All About the Masks
Thank you for your take on to wear or not to wear. I have a similar take on the masks immediately following this panic. I am wearing a mask at work because they have asked all their employees to. I am not wearing one on my personal time because of the serology reports proving that this virus is more infectious and therefore much less lethal than we originally thought.
Something that I have been thinking about is how wearing masks changes us as a society if we are pressured to wear them on all outings. As you said a mask communicates something whether we want it to or not. When someone puts on a mask it covers the part of them where the image of God is most manifest. I think that this has the effect of communicated that we are less an image bearer and more like a potential disease carrier. Would we be losing some of our humanity to “stay safe” if we go along with a mandatory public mask edict?
Ryan
Ryan, at some point your point would become obvious, right? What if they all had to be government-approved masks, with an ID number stamped on the front?
I think you’re right about the masks being flags ;)
Steven
Steven, thanks.
RE: Masking the Masquerade
Would your take on wearing masks be different if we had been told from the beginning to wear masks, wash your hands, and go about your business as usual, no tyrannical lock downs?
B
B, different, but not drastically so. But if we had been encouraged by the government to practice all the social distancing, I am sure the results would have been much better, and without the potential backlash and worry about civil liberties.
I’m sure you’ve never received this criticism, Doug, but I think you’re being way too diplomatic. This thing has been one lie heaped upon another, and the Democrat media monopoly means the lies get swallowed without question by tens of millions of Americans, thus masks and gloves all of a sudden everywhere. I may go to Costco again, but it’s going to be very long time before I do. I really feel for the 30 million Americans who are not getting a paycheck because of lies being heaped upon lies, and the liars don’t give a, well, you know what they don’t give.
Mike
Mike, yes. I often think of myself as too diplomatic.
“Masking the Masquerade” addresses what, given that hospitals haven’t been overwhelmed but are largely starving, should become the central issue of this crisis/disaster/bollocks. There’s an issue upstream from the lock down that deserves attention, but I’m not a Douglas-Wilson-stature Influencer and have been unable to get any traction with it.
What is it? Asymptomatic transmission. Without it, there was no reason to close schools, restaurants, or nail salons to healthy people. I’ve spent a great deal of time looking for data on this and have found nothing. WHO, such as they are, say asymptomatic transmission is Insignificant. CDC equivocates. There’s nothing at all in the medical literature, save a January piece in the New England Journal of Medicine, which played up asymptomatic transmission based on a single German anecdote that has since been shown to be faulty. The German public health agency, RKI, wrote a letter to the Editor in an effort to correct the previous paper.
If the disease is as bad as advertised (and it might be) and it’s transmitted by asymptomatic carriers (which would be unusual for a droplet-borne respiratory virus), the panic might well be justified. But there seems to be a complete lack of curiosity about whether asymptomatic spread actually happens. Like so many other points of “settled science,” it supports the narrative and shouldn’t be questioned.
Your humble servant.
SWF
SWF, you are correct. The narrative will do what the narrative wants to do.
On the wearing of masks:
In which you mentioned, quite in passing, that folks in your neck of the woods were wearing masks back in May of 1980 after Mt. St. Helens had had enough of its lockdown.
Though I live in Texas, I remember that day and the resultant aftermath very well. It was a dark day, so to speak. Darker for some than others. It occurs to me that you, the immeasurable Mrs. Wilson, and a couple of your kids were possibly blanketed by several inches of that mountainous upchuck. Would you care to give your recollections of that terrible day, for those of us who like to hear your perspective on things?
Malachi
Malachi, okay, just this once. Now there was a disaster you could see with your eyes. The cloud of ash was coming at us, like a very angry storm out of the west. It moved very slowly. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, as I recall, and when the cloud closed off the eastern horizon, everything was pitch black. It was 3 in the afternoon and, standing outside, I couldn’t see my hand two inches in front of my face. Good times . . .
If I were to follow your argument that Peter and Paul were both ‘law breakers’ when it came to preaching the gospel, would it not then follow that Jesus himself was a ‘law breaker’ as the government put Him to death, yet He broke the law by raising from the dead?
Melody
Melody, that’s wonderful. The ultimate jail break.
n regards to “Liberate Idaho” Thank You Jesus!
If evil continues in this nation it will not be because good men are doing nothing. It will be because we are not standing with them.
Mert
Mert, thank you.
“The ingredients of a free republic, if you take a moment to look at the side of the box, are not fornicating potheads.”
Heh…heh. Good one.
John
John, thanks.
Divorce Question
Do you think there is biblical warrant for divorce when one spouse refuses conjugal relations for years? As a pastor, I’ve encountered this issue more than I care to admit. How should pastors address this, especially with continual hard-heartedness?
