Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 22 February 2022

Absent from the body, present with the Lord…but what do we do with the body?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #7 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

In Western culture, the traditional answer to the question of what to do with the body was “Bury ‘em,” but the new answer is “Burn ‘em”—no disrespect intended.

Burial versus cremation is not an abstract debate. Since death and taxes are unavoidable, if you haven’t yet faced the bury-or-burn question within your extended family you likely will.

Cremation, the act of turning a corpse to ashes, was once virtually unknown in the United States but not anymore.

The first recorded American cremation, aside from ones long conducted by some Native Americans, took place in 1876. Still, before 1930 cremation was virtually unknown and by 1975, according to the Cremation Association of North America, cremation was chosen for body disposal in only 6% of all deaths in the United States.

Since that time the number of cremations has increased dramatically. By year 2025 the Cremation Association projects 57.27% of American deaths will be administered via cremation, an amazing cultural shift in just fifty years. In 2021, ten states recorded cremation rates higher than 70%. Nevada’s rate was highest at 80.7%.

To put this in global perspective, consider that Japanese families choose cremation in 98% of deaths. For Great Britain, the percentage of deaths handled via cremation stands at 77.5%. Scandinavian countries register about 70%, and the Canadian cremation rate is increasing rapidly, currently over 73%.

Reasons for cremation include:

Lower cost than traditional burial—no casket, usually no gravesite, no gravestone, less expensive mortuary process,
Declining available space in crowded cemeteries, while cremated remains require limited to no space if ashes are scattered,
Convenience in part due to increased family mobility in a transient society less connected to a given area,
Easier to transport remains,
Environmental considerationssuggesting cremation is more hygienic, protects land,
Changing religious views.

Various religions have embraced cremation, for example Hinduism and Buddhism. Others rejected cremation in favor of burial: Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, Christianity, Islam – for these groups, not getting a “proper burial” is a dishonor.

Ancient Israel placed bodies in the ground in a pattern imitating the burials of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Phrases like “gathered to his people” suggest burial in family crypts (Gen. 35:29). This practice continued in the New Testament era with burials of, for example, John the Baptist, Lazarus, Stephen, and the Savior Jesus.

Historically, Christian tradition opposed cremation as a pagan rite that attempted to thwart the promised bodily resurrection, rejected the body, or reinforced the idea of reincarnation. Christians believed that a deceased person’s physical burial best pictures the substitutionary atonement of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and, in turn, the bodily resurrection of the Saints at the time of Jesus’ Second Coming (1 Corinthians 15:35, 37, 42-44).

Christians preferred to symbolize in burial the promise of the resurrection. The word “cemetery,” for example, has Christian roots in the term dormitory, a place where people “sleep,” implying they will awaken again.

We know from the catacombs that Christians buried their dead for centuries. With the spread of Christianity, internment, whether by land or sea, became so common the term “Christian burial” became synonymous with the practice.

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

Some Christians contend that any use of fire in funeral ritual smacks of false religion.

Yet this begs the question of why deaths involving fire should be viewed any differently, e.g., individuals burned or vaporized by explosives, people dying in fiery plane crashes, or individuals perishing in building fires like and including the Twin Towers of 9/11.

Some have argued that a gravesite is an important place for gathering, grieving, and remembering, and it is. But so, too, can an urn be a focus of remembering. And with few exceptions, gravesites are not permanent; most dissipate with the sands of time.

Mostly, arguments for cremation are based upon economics or practicality—less expensive, easier. Arguments for burial are based upon symbolism and tradition—pictures the resurrection, distances Christians from superstition.

But the Bible does not condemn cremation nor mandate burial. In fact, while the Bible says a lot about death, and while bodies are God’s gift and should be respected, what ultimately happens to bodies is a secondary consideration. So “to cremate or to bury” is today a matter of Christian liberty.

Centuries-old practice indicates burial is practical. In days gone by, when people died, they were often buried on the spot. Burial met the need.

