I Want To Go To Heaven, But Not Through Suicide: A Calvinist Christian Response To Covid-19 Conspiracies

I had gone to Stanford University, California (USA) on March 3, 2020, for a conference that was to last for about a week. But a few weeks before the start of the conference, everyone started feeling the pangs of yet another dispensation that would forever disrupt us. This was because of the news trickling in from China about a menacing virus.

While the news about this so-named apocalyptic-prototype virus should have troubled the world into collective action, the enriched countries decided to rather evacuate their citizens – as if to tell the world that it is China that is troubled. Indeed, just when the novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic, the Chinese and Asians became subjects of deepened racial slurs and stigmatisation in several of the Euro-American worlds.

Beyond the developed nations evacuating their citizens trapped in a "virus-infested" China to an imagined “safe” home, illusions of "Don't worry, we are in control" were heard from the corridors of western leaders. They claimed they had a robust healthcare system that could contain the virus. In England, the political elites kept assuring us of a resilience NHS.

In the face of rhetoric of control, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared what some of these western leaders tagged as a “Chinese virus” as a pandemic. Concurrently, before long, people in the West were sadly dying in their numbers – leading to reasonable stress and anxiety. In the end, a question that required the same answer circulated globally: WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic? Answer: WHO.

Ironically, while Africans were tipped to fall en mass to the virus – dying in record-high numbers (as the continent, unfortunately, happens to be the receiving end of most major pandemics that start from somewhere away from the continent), Africans survived. This was such that while deaths were obviously recorded in several countries in Africa, the rate of deaths was comparatively insignificant.

Several reasons were adduced for Africa's perceived low mortality rate. Some recapitulated the geographical determinism theory (of Ibn Khaldun, Hegel, Jared Diamond etc) – pointing to the hot climate as inhospitable for the virus; others talked about Africans' natural immunity as a result of living in a supposedly disease-burdened continent; there was also the idea of Africans having acquired decades of experiences in fighting epidemics, including Ebola and HIV/AIDS. Similarly, others talked about political repression from African leaders that cowed citizens to stick to lockdown rules.

Nevertheless, under the logic of secularism that brackets the world out of the control of God and the spirit world, hardly did any analyst talk about Africans praying for divine intervention as a mitigating factor. Indeed, historically, Africans and everyone else, had prayed whenever disaster struck. Even so, since the birth of modern science in the eighteenth century, the West had developed an appetite for a "We have figured it all out, so we don't need God" attitude towards life.

If anything at all, God was introduced into any serious conversation, it was part of the "God-in-the -gap" theory, where any trace of divine intervention was waiting to be eliminated as science progresses.

As the virus proved to be transnational in deconstructing the illusions of control of modern science and technology, the WHO, on March 11, 2020, declared the virus a pandemic. At this point, internationalism caved in to nationalism as nations were “crying their own cry” with more of Cain’s philosophy “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Concomitantly, the pandemic and its related matters have been monetised, politicised, and weaponised to deepen systemic inequality and injustice.

Back to my experience: Graciously, the conveners of the conference at Stanford cancelled the conference early enough, as several participants could not fly over from their respective countries – obviously because of the menacing virus. Fortunately, a few of us who had arrived early enough had a mini-conference, where I presented my paper to the admiration of my supervisor.

By March 9, 2020, I managed to return to England to spend time with my family. I heaved a sigh of relief when I arrived in Birmingham, as my supervisor was concerned I may be locked up in California.

As the pandemic holds us captive and continues to cause more brain-racking, we see the mutating of the virus as a factor a reason for more stress. Given the mutations of the virus, making it more treacherous at every major turn, it is doubtless that human wits have been seriously overstretched.

As brains are overstretched and rationalism proves inadequate in making sense of the complexities of the pandemic, conspiracies, myths, superstitions, fairy tales loom large.

Nevertheless, whether rationalism or conspiracies as approaches to making sense of the virus, human beings must seek and where necessary “invent” meaning, especially as the totalising impact of the virus is unprecedented in the last century of human history. Consequently, it is either a few individuals who have hijacked the world for their capitalistic gain or the gods are angry with human beings, leading us into an apocalyptic end of history.

Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci have, in some quarters, been declared the mortal enemies of the sons and daughters of God, as these individuals are profiled as the forerunners of the anti-Christ or anti-natalists (or enemies of procreation). As these men are believed to have sponsored or contributed to the development of vaccines and facemasks, they are reified as the frontiers of a cosmic Armageddon.