Levi
Levi, yes, I do believe that under certain circumstances, that could constitute grounds for divorce. One of the biblical grounds is desertion, and some people have figured out how to desert their spouse while living under the same roof. But I wouldn’t want to authorize a divorce under such circumstances unless church discipline had been brought to bear first.
The Text of Scripture
In relation to your recent link to the memoir of Edward Freer Hills, I grew up in the hyper-fundy world (we were such an IFCA that we wouldn’t join) but for some reason we managed to avoid being a KJV-only church. From there I went to the Master’s College in California where the approach to languages seemed pretty content with the status quo (non-TR-only) approach. Upon reading the memoir, however, I was forced to acknowledge that the TR-only position has more bite than I would have previously thought. The point about the public preservation of God’s Word in the common use by His people is pretty compelling.
I’ve been a big fan of the ESV for its literary quality, although the ongoing revisions and heavy marketing are a big concern. It sounds like evangelicalism is heading for a reckoning in about a decade when CBGM Bibles start showing up, too.
As far as Bible reading goes, I really like the “Reader’s Bible” format, but the only one available in KJV appears to be pretty shoddily done. Since the KJV text is in the public domain, maybe Canon Press should consider publishing a “Reader’s Bible” edition more in line with the format chosen by Crossway for the Reader’s ESV.
Just a thought. Thanks for your many outlets (this blog being one) for the truth and the defense thereof.
Cameron
Cameron, thanks. Good thoughts.
Pesky Deadlines
Love your books and resources.
I read Ploductivity, and in the second part you talk about how to plod: I break it into small pieces and plod away Everyday.
However, all these tasks assume no deadlines.
How about tasks where there is? For example, finishing an essay by next month (which includes reading lots of books beforehand). (And not to mention there is probably more than one essay).
Thanks!
David
David, a situation with a deadline is actually where I think I first articulated this principle to myself. I agreed to review a book for a magazine, and agreed to a deadline to turn it in. When my review copy arrived, I realized that it was a beast of a book. So I gave myself (I think) a week to write the review, took the remaining days and did a basic math problem. How many pages a day would I have to read in order to have the book completed by a week before?
Man Rampant
I really enjoyed the videos on Man Rampant. They were insightful, encouraging and challenging.
I wanted to follow up on a question you asked Aaron Renn regarding the potential objection Christians may have regarding increasing one’s attractiveness. Specifically, you asked him whether the ways to increase one’s attractiveness e.g. increasing one’s power/status, resources such as money might seem to be too “wordly” to Christians and should therefore not be encouraged among Christian man.
I was interested in knowing how you would respond to your own question?
Is the pursuit of power/status/resources to increase one’s attractiveness a sin? And if not, what might be tell-tale signs that one has turned such pursuit into a sinful affair?
Thanks very much!
Shawn
Shawn, all of these things are taught, and consequently learned. But the ideal time for teaching men these things is when they are small boys and the concrete is still wet. When you are older and you realize that you missed that opportunity, and set about increasing your “marketability,” it must begin with the realization that 1. it needs to be done; 2. the temptation to vanity must be resisted; 3. the inertia of awkwardness must be overcome, and; 4. the likelihood that you are kidding yourself is not a small one.
My Hebrew knowledge is limited to amen, hallelujah, and ani roca mic tapuzim, bavakaša*, so the following thoughts (on the Psalm 120 sermon) may be completely incompatible with what the text actually says.
I wonder if Doeg’s (factually accurate) report to Saul re what he’d seen of David at the tabernacle could have been the lying addressed in the psalm. Here’s my thinking: The ninth commandment is “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” It’s not simply “Thou shalt not intentionally utter propositional inaccuracies.” And of course you gave a plethora of examples of completely righteous propositional inaccuracies. The case is pretty solid against the notion that all propositional falsehood is a violation of the ninth commandment. I want to push a little in the opposite direction and suggest that some propositional truth is a violation of the ninth commandment.
In English, false can mean not only inaccurate, but disloyal. Doeg was as false as it comes with regard to where his loyalties should have lay. He was bearing false witness. The (factually accurate) self-righteous kid who’s always tattling on his siblings is bearing false witness. The (factually accurate) Karen who calls the cops on the neighborhood boys playing basketball less than six feet apart is bearing false witness. A (factually accurate) Rahab who said, “They went thataway!” would have been bearing false witness.
Another passage that speaks to this is Ephesians 4:15. It’s not enough to speak the truth; it must be spoken in love. I’m just pushing it a skosh farther by proposing that truth spoken without love is .
Oh, and I’m pretty sure it was Nollie, not Betsie, who told the Gestapo that the Jews were under the table.
*I want orange juice, please.
Kyriosity
Kyriosity, I think this is all correct, including your point about Nollie.
In response to Kyriosity: the Westminster Divines would agree. This is part of Q&A 145, on the sins forbidden by the ninth commandment: “speaking the truth unseasonably, or maliciously to a wrong end, or perverting it to a wrong meaning, or in doubtful or equivocal expressions, to the prejudice of the truth or justice.”