Cremation also meets the need, practically if not traditionally. And as long as Christian doctrine isn’t denied, cremation cannot be considered unbiblical.

Besides this, no burial method is a threat to Christian resurrection or to the soul. God can resurrect ashes as well as dust.

Stewardship is an important Christian concept. We’re responsible to God for how we live, handle the world’s resources, use our time, talent, and treasure—and how we pass from the world.

The intent and content of a funeral service is what really matters, not the method of disposition of the body (or whether body parts have been donated). It’s not death and despair but life and hope that should be our focus, looking past the end-of life to the afterlife.

So, burial or cremation?

One thing’s certain, “for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Gen. 3:19).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 19 February 2022

Given the division, rancor, and politicization of virtually everything—along with the social media-driven “hater” mentality—have we witnessed the death of discussion?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #6 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

During the U.S. Presidential campaign in February 2016, I stopped posting political content on social media. I just quit cold turkey.

Before this I’d tried to post about issues. I didn’t mention just one but always several candidates, attempted to be non-partisan, never spoke negatively of the previous Administration, and in no way attacked Democrat or Republican candidates or otherwise use my social media to campaign. In retrospect, I guess I was naïve. I actually tried to conduct a discussion about important issues. Usually, it didn’t happen.

I found that people didn’t read the nuances of what I said, and they didn’t discuss the issue. Mostly, they reacted emotionally, defending their partisan view and/or candidate—who I had often not even mentioned—and frequently did so with rancor not found in my posts.

I also noticed that my comments about political issues, in part because they got hi-jacked, divided my family, friends, and colleagues. People just couldn’t hang together for an issue discussion without quickly voting each other off the island.

At that point I decided political posting wasn’t worth dividing or losing friends. So I stopped.

Some of my friends have stopped referencing any social or political topic on social media too.

It isn’t that they don’t have opinions or that they don’t care, though perhaps some are less politically interested than others. They don’t want to get into a back-and-forth vitriol on opposite ends of the teeter-totter.

Think for a moment about “panels” on major television news channels:

these panels have largely devolved into shout fests about who can talk overtop the other. There’s not much reasoned discourse.

This same kind of phenomenon showed up not long ago when my wife and I attended a home-gathering comprised of people from the same church—middle class Midwesterners, most who’d grown up locally and graduated from the same high school and who otherwise had much in common. It was a very nice evening. Then someone mentioned the U.S. President relative to a given political issue. Just like that the group divided, including a few prickly comments and negative facial expressions that stayed that way until someone changed the subject.

Amazing. Good friends suddenly turned edgy when politics came up.

So the old maxim stands: “Never talk about politics or religion in polite company.”

Years ago, I wrote a book called “Christian Liberty: Living for God in a Changing Culture” (Baker, 2003). I talked about God’s moral absolutes—not a long list by the way— for all times, countries, and cultures, which we ignore at our own peril.

And I talked about the enormous room for discretion, or better, discernment with which God charged us as a way of making good decisions about cultural matters (Phil. 1:9-11). As long as our attitudes, viewpoints, and actions do not violate the moral will of God, he gave us the liberty to decide and to be different.

But I said then and I still believe today, Christian liberty is the least understood and least practiced doctrine of the Bible. I cannot prove this, but I experience it regularly. People in the Christian community do not allow for differences in others.

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

Growing numbers of people in our country and culture do not want people to speak if their views diverge from what the dominant group considers correct.

The answer to opposing views is not a free and open debate on the merits of the argument but to silence, somehow to keep the other view from being heard.

If it is heard, then the solution is to react with emotional diatribe or attacks on the character of others who hold the “wrong view.” People who disagree with your view, or who might offer critique, are called “haters.”

The First Amendment’s guarantee of Freedom of Speech is no longer considered a sacred political ideal for whom men and women have given the last full measure of devotion to protect.

We’ve come to a point in a so-called post-truth culture in which politics and polarization are so pronounced we can no longer communicate, resulting in a virtual inability to discuss, much less debate, any social-political issue without it exploding into defensive partisanship, ideological condemnation, or lack of civility.