I wonder whether any of these two persons stand to benefit from any supposed agenda of depopulation. This is because both economics and political regimes are based on population growth. If China, as a result of COVID-19, has eliminated their one-child policy, why would Gates and Fauci seek to depopulate the world? This one, I struggle to come to terms with it.

In response to hard to establish conspiracies, several Christians, including respected pastors, have joined the fray to admonish their followers to avoid both the wearing of a facemask in public and vaccination. Others told their members to defy the lockdown rules to hold religious services. Political leaders who pushed for COVID-19 safety protocols were seen as compradors, sell-outs, and proxies of anti-Christ.

Strangely, some of our own ancestral religious practitioners said that COVID-19 was because of global women’s infidelity. For example, the Chief Priest of Aflao, Tronua Sadzi, said, “the gods were not happy with adultery among women in the world, hence, the disease” (“Aflao Traditional Council consults deities over coronavirus - https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Aflao-Traditional-Council-consults-deities-over-coronavirus-906694).

The assertion by the Chief Priest rather hit me hard. I was wondering whether the Priest was only reacting to women whose level of enlightenment has demobilised men from having more women at will?

Anyways, millenarian religious groups like the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA), had their leaders quickly stepping in to stem the tide against any needless conspiracies that could burden the global fight against the pandemic. This was significant because some members of the SDA tend to read virtually every historical oddity as part of the imposition of a supposed ahistorical National Sunday Law. Other churches also stepped in the debunk all conspiracies of an anti-Christ-inspired pandemic.

Alas, despite all these, conspiracies reign large such that several Ghanaians (and of course people around the world) have refused to both stick to the safety protocols or receive a vaccination. In Ghana, non-vaccination (or vaccine apathy) is read as part of rebelling against the demons of the world and Western imperialism.

Consequently, when I first visited Ghana on November 27, 2021, ever since the pandemic broke, I realised that I was among the few COVID-diots (inverted targets) in town. Right from day one, anytime I hopped on a Trotro (commercial mini-bus), I realised I would usually be the only one in a facemask. Even when I visited a church service at Lashibi, Accra, a day after my arrival, in the congregation numbering about 60, I realised only about three of us wore a facemask. In Kumasi, people had simply discarded all known safety protocols. Paradoxically, as major cities, Accra and Kumasi continue to suffer the ravages of the virus.

When a few of my friends met me in my facemask, they told me I would soon give up, because face covering was a mark of disbelieving in God, acceptance of Western imperialism, and an acceptance of the “Mark of the Beast”. I responded to them that I had already received the beastly mark, as I had taken my two full vaccinations already. As I write, I am waiting to go for more of the beast, my booster vaccine.

As conspiracies disrupt the fight against the pandemic, I have deliberately refused to engage in any serious theological discussions with pastor-friends who patronise these conspiracies. Instead, I wrote journalistic articles expressing my views against conspiracies. These articles included: “If a man dies, will he live again? An inquiry (https://www.modernghana.com/news/1005628/if-a-man-dies-will-he-live-again-an-inquiry.html); “Because the Lord Heard I am not loved”: Leah, Africa and COVID-19” (https://www.modernghana.com/news/999604/because-the-lord-heard-i-am-not-loved-leah.html); “Better a promise than nothing! Why we must pay attention to the president’s promise” (https://www.modernghana.com/news/998613/better-a-promise-than-nothing-why-we-must-pay.html); “How much of Jesus are you? Christians helping in a perilous time of COVID-19” (https://www.modernghana.com/news/995335/how-much-of-jesus-are-you-christians-helping-in.html); “COVID-19, Easter and the question of pain and evil in our world” (https://www.modernghana.com/news/995159/covid-19-easter-and-the-question-of-pain-and-evil.html); “Do not fear, but let “I” give in to “We” to conquer the COVID-19” (https://www.modernghana.com/news/991329/do-not-fear-but-let-i-give-in-to-we-to-conque.html) etc.

As the new variant of the virus, Omicron, takes a toll on Ghanaians in the face of wanton disregard for COVID-19 safety protocols, I want to shed some insight as to how I fight the virus as a Christian with a predilection towards Calvinistic theology – routinised in TULIP (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints).

While several Ghanaian Presbyterians have lost track of the blessedness of Calvinistic theology in favour of Charismatic theology, the oxymoron is rather that, for me a member of the Church of Pentecost, I have hardly turned away from this doctrinal school of thought since I got know about it in 2002. Indeed, before 2002, I had read lots of literature from Arminian scholars, including R.B. Thieme Jnr.

