Coronavirus

[FishProf]

My point still stands, however-- professors should set an example for students, and there is no reason to equivocate on such an example by taking one's mask off walking across campus.

I agree with your first sentence.

I reject your definition of what satisfies the requirement to be a good example. 

Deciding that it is my (generic) duty to go beyond the rules because you (generic) think the rules should be more stringent leads to the argument that we should maximize caution.   That means full lockdown again and that is not currently supported by the data. 

There is a balance, an optimization of caution and freedom (in the ability to get on with our lives, not the 'Murica sense) that needs to be sought.  That is what we all do, everyday, for the myriad risks we take just by going out into the world./

[spork]

Awright, I will fess up.  The pandemic has been really rough on me wrt my church.   Being the only one masking, supporting Biden, trying to deal with the ignorance and active promotion of bad, ahem, well... and then this guy, after preaching nonsense about vaxxes, goes and gets himself a covid case that the ICU nurse tells his wife that he was only one of two people during the pandemic at that hospital, who had it so bad, who survived.   And then after this, his badly homeschooled 20yo son is prepared to give up his future to not vax, and his mom asks for prayer that he will be able to keep his job without vaxxing.   And his father is apparently ok with all of this.  And whenever the man is actually healthy enough to return to church services, I will have to figure out how to hide the overt resentment I feel for the man....

Being a member of this congregation signifies endorsement of the views of the pastor.

Personally, I am not going to attend a religious service in which the message preached is contrary to both science and the tenets of the religion, just as I am not going to be the patient of a physician or nurse who I know is unwilling to protect others against a highly contagious disease by getting vaccinated.

[secundem_artem]

Awright, I will fess up.  The pandemic has been really rough on me wrt my church.   Being the only one masking, supporting Biden, trying to deal with the ignorance and active promotion of bad, ahem, well... and then this guy, after preaching nonsense about vaxxes, goes and gets himself a covid case that the ICU nurse tells his wife that he was only one of two people during the pandemic at that hospital, who had it so bad, who survived.   And then after this, his badly homeschooled 20yo son is prepared to give up his future to not vax, and his mom asks for prayer that he will be able to keep his job without vaxxing.   And his father is apparently ok with all of this.  And whenever the man is actually healthy enough to return to church services, I will have to figure out how to hide the overt resentment I feel for the man....

You are starting to sound like someone in an abusive relationship who just can't/won't leave.  If your faith is that important to you, surely there is another church where you continue to worship while still feeling like a valued member of a faith community.  Best of luck to you sir.  This does not sound healthy for you - physically, mentally, or spiritually.

[kaysixteen]

I am not sure I understand why it is that my remaining in this church necessarily means I agree 100% with the views of the pastor (which I can assure ye that I do not)?   IOW, is it ever really the case that the average adult congregant in any religious group, save the overtly culty and some highly doctrinaire-thinking controlled sects, really will believe 100% of the teachings of the leadership?   I get that when/if the leadership comes to espouse views that are patently unacceptable, and said member elects to stay, he is essentially either consenting to that bad teaching, or at least saying it does not matter, but that is a high bar to hit, and mostly, disagreements with the leadership do not rise to that level, to the effect that the member has to evaluate whether he should depart, whether he can be a part of the congregation without agreeing with said errors, indeed whether his ongoing presence would potentially have a salutary effect and may even lead to a reform of the teaching.

That said, I do confess that I have had several ulterior motives that mitigate against the thought of departing, however much I am not proud of this.   And, that as a low-income, single guy with no real support network around here, I am perhaps more tethered to it that I might be were this not  the case.  And it is also true, something that perhaps people here who are not committed evangelicals, or indeed not committed members of any spiritual tradition, do not realize that committed religionists actually have set belief systems that strongly mitigate against joining a congregation/ denomination, that is not really committed to such views, at least not substantively.

Still, I gotta speak up wrt the pandemic and associated issues.   It is driving me to distraction.   And greatly magnifying just how 'alien' I really am in this congregation (and, sadly, increasingly also within American evangelicaldom in the age of Drumpf, which is nothing like it was say 30 years ago).

[apl68]

Awright, I will fess up.  The pandemic has been really rough on me wrt my church.   Being the only one masking, supporting Biden, trying to deal with the ignorance and active promotion of bad, ahem, well... and then this guy, after preaching nonsense about vaxxes, goes and gets himself a covid case that the ICU nurse tells his wife that he was only one of two people during the pandemic at that hospital, who had it so bad, who survived.   And then after this, his badly homeschooled 20yo son is prepared to give up his future to not vax, and his mom asks for prayer that he will be able to keep his job without vaxxing.   And his father is apparently ok with all of this.  And whenever the man is actually healthy enough to return to church services, I will have to figure out how to hide the overt resentment I feel for the man....