Discussion, at least public discourse, is dead on arrival.

I’d like to discuss political issues via social media but to do so invites dysfunction.

I think this is sad, among believers an absence of Christian liberty,and among the public, a disappearing understanding of what Freedom of Speech means in and to a constitutional republic.

This trend, whether from Left or Right, is not good for the future of this country.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 18 February 2022

I used to think today’s version of the Scripture’s “false prophets” were just shyster preachers. But the Devil is more subtle. Think about it. Who do we watch, and to whom do we listen? Who are the most influential purveyors of false ideas in American culture today?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #5 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Every day, present-day “false prophets” intentionally and effectively attack the core beliefs and values of the Christian Church and American culture.

This is a growing existential threat, for Judeo-Christian values no longer provide a “sacred canopy” over American culture. Historic, foundational biblical values are no longer ascendant, respected, or even referenced by a vast cross-section of society.

So false prophets now practice their craft with little resistance.

The New Testament contains many admonishments about individuals who (2 Peter 2), motivated by greed or arrogance, attempt to speak for God, (Jude 4).

The Apostle Peter also cites “false teachers,” who propagate “destructive heresies.” Peter warned us these are people who ‘will bring the way of truth into disrepute and…will exploit you with stories they have made up” (2 Peter 2:1-3).

Scripture says, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves,” (Matthew 7:15-16)

False prophets are people who speak untruth while at times claiming they speak for God and his Word.

Present-day false prophets—wolves in sheep’s clothing—are thriving. They promote ideas, philosophies, and ideologies contradictory to biblical teaching, antithetical to Christianity, subversive to the Church, and destructive to a free culture.

Present-day false prophets are exercising considerable influence

--in public schools --on university campuses

--on political stages

--in media entertainment

–through social media

--via bestsellers

--in corporate training sessions

--in government

--even in the US military.

Some false prophets are what’s now called, “online influencers,” people operating lucrative websites, video channels, or social media sites, marketing lies, especially to young people.

Who are these false prophets? Well, they can be intellectuals/professors, politicians, activists, or celebrities.

Present-day false prophets market political correctness, woke cancel culture, open hostility to a biblical worldview of law, order, and justice. They tout grand nihilistic ideologies and economic or racial determinism. They celebrate rebellion in the name of absolute freedom. They promote tribalistic identity politics and a culture of fear, and they sow chaos, madness, division, and discord, for these conditions are their path to power.

Present-day false prophets are active every day in the nation’s schools from kindergarten through graduate university, promoting anti-biblical views of human sexuality, sharing ideas with grade schoolers that are so perverse I haven’t stated them in this podcast.

Present-day false prophets use critical race theory to teach reductionist racial division, animosity, and victimhood. Some promote racism in the name of “anti-racism.”

Among entertainment celebrities, false prophets present selfie-dominated hedonism, i.e., wear fewer clothes with each Instagram picture, hop in and out of intimate relationships, and live for self-gratification, as demonstrated in their latest TikTok video.

The message many celebrity-false prophets offer is the sexual revolution and materialism writ large. It’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

False prophets believe in no truth, no right and wrong. But their “no truth” philosophy has practical consequences:

If no truth > no life-changing Word,
No truth > no Holy God,
No truth > no law and order, no justice = only lawless riots, crime,
No truth > no sin = only a non-judgmental anything goes, all problems are psychological, therapeutic, So there is no forgiveness, no remedy, no hope,
No truth > no freedom = no inalienable human rights…that leaves only power.

The battle today is not between Republicans and Democrats.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans are ultimately or sufficiently committed to lasting objective ideals. They are about power too.

Consequently, neither Party’s politicians—at least most of them—are positioned to put up much resistance, so neither Party is going to slow the influence of present-day false prophets.

In fact, our challenge today is spiritual not political, and there are no political solutions to spiritual problems.