Thanks, Peter and DCL!
In response to Ryan’s note and SWF’s note: 1) Infectivity and lethality are not related. Infectivity describes how easily a microbe can be passed. Lethality is the death rate. A common cold from adenovirus is highly infective and has low lethality. Ebola is highly infective and has high lethality. (That’s why there is a lot more adenovirus around than Ebola.) The serologic studies so far have suggested what Ryan claims and in the long run I think he will be proved right. However there is not enough data available to prove anything yet. That’s why most docs I know are… Read more »
I think by “more infectious and therefore much less lethal” he is saying that since it is more infectious than thought, it must be less lethal than thought, otherwise we would all be dead (hyperbolically speaking). He’s not saying there’s a necessary connection between the two concepts, but that there is a logical conclusion from one to the other in this case.
dchammers, I think you hit everything on the head very well right there. The serological studies have suggested some things but not proven anything yet – information about the significantly high error rate in many of the tests, combined with non-random sample selection, makes the preliminary results suspect. However, I think and hope that there were much more asymptomatic/mild symptomatic cases than previously known. But as you say, when you speak to actual researchers on these questions, they express far more uncertainty than the pundits on either side. One big question not being talked about much – how much does… Read more »
So, it turns out the credentialed idiot who started this whole lockdown hysteria by pulling numbers out of his posterior didn’t believe his own bullschiff about “social distancing” — especially when it came to other men’s wives:
The Telegraph: “Exclusive: Government scientist Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules to meet his married lover”
To read the article, plug the above headline into DuckDuckGo.
What he actually said was that he assumed he was both immune and non-infectious since he had already tested positive, gone through quarantine, and was now negative. So it is utterly irrelevant so far as the instructions regarding the spread of the disease. But so far as him being an idiot for doing it, that’s entire valid.
And once again, the point sails right over your head.
I share this video with all of you because I think there’s way more going on than what our leaders are telling us with respect to Covid-19 and the like. https://youtu.be/5wHzrYtV5lw
There’s plenty of good reasons to wear masks which no one who is predetermined to reflexively revolt against anything the government tells you to do wants to hear.
So this is my proposal: the government should force everyone not to wear a mask so a lot of people will wear masks.
The government also mandates that public nudity is a crime. That is an abridgement of rights too if we want to be consistent.
In other words, government has been making rules for the furtherance of public health forever.
When people accuse the media of being controlled by the Democrats, what do they think of international media that reports much the same thing, especially when said media is local to other continents and cares little and impacts even less in America’s particular Democrat-Republican divide?
Singaporeans don’t wear masks because they’re trying to participate in some social flag to liberals. Right-wing Indian governments don’t institute rather draconian two-month lockdowns out of some desire to virtue signal the left.
Pastor Wilson, I wrote this letter in response to your essay suggesting people not wear masks but you didn’t use it. “I’m interested by quite a few articles regarding Sweden in which Swedish government officials and others praise how well Swedish citizens took to voluntary measures – maintaining social distancing, wearing masks, limiting unnecessary travel, shifting to work from home – which enabled them to have a “lockdown lite” in which only crowds over 50 were banned and high schools, universities, and larger businesses were closed. That strong voluntary obedience along with strong health measures and protection of the elderly… Read more »
His religious modus operandi is gnostic at its core. That gives his disciples a much higher view of themselves and insulates them from the ignorant hoi polloi who have not been graced with such special knowledge.
RE: Divorce Question: I’m curious if/how church discipline would be brought to bear in the case of a couple who have been sexless for decades, but in which neither has refused relations, but neither has initiated. The husband is unable to initiate relations due to unresolved childhood sexual abuse and emotional incest issues. Early in the marriage the wife initiated all relations but after a few years said “As the man you are to initiate relations, so no more relations until you do. That was 20+ years ago. Which of the two should be under church discipline, or should it… Read more »
Making a bit of an assumption anyway, but is it anybody else’s business?
It sounds like the issue isn’t particularly important to either of them, so I’m not sure why the church would get involved. That said, there are many sexless marriages where the issue is important to one spouse (usually the husband) but the other refuses. Finding churches that discipline “forced celibacy” spouses is a needle-in the-haystack exercise, though. Eventually the husband may turn to porn or adultery, and THAT will get some attention.
It sounds like she might be withholding by insisting that it happen in a certain way, that he is not able to fulfill. While that may not be the case, it is not entirely clear cut that neither party is “withholding” and therefore in sin. It’s also likely that she is feeling deprived, so discipline or not there is definitely a serious issue to be addressed.
Right. A need for discipleship rather than necessarily jumping straight to some sort of formal discipline. Sounds like both need help in simply loving one another.