It’s Not You, It’s Your Religion

-Pastor Melissa Fain-

Whether you realize it or not, your faith is working in the background of your everyday life. 

Many people want their faith to be easy because their normal day to day is not. They want someone to step up to the pulpit, and tell them all the things they want to hear. Some people don’t want to hear at all, and those people either want social standing or to have a good program for the kids.

I can’t be angry at those people. Deception is extremely alluring. It can trick almost everyone to turn on their neighbor.

I’ve said this before, and it stands repeating time and time again- When anger is replaced with sadness, that’s the beginning of the Christian journey.

Right now the Covid cases per 100k in Paulding is 575. The threshold where Covid is spreading wild in a community is 200. We are 375 per 100k residents above that number. It gets worse.

When I counted up two weeks worth of reported numbers for Paulding County Schools, and factored in the teachers, that number is around 2608 per 100k. If you need a moment to process that number, I understand. I did too. 

Let me explain my math. Skip this paragraph if it hurts your head. Just know student pop with general teacher population is 31,097. Reported cases over the past two weeks in Paulding County Schools are 811. To figure out what the case rate would be per 100k (which helps with transmission rate) multiply case number by 100k, divide by population. If you want to test this out, go to the Ga DPH Covid side and use their numbers and case rates to try it out on a few counties.

The people who are getting desperately ill are by and large, not the vaccinated. They are people who called this whole event a hoax last year. They are the ones who equated it to the flu or a bad cold. They are the people who screamed about personal rights regarding masks. 

I can’t feel comeuppance for these people. I can’t. Some of these people are going to die. It won’t be their faith that saves them; it will be their faith that kills them. Knowing that breaks my heart. God is bigger and deeper than their penny arcade faith. A relationship in Christ is worth more than a simple statement of faith. A statement of faith does not take away personal accountability; or allow you to act like an ass to your neighbor. While that’s a crude way to put it, it’s feel-good, easy-choice religion that created this mess. It’s a religion that was so hyper-focused on the self at the cost of the other. All of these screams Dollar Store Shepherds leading the flock in bad faith practices.

From me: I’m so sorry for your loss. Whether you’ve already experienced that loss, or you are going to soon. You deserve better.