The battle today is between a morally relativistic, humanistic vision of society that acknowledges no truth versus an historic Judeo-Christian vision of society that acknowledges the Sovereign Creator God of the Bible.

I don’t know if we are yet in the “end times” the Bible talks about, though some believers, including my Mother, believe that we are and she may be correct.

But either way, these are dark days, and our days are likely to get darker, but we need not despair.

God is not surprised by 21^st Century issues any more than he was surprised when Lincoln prayed in the White House during the Civil War.

Present-day false prophets—celebrities, influencers, ideologues—may challenge the Church, they may enjoy a season of cultural success, but the end of their false ideas is certain, for God is still God.

Pastor John Piper said, “The shape of error is always changing. You can’t preach enough negative sermons to stay ahead of it. And you don’t have to. The best protection against the darkness of error is the light of truth.”

The best way to respond to untruth is with the truth that sets us free (John 8:32):

How do we do this?

Discerning truth from error (Phil. 1:8-9).
Speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15).
Being ready always to give an answer (1 Pet. 3:15).
Participating in a ministry of reconciliation (1 Cor. 15:11-21).
Praying for grace and unity in the Church (Eph 4:1-16).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 16 February 2022

If Christians memorize verses from different versions of the Bible, and they sing Christian choruses different from those sung in other church services, can we actually continue to communicate or are we losing a common language of the faith?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #4 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Multiple versions of the Bible and innumerable choruses are now a part of the Christian community landscape. But this was not always so.

As a kid, I was regularly taken to church since before I was born, so thanks to my parents I’ve been attending Bible-believing churches for over sixty years. This doesn’t make me an expert on all things ecclesiastical, and certainly does not mean I always choose well and wisely. Far from it. But maybe like some of you it makes me “experienced.”

One huge change in my lifetime is that we went from a largely One-Bible-Version world to a Multi-Bible-Version world.

I cut my teeth on the what’s now called the “old” King James Version of the Bible, the 1611 version that influenced the course of Western Civilization.

When I memorized Scripture, I learned the language of the KJV, including all the “Thees” and “Thous” and “Verily verilys,” just like generations learned these passages before me.

When we went to church, we heard the KJV. There were no “pew Bibles,”—not that there’s anything wrong with them. But the point is: everyone had their own (usually black) KJV and carried it to church.

To this day, when a verse comes to my mind, though I’ve been using an NIV for thirty years, what pops in my mind? The old KJV.

When a friend presented me with an NIV in 1992, it seemed foreign to me because I’d absorbed so much of the KJV. My wife purchased for me a “Parallel Bible” with KJV in one column and NIV in the other. This helped me study and in the days before Internet searches helped me find remembered passages. I used this parallel Bible for several years, joking I could “shoot from either barrel.”

My good Dad, who went to be with the Lord in April 2018, was long a source of family joy and a little needling because he’d learned to pray in two ways:

very softly (he talked on the phone the same way),
and b) in “King James.”

I mean he used a lot of “Thees” and “Thous” in his prayer. It was all entirely sincere and as such appropriate for this 50-year-Deacon, but it could also be a little funny to younger ears.

Now we have a list of Bible versions:

King James Version (KJV) translated in 1611.

American Standard Version (ASV), 1901.

Revised Standard Version (RSV), 1952.

Amplified Bible, 1965.

New English Bible, 1970.

New American Standard Bible (NASB), 1971.

The Living Bible (TLB), a paraphrase rather than translation, 1971.

New International Version (NIV), 1978.

New King James Version (NKJV), 1982, including some translation corrections and updates of the Old English to modern phrasing.

English Standard Version (ESV), 2001 as a revision of the RSV.

There are more.

Now, I have no problem with multiple Bible translations as such, as long as they maintain fidelity to ancient and original texts.

I am decidedly not a KJV only guy and never have been.

But I do think we’ve paid a price for the multiple versions of the Bible we now employ and enjoy. It’s a kind of embarrassment of riches.

The price—or if that’s too strong for you, say unintended consequence—I believe comes in several forms.

