ and His bride, and by the family of God the Father and His children. There is no guarantee that God will give us structures in this world which will respect the church and her mission so that it will be comfortable for Christians to worship and live faithful lives, as much as we long, prayer and work for such to be the case. Indeed, at one time it was God’s will to destroy Jerusalem, flatten the Temple, and haul His people off to captivity in Babylon—for their good! -- and it very well may be God’s will to do the same to us. After all, God promises to the church only the cross to live under in this world, and in the last days promises such increasing persecution and deception that the question is prompted, “when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8) And so, we must be prepared and fortified for such times. Our ultimate goal is not to make the kingdom of the state as righteous and good as it can be in this world, but to hold on to the righteousness of Christ not of this world which we have been given because we are in Him, to be faithful in our most holy faith, to weather the storm of the world becoming worse than we can ever imagine, when all outward structures of the state and an apostate church under an Antichrist will be utterly united against the Gospel, and will seem to have utterly defeated the church. But the church is always triumphant because Christ already has been, even as she rides against the flow of the stream of this fallen world heading headlong over the cliff and down the waterfall into the pit of sin, decay and death. Christ’s Holy Church, under the cross, as the Ark of Salvation, will never be coasting along with the world on the wave of the future, but always resolutely against the flow of it, as she navigates faithfully to the safe harbor of heaven on the wave of eternity.