The pandemic has long since become a political hammer....used primarily to gain advantage for one particular political candidate or for particular platform. Some of the books out there are extremely hard to read....for they assemble and cherry-pick facts throughout that distort and embellish to the point that the 'facts' point to false conclusions. I'll give you one statistic....insignificant in that is from me....but very clear. I went for years with hardly any friends dying....and then lost 12 friends to covid or COVID related issues in a two year period. They are who I was aware of....and since the pandemic abated....even though we are older....it is back to normal. The pandemic was real....it was a message from God....but we had more important issues to deal with.
Americans always had a pretty positive view of vaccines. I can remember getting them when I was a child....but vaccine is a dirty word today. What are these politicos going to do in the next pandemic or epidemic? They have already in as much as labeled vaccines as the mark of the devil? Or will it be a different story if they are in charge?
Anyway....Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was a renowned Puritan pastor....his strength being the practicality of the reformed pastor. I have one large tome of his next to me now....Baxter's Practical Works....Volume 4....still in the cellophane....a remnant from the Christian bookstore that we once owned....but it was in his volume five that he addressed this question....and consider that he pastored through the The Great Plague and The Great Fire of London in 1666 and 1667. The following is a question he put to himself...and his answer:
Question 109
May we omit church assemblies on the Lord's Day if the magistrate forbid them?
Answer 1. It is one thing to forbid them for a time upon some special cause as infection by pestilence for war &c and another to forbid them stately or profanely.
(You can easily Google his entire answer...and the answer to Question 110 that pertains to it. For the sake of brevity I'm only highlighting the essence of his answer)
(1) If the magistrate for a greater good, (as the common safety,) forbid church assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault or enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him."
What Baxter is saying here is simply to use common sense! There are times when the...."magistrate"....has the right to close the church doors....and there are times when that magistrate has no right to close church doors. This pandemic was an emergency....people were dying right and left....mistakes were made....could you imagine it any other way....and politics surely did enter in to some decisions....but to use this as a political hammer today is neither honest nor right.
Interestingly...the book sitting here next to me....has this single blurb on the front cover....
"For the man who takes his call to the ministry seriously, plumbing the depths of Richard Baxter' Reformed Pastor is a must." John MacArthur
Addendum: The large tome mentioned above retailed for $59....and did not sell at our store....but a smaller classic paperback of his did sell. That title is The Reformed Pastor....by which Baxter meant....the revived pastor.....something that the church drastically needs today! I remember this anecdote about Baxter.....it was his practice to visit every family in his large congregation at once every year. So to you or I this would mean that your pastor would have scheduled a visit with you.....proactive on his part....not putting the responsibility upon you....ten times in the past ten years.
