Masks, Personal Liberty and Loving Others
Many communities, including my own, are requiring congregations to wear masks as we return to our buildings for in-person worship services. But should we wear masks? Is this a threat to our personal freedom.
Some Christians are taking this as a place to take a stand.The government shouldn’t be telling the church what to do. Our right to personal liberty requires us to reject these demands.
Others don’t want to wear masks because they see them as ineffective. A mask won’t protect you from COVID-19. So why bother?
If we listen closely to the health officials, they have said from the start that masks are only good for protecting others from you. Since COVID-19 can be still contagious when the person is asymptomatic, it is important that even people without symptoms wear a mask.
But what our own personal preferences? What if we just don’t want to wear a mask and don’t anyone telling us what to do?
Wisdom From 1 Corinthians
A good principle for dealing with this can be found in 1 Corinthians 8. In this passage, Paul is dealing with the issue of eating food sacrificed to idols. Some of the Corinthians were comfortable eating that meat, while others were uncomfortable.
Those who ate the meat argued that since those gods don’t exist, the meat was just meat and therefore acceptable to eat. Paul agreed but had a reminder for them.
What was important was not whether they technically had the right to eat the meat. What was important was treating others with love. If their freedom to eat that meat caused others to stumble, they needed to put others before their own freedom.
The principle is the same for us. We may feel strongly that we have the right not to wear masks in church and we are not going to let the government tell us what to do. But how does this fit with putting the needs of others before ourselves. If wearing a mask would help our brothers and sisters, both physically and emotionally, wouldn’t it be better to wear the mask?
Too often Christianity has adopted the individualistic tendencies of our culture. We need to return to the Bible and follow the principles there rather than our own desires for personal freedom.
