On September 9, 2021, at 5:02 pm President Joe Biden made the following statement concerning COVID-19 vaccines.
“But we need to do more. This is not about freedom or personal choice. It’s about protecting yourself and those around you — the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love. My job as President is to protect all Americans. So, tonight, I’m announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees, that together employ over 80 million workers, to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week.”
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council made the following comment about this statement by President Biden.
“Twenty years ago today, Americans went to sleep never imagining the next morning would change our lives forever….It would have never occurred to us then that two decades later one of the greatest assaults on our sovereignty would come from our government itself. That the man we'd elect as president would one day tell us that confronting a deadly threat (COVID-19) is "no longer about freedom and personal choice.
“When Joe Biden looked into the camera and told us that we had lost the right to make our own health care decisions, no buildings exploded, no lives were lost. But it was still an attack on America and our core values. In many ways, it has the very real potential to do what 9/11 didn't: destroy the free foundations of our country. The White House will say that its vaccine mandate is about public safety and common sense -- and that to beat the pandemic, we all have to give up some liberties.
Liberty!
What is it?
Luke 4:18
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
”Liberty” and “Deliverance” in this passage are translated from the same Greek Word. Jesus declares that liberty is a release…a deliverance. Liberty is setting someone or something free (e.g., from slavery, imprisonment, or some other bondage).
What would make Patrick Henry say,
“Give me liberty or give me death!”
What would motivate Thomas Jefferson to say,
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
William Wallace (Braveheart) once stated,
“There’s a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people freedom. And I go to make sure they have it. Every man dies, but not every man really lives. Fight and you may die. Run and you will live. At least a while… And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance - Just one chance - to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!”
President Joe Biden said concerning those who were refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine,
“We have been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us…
This is not about freedom or personal choice. It's about protecting yourself and those around you — the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love. My job as president is to protect all Americans.”
On the other hand, Benjamin Franklin said the following:
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
What should be the Christians’ and the Church’s responsibilities related to government coercion? Where is the line to be drawn? Join us again next week as we consider more on this vital topic of liberty. What if the government tries these tactics again? What will you do?