Opinion: Don't Take Medical Advice from Pastors

Opinion/Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Going to your church’s pastor for medical advice is like going to the dentist to get your car fixed. You might find a dentist who can ably repair your car, but don’t count on it.  

Some pastors have been and continue to be cautious about the surge in the virus, worrying about the health of those in their congregations (they have already preached COVID funerals), and those with whom I have had discussions are doing all they can in the current climate, even though some in their congregations push back.

But I have also heard other pastors who are spreading misinformation, misrepresenting data and ridiculing the best efforts of the scientific community to deal with the pandemic (the accomplishments have been phenomenal given the short period of time), and sadly attaching religious significance or personal spin in ways which do not reflect truth.

Trusting God does not mean hunkering down on messaging which questions the efficacy of proven steps, such as the vaccine and masks, in stemming the tide of the virus and of the new variant(s). Imagine the toll without the vaccine or without the radical steps taken last year to slow this pandemic down. More people have died in the U.S. of COVID than from the Spanish Flu of 1918, making it the deadliest pandemic (in raw numbers) in our country's history. Arguments of deaths being due to other factors are moot. When someone dies of heart disease and many other ailments, there are contributing factors, so to suggest only already sick people are dying from COVID is disingenuous and crafted to fit a narrative that is, even when unintentional, harmful.  

It plays into our culture. There exists an addiction to certainty that craves an absolute black and white views on issues, and the virus is evidence that such lust for a worldview that makes us comfortable and/or gains the approval of our friends or the faces in the crowd. Addiction to certainty is taking a journey to a place you have never been, yet give others minute details and descriptions of things one has yet seen. Presumptive vision is not the same and understanding. 

People struggle with uncertainty, assuming that certainty will chase away fear, but it does not. Prematurely gasping for answers, especially those others might want to hear, without fully understanding events as they unfold, can provide marginal and temporary relief to some. When the outcome turns out differently that which they are so certain of, they regroup and recast what we said before with yet another set of certainties that may or may not hold up as time passes. 

Such meandering can be harmless. But in the case of a worldwide pandemic which has already killed 4.4 million people and is killing roughly 2,000 more daily in the United States, it is dangerous to suggest what is happening is come political-created or media-created reality.  

To suggest the scientific community has been weak on this pandemic is to expose a fundamental misunderstanding of science, which is not based on dogma, but is constantly updating information based on the most up-to-date evidence. 

Sadly, dogma is often the hallmark of pastors in some churches, something which might find a legitimate place setting orthodoxy, but has little place for evaluating such things as medical issues. Unfortunately, many among these church leaders who should reframe from suggesting they are qualified to research such issues with authority, charge on with their opinions and observervations.

Anecdotal taunts of “I had COVID and barely felt anything” or “I don’t know anyone personally who died of COVID” ring hollow. Just because one doesn’t know any of the 38,000 people who died on the highways in the U.S. last year or barks out “I had a car accident and it didn’t kill me” does not diminish facts, no matter how one might seek to twist them.

To suggest that people are still dying and being hospitalized at alarming rates in spite of the vaccine is their creation of a new straw man, one that is as easily blown away as a goose feather.  

There is no way of knowing how many more worldwide would have died without the rapid release and deployment of the vaccine. But after the vaccination became widely available, both cases of the virus and deaths related to it plummeted. It is evident now that nearly all those who are currently contracting the virus and those dying from it , are mostly unvaccinated and those in ICU are almost all unvaccinated.  

Locally, this trend reflects that of the rest of the world.

AnMed reported 147 COVID-19 patients on Friday. 129 of those were either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated and 38 were in the ICU. Of the 18 fully vaccinated, only one was listed in the ICU. 

Talk to doctors and nurses who have been treating such patients since last March to get a bigger picture of how serious this virus is and has been.  

AnMed Internist Dr. Wilson Sofley posted this on Facebook late last week: 

“Your local health care workers are trying to help you, our neighbors. We are not part of a vast conspiracy. We do not get paid more if we diagnose a patient with COVID-19 or say they died from COVID-19. We just want our patients and our community to be healthy.” 

No religious notations, no political grandstanding, just a medical professional who wants his friends and neighbors to know: “Multiple well controlled studies have shown that the best way to prevent a COVID-19 infection is to get vaccinated.” 

His message is simply and comes from a place of compassion and concern. So should ours. My hope is more will spread this message, and speak the truth in love to our community, ignoring the loud voices who reject truth.