As the number of versions grew and parishioners carried an increasingly diverse set of Bibles to church, they lost the ability to share, to look at the received Word together. To account for this emerging challenge, pastors began posting their Scripture passages in bulletins, on screens, and later, on large monitors.

Result: many churchgoers no longer carry a Bible to church.

People memorize Scripture from multiple versions. Once you’ve memorized the wording of a verse in one version it’s difficult to transpose this to the wording of a new version.

Result: out goes reciting verses together in unison.

Multiple versions may be contributing to a lost opportunity for larger cultural influence, which jells with declining biblical literacy, because:

1) biblical references in speeches or movies, e.g., like those you can hear in 1940s or even 1950s speeches or films, aren’t typically made any more,

2) of the few such references that are made, people do not immediately recognize the biblical allusion due to unfamiliarity with the wording.

Result: declining presence and, arguably impact, of biblical language and values upon American culture.

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

What concerns me is not the existence of multiple versions. I realize different versions aid understanding of the Word. I am not suggesting the impossible: “Doing away with” multiple versions of the Bible.

However, it still concerns me that we are losing a common Christian language within the Body of Christ, the Church, and what this might mean going forward for the Church.

It concerns me even more that youth, already living in a highly chaotic pluralistic world, no longer learn or relate to the same biblical text.

This trend is exacerbated by the explosion of choruses, which are not “bad” in themselves and may offer good content, yet but for a few, they are not repeated, not transferable to other contexts, and worst of all, not remembered. People mumble through them. Test me on this. Listen to the volume increase during congregational singing when an old hymn is – if rarely – sung during the service.

What also concerns me is a related loss of impact upon American culture of Christian values and language drawn from the eloquent and eternal, yet eminently practical, biblical text.

I don’t have a quick fix to offer.

And perhaps I am needlessly concerned?

For the prophet Isaiah said, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8, NIV).

Well, we’ll see you again soon.

For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 16 February 2022

Back in middle school, I remember Dad, a barber, trapping me in the barber chair ostensibly for a haircut while he talked to me about what we used to call the Facts of Life. Dad was a good man, but I sure don’t remember him telling me about Sex Week at the university.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #3 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Some of us celebrate Valentine’s Day, and a few even Valentine’s Week, but on the campuses of colleges and universities across the country, Valentines has morphed into “Sex Week.”

Events include:

SEXtravaganza

Freaky Friday: A Beginner’s Guide to Pleasure

Condom Bingo

Sex Ed Quickie

Good Vibes and Pleasure

There’s even a “Genital Diversity Gallery” at Tulane University featuring anatomically correct displays of human genitalia, which ostensibly is intended to “destigmatize genitals and celebrate the diversity of bodies that exist.”

There are workshops on bondage, submission, sadism, dominance, masochism, fetish, foreplay, and use of various sex toys.

Other discussions center on polyamorous relationships and something labeled “ethical non-monogamy.”

An organization called The Newcomb Institute, which promotes gender equality, offers what it calls a “Wheel of Fornication,” listing statistics about sex and sexuality.

Many of these events are justified in the name of something called “Sexual Health Awareness,” or as the Ohio State University representative put it, a “deep and abiding commitment to free speech.” Apparently one event at OSU allows students to “thank abortion providers” for their perceived great service to the American people.

Believe it or not, I am holding back in this podcast, meaning I’m intentionally not repeating the most graphic, crude and lewd, examples of what is taking place. Needless to say, it’s a long way from the “Birds and the Bees.” And it would appear there’s a serious lack of discernment among the adults in the room.

That’s what this podcast is about, Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

Yale University hosted the first identifiable “Sex Week” in 2002, and the idea’s popularity has grown steadily since, as has the eroticism, pornographic displays, lasciviousness, and wanton wickedness that apparently recognize no standards of decency.

It is ironic indeed to witness universities posturing sexual “freedom of speech,” while they simultaneously corral students in “free speech zones,” limit or even attempt to cancel expressions of religious or conservative ideas, propagate woke values that suppress Christian morality, issue mask or vaccine mandates, politicize sports, and racialize virtually everything in the name of inclusion. Differing point of views, please be silenced.

But Sex Week is not about sexual health. Not really. It’s about celebration of the self and the rejection of truth, God, responsibility, and accountability. It’s a contemporary, salacious bacchanalia.

You would think that the adults operating these Sex Week events, people who, like me, grew up in the 60s, would have figured out by now that “Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll” really is not a recipe for a long, healthy, happy, and fulfilled lives. But alas, too many university adults are still looking for Mr. Goodbar themselves, adrift on a sea of cultural relativism they helped create, delusionally thinking they and their students can find fulfillment in a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrha.

I spent 35 years of my working life in academia, the last 19 in higher level administration. I loved every minute of it, even the hard times. And I still find ivied halls, oaken campuses, and glorious libraries compelling.

Even more, I loved the idea of learning, the pursuit of truth, free inquiry, discussion and debate, discovery. These were values rooted in my Christian faith back to the earliest European and American universities founded by people of faith. Oxford University’s motto, dating from the mid-16th Century, is Dominus Illuminatio Mea, meaning “'the Lord is my light.” Harvard University’s motto, adopted in 1692, is Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae, meaning “Truth for Christ and the Church.”

But these values celebrating knowledge, light and wisdom, truth, capital-T Truth in Christ, and the calling of the Church are fast fading if not already gone, even on some Christian college and university campuses.

Today, much of American higher education is a woke-dominated caricature of what it once was, and Sex Week is simply further evidence.

Bible believing Christians are “people of the book.” Christians believe the Bible is what it claims that it is, the Word of God once delivered.

Since we are people of the book, and since we understand that Creation is a gift from God to be developed for his glory and our blessing,Christians have historically initiated, supported, promoted, and worked in and for education. We want people to be literate, to be able to think and discern what is best, to be able to care for the world and our families, even as we carry the message of hope in Jesus Christ.

Since centuries-past, Christians have founded schools and universities and energized them with a Christian worldview rooted in the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26-28, commissioning us to develop culture as unto the Lord.

That’s the vision we should still maintain for free and independent, nonpolitical, quality higher education. It’s “higher” not because it’s post-high school grades 13-16 but because it aspires to lofty values, the best of and the betterment of human civilization.

Sex Week is fools’ gold, false values that lead to the broad road to destruction. Higher education can do better. Our students deserve better.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 15 February 2022

Pandemics may be new to us—at least in our lifetime—but they’re not new to the world. What can we learn from the Reformation theologian Martin Luther who lived through the Bubonic Plague?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #2 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

We are living through a time when a virus has literally gone worldwide, bringing some countries to their knees. COVID-19 has resulted not only in illness and suffering but also death, extensive if debatable government response, and negative economic ripple effects, along with confusion, fear, political rancor.

Seems like it would behoove us to learn a bit about how our forebears dealt with virulent diseases.

Martin Luther was one of the greatest Christian reformers, the man who on Oct. 31, 1517, called the Roman Catholic Church to account by posting “95 Theses” on Wittenberg All Saints Church door.

As enormously important as this is, Luther should also be remembered for his actions and thoughtful response to the dreadful Black Plague – and what his wisdom suggests for us today in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the 1300s, Black Death, also called the Bubonic Plague, swept across two continents, eventually killing half the population of Europe in a short span of four years. Between 75 and 200 million people died and it took nearly two hundred years for the population to return to former levels.

During the 15^th and 16^th Centuries, various epidemics took even more lives in the known populated world. And worse, the Black Death proved episodic, meaning it would die off only to resurge later.

In 1527, the plague came again, visiting Martin Luther’s hometown, Wittenberg, Germany. Luther was instructed to leave by his university elector, but he stayed to minister to the sick. Days later, several around Luther had died. Thankfully, they survived, as did Luther, but he was asked, even challenged, about the decision he made not to leave ahead of the epidemic.

