The denomination we grew up in is full of sincere, wonderful people. When we left, we lost a family. I wish I could describe how it feels to see 18,000 of them gather indoors in Orlando this past week, with few masks to be seen, while Florida sets a new record for COVID hospitalizations and ICU admissions every day, and to see their website prominently display a photo of Trump’s secretary of state on the platform. To the denomination’s credit, women and persons of color now account for just over half of their national governing board. But this isn’t going to fix the systemic cultural problems on display at what had all the marks of a super-spreader event.
We often see the anti-mask, anti-COVID vaccine movement as a moral problem, a refusal to care for neighbor. But the more serious issue is the alternative reality and crippled epistemology these attitudes are rooted in. Those deceived by the Trumpian Right’s COVID narrative don’t see anything immoral about resisting COVID prevention measures that they mistakenly believe are ineffective or unneeded. Many Evangelicals are taught from childhood to distrust science, observable evidence, and reputable sources of information. Scientists are caricatured as atheists at war with religion and ridiculed for believing nonsense like evolution and climate change.
Our former denomination has doubled down on its emphasis on divine healing. Yet miraculous healings are so exceedingly rare that believing biblical promises of healing, divine protection, having “whatever we ask” in prayer, etc. requires the sort of faith that denies 99.9% of the reality of human experience, including my son’s tears after he “asked God to heal my headache, and he wouldn’t,” and the need for a morgue in every children’s hospital. In practice, when a loved one is diagnosed with cancer or a child with a genetic disorder, these promises prove unreliable, leaving the faithful to blame themselves for “lacking faith” or the one who’s suffering for “having sin in their life.” (Yes, God heals through medicine, but that’s far short of what’s being advertised; and many who would claim God heals through medicine are rejecting the godsend that is COVID vaccination.) But if it’s in the Bible (or we’re told it is), then “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it,” overwhelming evidence to the contrary be damned. Let God and Trump be found true, and every scientist and physician found a liar. Until this distorted politico-religious worldview and flawed belief system lose some of their enormous power, we will continue to experience the bitter fruit of American fundamentalism and its marriage to the far Right.