You are starting to sound like someone in an abusive relationship who just can't/won't leave.  If your faith is that important to you, surely there is another church where you continue to worship while still feeling like a valued member of a faith community.  Best of luck to you sir.  This does not sound healthy for you - physically, mentally, or spiritually.

It really does sound like you may need to find another church with a better pastor.  Most ministers are NOT like what this guy sounds like.

If you feel that you are called to stay with that particular congregation, in an effort to be salt and light there, I can respect that.  In that case, though, you need to armor yourself up with prayer.  Prayer for that minister, that he can have the grace and humility to see where he is in error, and prayer for yourself, that you can relate to him and to others in the church with grace and love.

There was a time, some years back, when our church's pastor and I were each going through some really bad times, for different reasons.  I seriously considered jumping ship for another congregation.  But I stayed, and did a lot of praying for myself and for the pastor.  Over the years we've both gotten a lot better.  God has shown us each things that we needed to deal with during that time.

[mamselle]

A relationship with a church has some similarities to a relationship within a marriage. Love is involved, as well as trust, wisdom, stewardship of ones abilities, and the ways one will share ones gifts within the congregation.

One also has to experience nurture, healthy interactions, and good challenges to ones spiritual life as well as ones overall growth.

I've stayed in congregations where it looked like issues could be worked out, and I've left those where I tried and they didn't get worked out--and I could see that they weren't going to, and that our gifts and needs just didn't seem well-matched.

I've left places where I liked/benefitted from a minister's preaching but found the congregation impossibly confrontative or unkind. I've also stayed too long in places where I kept thinking it would turn a corner and work out, and finally had to accept that it wasn't going to.

When I leave a place, I don't always know where I'm going next, I might have to visit a few places several times before I find one that works. I'm not saying I make a habit of doing this, but I have become more comfortable with seeing church membership as a fluid at some points, and a solid at others.

In some cases, it felt like I was moulting--I needed to be at that place in that time to learn some given aspect of the life of faith, and then needed to move on--a bit like a hermit crab, maybe, as well--if the shell gets too tight, it's time to find a new one.

In that way, of course, it's not like a marriage, because in a marriage, hopefully, the other person is committed enough to the relationship to be willing to grow with you, or accept your changing needs as you grow with them. The process of getting a church to grow or change is more like turning a battleship, and if the leadership doesn't see a need for the change or value the individual who does (properly called prophets, perhaps) you do have to shake the dust from your feet and move on (a process that also has good Scriptural warrant).

M.

[kaysixteen]

Random points and honest self-assessments:

1) shaking the dust off of one's feet is scriptural, per se, but it does require that the church essentially be apostate.   That would clearly be the context of what Jesus is saying there.

2)Church membership is a vitally important biblical context, at least *in my understanding*.   Mamselle and I have had discussions about her differing view here.   I can respect her, and her view, but cannot share it.   When one covenants with a church body, one cannot leave for trite reasons, or disagreements on secondary issues, etc.  I cannot, further, ever see that it would be scriptural to take a 'fluid' approach to church attendance.

3) I am trying to work up the courage to share with the pastor some of the things wrt covid and similar cultural issues, that I have shared here.  I am not there yet, but hope to get that way before more silliness and destructiveness ensues (though today was essentially a good day).   Of course, it is also true that, to the pastor's credit, he does try to approach some of these people in a pastoral way, not wanting to confront them before they are ready (though he is rather weak on confrontation/ discipline).

4)I am lousy at visiting places, and as a single guy, whenever I do do that, I have to be doing it alone, which, esp at my age, is really hard (and perhaps harder in that, whenever I visit an evangelical church, I often have to deal with well-meaning people, who do not know me from Adam, trying to evangelize me, which I do not really like dealing with, esp if I do have differing views from what I might find preached at the church in question, which might lead the locals to view me as unsaved). 

5) I realllllyyyyy do not like this, but I am dependent on this community.   It is a real factor in my ongoing decision to stay, and to not be as strident in my responses to things there.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

More of my students are getting sick. :( I swear, at this rate, the entire class will have it.

Currently, I'm teaching in an area where the vaccine isn't exactly popular and I think that the majority of my students who tested positive were not vaccinated.

One of my students told me that she snuck her friend out to get vaccinated since the friend's parents don't believe in the vaccine.

[Puget]

More of my students are getting sick. :( I swear, at this rate, the entire class will have it.

Currently, I'm teaching in an area where the vaccine isn't exactly popular and I think that the majority of my students who tested positive were not vaccinated.