As I appeal to Calvinistic theology, I humbly ask everyone to freely consider the COVID-19 safety protocols, including vaccination for one central reason: The sovereignty of God. One of the reasons and force behind all the conspiracies and scientific arrogance is fear. As a Christian, I read several years ago that FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. Unfortunately, several Christians have succumbed to the fear that some individuals want to depopulate the world by biologically re-engineering COVID-19.

In all humility, this is very bizarre and lack of faith in the God who created all things and in whom all things subsist. Logically, such fears do not make sense. Haven't such conspirators realised that more children have been born as a result of lockdown-induced social isolation than perhaps any time in our recent history? Since the end of 2020, including just yesterday, all my friends who had married for years without children are giving birth. In fact, those who were dilly-dallying with marriage had married and had child/ren partly because of the lockdown rules.

That procreation is rather high is precisely because, as the world of work, enmeshed in “fasts”, has denied couples for the blessedness intimacy for procreation, and while stress is affecting the fertility of several men, the pandemic-induced "stay home" was nearly read as "stay home and enjoy your marriage to refill the world".

Also, "Stay away; keep the distance" partly meant, "stay with your spouse only". In all this, more children have been born than several depopulation conspirators had conspired. Can’t COVID-19 conspirators see the hand of God in all this? Can’t they see God telling the so-called men and women who an imagined as agents of depopulation that, “I am God and my counsel of sustaining the world through procreation will stand”?

Because my God is sovereign, I pray over the vaccine and take it without any fear whatsoever. In fact, the vaccine conspiracies remind me of Paul's response to the Corinthians who were unsure about eating meat that had obviously been sacrificed to idols. I can imagine Paul doing two things and, indeed, he did. First, he said these Corinthians are ignorant about the sovereignty of God. Second, he asked: what do these baby Corinthian Christians think? Do they think there is any other power apart from God?

Responding to them, therefore, Paul said,

For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many so-called gods and lords), yet for us there is but one God the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we exist. And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came through whom we exist (I Corinthians 8: 6).

Relating this to the conspiracies against vaccination, Paul is simply telling me, "Prempeh, go for the vaccine and more, for there is nothing that anyone can do to you, for all these men and women and spirits are as powerless as dependent creatures before the uncreated Triune God".

If you are a Christian, there is nothing to worry about, including fear of vaccination or respecting and keeping the safety protocols of the virus. You should rather fear dying by suicide – dying because you recklessly allowed conspiracies to deify human beings and science. In fact, God did not ordain us to go to heaven by death. While God knew before the foundation of the world that death would upset His creation and majestically allowed it, death is not natural. Death is not a friend, so we never get used to it. Death is an enemy, so we never stop cursing it. Death will be conquered, for that is our only hope. So, it will be strange for a Christian to go for death which is decidedly in contradistinction to our faith.

If, for any reason, the early Apostles and several other Christians suffered martyrdom, they did not surrender themselves willingly to death without a cause. They did that because they had to stand for their faith. That is why Peter was very clear in telling us that, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Indeed, none of you should suffer as a murderer or thief or wrongdoer, or even as a meddler. But if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear that name” (I Peter 4:15).

If we Christians refuse to be wise as a serpent, we would be the idiots of the world, because we would not desire to live. This is because not every scientist/inventor is a Christian. Not every inventor has good intentions for the world. Not every farmer begins cultivating the land with the name of God. Some companies have pacts with their own cultic practices. If we Christians go about being picky in all these, when are we to occupy until the Lord comes? A few years ago, we were told some corned beef were from the depths of the sea!

I know that ever since some people read Iyke Nathan Uzorma’s, “Occult Grandmaster now in Christ”, a book I read several years ago, conspiracies about malevolent spirits capturing the world has increased. But we must be assured that our Triune is God sovereign.

Similarly, if you want to follow the elites who hardly respect COVID-19 protocols to ground your conspiracies, you are mistaken. I always tell people that, I am unlike everyone else, in terms of my vision and positionality in my family. I am Abusua Krachie (a corruption of clerk), so when I was nearly crashed on the Kumasi-Accra road on December 3, 2021, I caused the arrest of the driver. This is because my death would not mean well for my poor family in the ghettos. When would my mother give birth to a son who would rise to receive a PhD from the University of Cambridge?

Perhaps, there is more at stake for you than me. So, if I were you, I will do things that would protect me and allow God to take care of the conspiracies I have certainly have no control over.

I hope I have spoken enough. Let’s avoid death as much as we can, even though the worst of death will lead to the best that will ever happen to us.

Blessings

Satyagraha

Prempeh Charles ([email protected]), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana