The Ezekiel Declaration: Bearing False Witness
Before we sign our names to anything as representatives of God or His church, we should give due consideration to it, or we are in grave danger of breaking the second commandment. Putting God’s Name to something that He has not commanded or spoken about is the very definition of using His Name in vain.
For those who have not come across it, The Ezekiel Declaration is a document drafted and circulated by three Baptist Church pastors and addressed to Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia. It purportedly seeks to express concern about the introduction of vaccine passports; in fact, it is not-too-cleverly disguising another agenda, as we shall see. You can read it here: https://caldronpool.com/ezekieldeclaration/.
While the editor in me balked at the dangling participle in the very first sentence, the spirit in me balked at the rest of it. I took out my red pen, and by the time I’d read through it in detail, the pages looked like a frustrated university professor had bled all over them.
My pastor friend also pointed me to two very good rebuttals, and I don’t really feel the need to rehash what they’ve said in my own words, as they noted most of the same points as I did. The main one can be found here: https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-we-cant-sign-two-evangelical-ministers-respond-to-the-ezekiel-declaration/. A second, which specifically uses Abraham Kuyper’s greater body of writing to dispute the use of two of his quotes in the Declaration, can be found here: https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/dont-be-coerced-be-convinced-kuyper-on-vaccines-and-passports/.
There is an unsuccessfully hidden antivaxx agenda behind the Declaration (e.g. “others may have good and informed reasons for declining [it]” – notice they don’t list any, because there really aren’t any); a good deal of fear mongering (“A ‘vaccine passport’ would therefore represent the dangerous precipice of a therapeutic totalitarianism that does not promote liberty and human flourishing, but would rather only dehumanize and control its citizens all under the cloak of personal health and safety.” Really? Really?? Tell that to the Iranians or the Afghanis); and an unfounded focus on mental illness – and that’s the opinion of someone with severe clinical depression! (How good would people’s mental health be if they started losing loved ones left, right and centre, or were forced to work ridiculous hours for months on end because half of their labour force was in hospital, had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or was dead?) It completely ignores the fact that the prime minister has already stated unequivocally that, if such a passport were introduced, each business would have the right to allow or restrict unvaccinated attendance as it wished – that includes churches. So, really, this is all quite a fuss about nothing.
My main beef, however, is with the incorrect data and the quotes that are taken out of context to support the authors’ point of view. This is a common problem I have with the arguments of Christian antivaxxers, the gravity of which doesn’t ever seem to sink in. Aside from the fact that you risk breaking the law when you quote someone out of context or misapply their words, you are breaking God’s law. And don’t give me that “Christians aren’t under the law” rubbish. If you love God, you try to keep His commandments, particularly the Ten Commandments, of which number nine is, lest you’ve forgotten, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.”
Not only does the document take a small part of Kuyper’s arguments for and against vaccine passports and ignore the rest, but also other quotes are taken out of context to imply the opposite of what the person actually said. The first is the one cited to the Australian Department of Health:
“The world is engaged in the largest clinical trial, the largest global vaccination trial ever, and we will have enormous amounts of data.”
This came from Greg Hunt, and here it is in context:
----
DAVID SPEERS:
So the first goal is trying to protect against the virus coming into Australia,
that’s vaccinating the quarantine workers, border workers and so on. The
longer-term goal is herd immunity?
GREG HUNT:
Well, obviously that is a long-term goal, but one of the things we’ve been
cautious of is that you have three factors.
You have coverage, you also have the question of the
transmission capacity and impact, although the evidence coming out of
international studies now, both clinical trials and real-world data, is that
the different vaccines are showing a strong transmission impact.
But we always have to be aware of the capacity of the virus to
mutate, and we have to look at what is called the longevity of the protection
with regards to the antibodies that are developed, and the world doesn’t know
that answer.
The world is engaged in the largest clinical trial, the largest
global vaccination trial ever, and we will have enormous amounts of data.
But what’s the message for the public? It’s safe, it’s
effective, it will help protect you, but it will also help protect your mum and
dad, your grandparents, your nonna, all of Australia.
----
The Ezekiel Declaration leads the
reader to believe that Hunt is talking about the vaccine distribution being a
safety trial. He is not. In fact, he explicitly states that it’s safe
and will help protect you and your loved ones.
The “trial” part of it is about protection longevity, which is what we call
Phase IV of a clinical trial and is not required for full approval of a
medication. That’s it. That’s all he’s saying.
Now, if Hunt had been following the antivaccination movement for several years prior to COVID, as I have, he probably would have been more careful with his choice of words, because he may have foreseen that “it’s still experimental” would become one of the antivaxxers’ placard claims. Then again, he may not. But this is a perfect example of how people weaponize words taken out of context, and why you should always try to look at the source document when you see a quote used – including a Bible quote. In the words of Chris Rosebrough, “Context, context, context.”
The next is more of a fact taken out of context, or misunderstood:
“A ‘CDC study shows 74% of people infected in Massachusetts[’] Covid outbreak were fully vaccinated,’ especially noting that four of those who were vaccinated were admitted to hospital.”
This is one I’m seeing thrown around a lot, especially in the context of Israel. The fact is that, when you have a high rate of vaccination in an area, you will have more vaccinated people than unvaccinated in hospital. It’s basic statistics, and what is known as the “paradox of vaccination”.
Let’s say we have 100 people, 75 of whom are vaccinated and 25 who aren’t. Of those, say 10 vaccinated people end up in hospital, and 5 unvaccinated. You could say that two-thirds of the people in hospital for COVID are vaccinated. Sounds bad. However, 20% of unvaccinated people are in hospital, and only 10% of vaccinated people are, and they are the important figures. Of course, I just made those figures up, but if you want the real ones out of Israel, you can find them here: https://theconversation.com/covid-cases-are-rising-in-highly-vaccinated-israel-but-it-doesnt-mean-australia-should-give-up-and-live-with-the-virus-166404 and here: https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-efficacy-vs-severe-disease-be-strong-when-60-of-hospitalized-are-vaccinated.
It’s worth noting that Massachusetts has one of the highest vaccination rates of all the US states, at more than 66%, so the “paradox of vaccination” will be at work there.
I cannot express enough how fraudulent, unloving, unchristian and, goshdarnit, unAustralian it is to misquote people and statistics in this way. If you do it, or if you sign your name to a petition that does it, you are breaking the ninth commandment to not bear false witness, and you are leading people into deception.
Pastors, elders and deacons, I beg you, please think very carefully before you support the spread of this kind of misinformation.
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