Health and prejudice - 2

More musings about the mumps outbreak in the Fraser Valley and the innuendo about "fundamentalists" refusing to get vaccinated.

I know people who do not get sick and don't get vaccinations. I'm one of them. As I said in my previous post , I haven't had vaccinations since 1994, yet Iget the flu maybe once every 18 months or so, am laid out for a couple of days, and then I'm back on the job.

Then there are people who get their shots and still get sick. Huh?


And what about these "fundamentalists", who are getting the mumps?

Two points come to mind. One is that I'd love to hear from them as to the diseases they haven't been getting, in spite of not getting shots. I mean, if they didn't get shots for mumps, then presumably they haven't been getting shots for the other diseases for which there are shots, and yet we're not hearing about outbreaks of those diseases among that community. I wonder if any reporter is going to seek them out.

Another point is a bit more esoteric. Presumably, they're standing on faith as their reason not to have shots. But what's the foundation of the faith? Are they standing on, say, Exodus 15:26, which promises that if we walk in God's ways, none of the diseases He's visited on our enemies (the Egyptians, in the case of the Israelites who were hearing that Word) would come on us? Are they praising the Lord God Who heals, or God our protector?

Or is there that un-Scriptural belief at work, that says, "if it's God's will for me to be sick ..." or "Lord, if it be Thy will for me to get better ..."

THIS JUST IN ... It's NOT God's Will for you to be sick, and it IS His will for you to get better. End of discussion. But those words, "if it be Thy will", are, as TL Osborn says, some of the greatest faith-killers ever to come out of someone's mouth. "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering," James writes (Jas. 1:6), and if we say dumb things like "if it be Thy will", we've just wavered. If you know the Word of God, you know that health and healing are His Will.

That's a significant problem with our walk with God. Way back in Genesis 3, the serpent hisses at the woman, "Yea, hath God said ...?", and while he's talking specifically about eating that fruit, the general impact has colored our relationship with God ever since. "Hath God said ..." that whatsoever we ask in Jesus' name, we can have it if we believe that we receive it???? "Hath God said ..." that the wealth of the Gentiles shall come to us???? "Hath God said ..." that by Jesus' stripes we are healed????

Or do they believe, perhaps, that sickness is in some way a lesson God is teaching us? How could it be? If it's God's Will for us to be healed, then why would He go against His own Will by making us sick? In Him, there is no shadow of turning (James (again) 1:17). Any "lessons" we learn from being sick come when we turn our eyes towards God again and glorifying Him with our healing.

I say this not to judge any of these "fundamentalists" who are being obliquely (and unfairly) blamed for the mumps outbreak. I say this to help us all remember to check the sort of faith with which we declare our protection from disease. Faith in the Lord God Who Heals and that we are protected is one thing; but "faith ... unless", I believe, leaves one wide open to be whacked, because that's a crack in the armor that the enemy can exploit for all he's worth.

As I said in that other post, the real story is that health officials say the mumps vaccine "wanes" after 15 to 20 years (I wonder if they told people that as they were sticking in the needle), since 25% of the cases reported so far are people who had been vaccinated; another 25% had been "partially" immunized, whatever that means (how can you be "partially" immunized? You either are or you ain't -- it's like being a little bit pregnant), and the remainder hadn't had shots.

So wouldn't it be interesting to find out more about this "remnant" who haven't been immunized? Who are they? What diseases have they been spared? How many of them don't have mumps? This is getting very interesting, don't you agree?

Mind you, the health officials, citing privacy considerations, won't say who these people are, what denomination they belong to, or anything like that. They're willing to slag their alleged religious motivation for not having the shots, but then duck under the Maxwell Smart Cone of Silence to prevent us from hearing about their miracles. Somehow, we'll have to flush this story out ourselves.

And now, back to Psalm 91.