One of my students told me that she snuck her friend out to get vaccinated since the friend's parents don't believe in the vaccine.

Sorry to hear that! Meanwhile with 97% of the campus vaccinated we've had only 1 case in the past seven days, out of more than 8000 tests of more than 5500 people. Vaccines work. They work really well when there are no big pockets of unvaccinated people.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

More of my students are getting sick. :( I swear, at this rate, the entire class will have it.

Currently, I'm teaching in an area where the vaccine isn't exactly popular and I think that the majority of my students who tested positive were not vaccinated.

One of my students told me that she snuck her friend out to get vaccinated since the friend's parents don't believe in the vaccine.

Sorry to hear that! Meanwhile with 97% of the campus vaccinated we've had only 1 case in the past seven days, out of more than 8000 tests of more than 5500 people. Vaccines work. They work really well when there are no big pockets of unvaccinated people.

I bring masks to class every day, but they're kind of crappy (school provided them). I bought some 'better' masks (KN95s- could be fake, but who knows? CDC says that about 60% are fakes.) and I plan to distribute them in class tomorrow. Maybe I can get some of them to actually wear these masks.

[Kron3007]

More of my students are getting sick. :( I swear, at this rate, the entire class will have it.

Currently, I'm teaching in an area where the vaccine isn't exactly popular and I think that the majority of my students who tested positive were not vaccinated.

One of my students told me that she snuck her friend out to get vaccinated since the friend's parents don't believe in the vaccine.

Sorry to hear that! Meanwhile with 97% of the campus vaccinated we've had only 1 case in the past seven days, out of more than 8000 tests of more than 5500 people. Vaccines work. They work really well when there are no big pockets of unvaccinated people.

Likewise, we have about 95% vaccination rate for students (I think 97% for faculty and staff) and have had three confirmed cases in a university with 20-30k students.  They are pretty convincing numbers.  I feel horrible for everyone out there working in anti-vax regions like that.

[FishProf]

I had a positive case in class this week.  I KNOW the student was vaccinated, and that the campus is masked up indoors, and all the appropriate precautions were taken.  I teach about this and know what breakthrough cases actually mean....

....but my first reaction was "Is [student] REALLY vaccinated?"

Bad FishProf.

[lightning]

I had a positive case in class this week.  I KNOW the student was vaccinated, and that the campus is masked up indoors, and all the appropriate precautions were taken.  I teach about this and know what breakthrough cases actually mean....

....but my first reaction was "Is [student] REALLY vaccinated?"

Bad FishProf.

So, you have actually seen their vaccination card, and if you did you are sure that the card was legit?

If you check into the emergency room or urgent care, they are not allowed to turn you away. So if you can't pay, they can't turn you away. If you are not vaccinated, they can't turn you away. IOW, people can lie about their status when they are checking themselves in. This totally screws up the case numbers.

[Caracal]

I had a positive case in class this week.  I KNOW the student was vaccinated, and that the campus is masked up indoors, and all the appropriate precautions were taken.  I teach about this and know what breakthrough cases actually mean....

....but my first reaction was "Is [student] REALLY vaccinated?"

Bad FishProf.

So, you have actually seen their vaccination card, and if you did you are sure that the card was legit?

If you check into the emergency room or urgent care, they are not allowed to turn you away. So if you can't pay, they can't turn you away. If you are not vaccinated, they can't turn you away. IOW, people can lie about their status when they are checking themselves in. This totally screws up the case numbers.

Meh, not sure there's need for that much suspicion. Vaccinated people are less likely to test positive, but it does happen and it does seem like immunity against infection does wane while protection against getting really sick remains strong. In the long run we are all going to have to get used to the idea that vaccinated people will sometimes get covid and it isn't that big a deal.

[sinenomine]

I had a positive case in class this week.  I KNOW the student was vaccinated, and that the campus is masked up indoors, and all the appropriate precautions were taken.  I teach about this and know what breakthrough cases actually mean....

....but my first reaction was "Is [student] REALLY vaccinated?"

Bad FishProf.

So, you have actually seen their vaccination card, and if you did you are sure that the card was legit?

If you check into the emergency room or urgent care, they are not allowed to turn you away. So if you can't pay, they can't turn you away. If you are not vaccinated, they can't turn you away. IOW, people can lie about their status when they are checking themselves in. This totally screws up the case numbers.

Meh, not sure there's need for that much suspicion. Vaccinated people are less likely to test positive, but it does happen and it does seem like immunity against infection does wane while protection against getting really sick remains strong. In the long run we are all going to have to get used to the idea that vaccinated people will sometimes get covid and it isn't that big a deal.

Seven people I know, all of whom are vaccinated, have tested positive in the last few weeks.