Later that year, Luther wrote a fourteen-page pamphlet, an open letter entitled “Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague.” He began his address to Rev. Dr. John Hess, pastor of Breslau, saying, “You wish to know whether it is proper for a Christian to run away from a deadly plague.” Luther’s answer bears repeating at length.

Luther noted: “When (the Lord) speaks of the greatest commandment he says, ‘The other commandment is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 22:39).

Luther made it clear that Christians have a communal responsibility.

Then Luther stated: “This is said as an admonition and encouragement against fear and a disgraceful flight to which the devil would tempt us so that we would disregard God’s command in our dealings with our neighbor and so we would fall into sin on the left hand.”

Luther did not take lightly the idea of fear or flight, and in fact indicated Christians should not succumb to either.

At the same, time, while Luther rejected fear and flight, he thought people foolish for not using the brains God gave them to avail themselves of reasonable and current ways to protect their health.

“Others sin on the right hand,” Luther said, “They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague.

They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness.”

But for Luther, “This is not trusting God but tempting him. God,” Luther said, “has created medicines and provided us with intelligence to guard and take good care of the body so that we can live in good health.”

Luther was attempting to discern what is best. That’s what this podcast is about, Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

In case his reasoning was somehow misunderstood, Luther went right to the point:

“Use medicine;
take potions which can help you;
fumigate house, yard, and street;
shun persons and places wherever your neighbor does not need your presence or has recovered, and
act like a man who wants to help put out the burning city. What else is the epidemic but a fire which instead of consuming wood and straw devours life and body?”

Luther further recommended, “I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash no foolhardy and does not tempt God."

When the Black Death arrived at his doorstep, Martin Luther did not run screaming into the woods. He did not close his eyes and whistle past the graveyard. He did not stick his head in the sand. He was neither fearful nor foolish but a man of faith who applied his biblically Christian worldview to a real, sin-cursed-world problem. He learned and he served, and he trusted the Sovereign God to work his will with grace and love with respect to both Luther’s family and his community.

COVID-19, the coronavirus, is a real-world pestilence, or in modern terms, a pandemic. It is our challenge in year 2020-2022, and maybe longer yet.

Borrowing from Luther’s application of his Christian worldview:

We should love God by loving our neighbor, both caring for them and for ourselves. We should be good stewards, acting with reason and judgment, taking preventative precautions.

Regarding masks and vaccines, we should be fully convinced in our own minds, as the Apostle Paul reminded us in Romans 14. God has given us reasoning ability, the capacity to think and to choose what we believe honors him, and the responsibility to discern what is best in our decisions.

It may be difficult for some to embrace, but we need to acknowledge that there are dedicated Christians on both sides of the mask and vaccine debates.

I do not understand pastors who have led their churches into adamant positions on one side or the other of mask and vaccine debates, even disinviting or otherwise excluding those who disagree.

I respect pastors who have led their churches to a nuanced, open, informed, mutually respectful attitude toward mask and vaccine decisions among their flock, welcoming all in what can be awkward circumstances.

It’s possible, in fact given the doctrine of Christian liberty it’s biblically defensible, to say that both pro and anti-mask and vaccine advocates can honor God in their decisions.

It is most assuredly not honoring God to judge, to condemn, to assume positions of moral superiority, to perpetrate division in the Body of Christ, especially when many of the arguments are built upon political talking points rather than theology.

It seems to me that the great challenge of the Christian Church in this season of pandemic and post-pandemic is not masks and vaccines per se but helping believers to overcome fear, not based upon our own finite reasoning and not based upon politics but by leaning upon God’s strong right arm, as the Psalmist did.

This pandemic era is an opportunity for the Christian Church to point to a Sovereign God who is not surprised or perplexed by disease. It’s an opportunity to live as unto the Lord, proclaiming the Lordship of Christ in and through all he gives us to experience, and “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).

Well, we’ll see you again soon.

Subcategories