Just a few thoughts on Masks and Serpents:

 

Most people who know me also know that I’m an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints.  Since the beginning of the global pandemic the leaders of my church have asked us to be considerate citizens during this time.  They preemptively closed down meeting houses and temples before the first huge surge of hospitalizations happened and have consistently encouraged members of the church to follow mask mandates and other health protocols to help prevent transmission and spread of the disease.  This is not out of the norm for our church.  One of the basic tenets of our faith is the 12th Article of Faith (there are 13 altogether) which states:

 

“We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.”

 

When the vaccine became available our prophet invited us to protect ourselves through vaccination.  This is also not out of the norm. The LDS church has supported vaccination programs through monetary donations,  church service missionary work,  and education campaigns around the globe for years in an effort to save and improve the lives of people with limited access to consistent and adequate medical care.  The prophet didn’t require we get the vaccine in order to attend church or participate in church service. It was, as always, an invitation to choose a path of faith, action, and commitment to the principles of the gospel as they apply to a current need in our world today.  

 

There has, of course,  been lots of push back to this here in the United States. Maybe in other parts of the world too, but I don’t live in other parts of the world so I can’t say with any kind of accuracy about it.  

 

The arguments against the church stance on this have ranged from the fairly mild “I’m not getting the same inspiration as the prophet on this”; to the more doubtful, “Well,  he’s not being a prophet right now,  he’s just being a doctor”; to the accusatory, “This is evidence of the fallen state of the prophet, he’s relying on the arm of flesh”; to the condemnatory, “The church is murdering babies to support vaccinations,  they are servants of Satan!”

 

This kind of language is also not new. Prophets have been ignored,  reviled,  and condemned for as long as God has been sending prophets to his people. Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Israel, Moses, Isaiah, they are names we know and love to tell stories about.  They were also largely ignored by their contemporaries. The nature of a prophet, seer, and revelator is to warn of future dangers,  explain and clarify what is currently revealed,  and to reveal more that God desires to give us information on. 

 

This past week I read a post from a man who called out modern church members for “scriptural illiteracy” when they compare the prophetic counsel to wear a mask with Moses’ invitation to the children of Israel to look to the brass serpent he’d attached to his staff in order to be saved from the bites of fiery serpents. 

 

I’ve been pondering this for the past two days. I’ve been thinking about the nuances and implications of what he said and both the overt and subtle mockery he embraced to make his point. 

 

I’ve shared my thoughts on masks and vaccines a few times,  but I haven’t really waded into this particular debate much because honestly,  no one is going to change their mind or behavior just because I have an opinion also.  I’ve shared my thoughts on obedience and the power of active followership and I imagine that I will continue to do so. 

 

I didn’t engage in an online debate over it because, frankly,  most online debates are pointless.  The security of distance makes most people feel free to be rude,  engage in ad hominem attacks,  and generally behave in ways they never would in person. So I generally steer clear of them unless I know that it’s someone with whom I can hold a respectful discussion. And while this particular individual is one who is very capable of engaging in civil debate,  he has a number of followers who think good rhetoric is a waste of their time and often jump directly into force and fallacy and, honestly,  I have other places my energy is needed.  

 

I confess though,  I want to discuss why the argument used by my Facebook acquaintance (and many others) is at best incomplete and, in this case, fallacy ridden.  I’m just going to pick it apart briefly. 

 

First:

It is always bad form to try to claim the upperhand in a debate by calling into question the intelligence and understanding of the person you disagree with. This falls squarely under ad hominem.  It’s an attempt to increase the value of one’s own opinion by demeaning the inherent value of someone else’s opinion.  Everytime I see this kind of argument my initial response,  no matter what the argument is about,  is: “Dude, are you for real? I’m supposed to believe you because you think someone else’s thoughts are stupid? Try harder.” To be fair,  some arguments ARE lacking in even the smallest semblance of intelligence. So my question would then be, why debate the ignorant?

 

Second:

The original post claimed that the comparison of masks to a brass serpent breaks down because the children of Israel were being punished for a sin and the snake was their salvation.  While Covid isn’t a result of sin and the mask isn’t salvation.  

 

Okay, there is SO MUCH to unpack here but I want to keep it as simple as possible.  First off,  this is both an oversimplification of the comparison while simultaneously leaving out the simplest aspect of the comparison.  

 

The simple part: 

This is a comparison about following a prophet.  The children of Israel were asked to do something simple to save their lives,  we’ve been asked to do something simple to save lives.  At its basic level,  the comparison is about the belief in whether or not a prophet is giving you direction from God to help protect you.  The argument AGAINST the comparison rests upon the premise that because the children of Israel’s reason for obedience is different than ours we are not therefore required to obey in a similar, but not exactly the same, situation.  Sure,  you can argue that.  But it would make a person question (and multitudes have) why bother with scriptures at all? If you’re going to argue that the capacity to extrapolate beneficial guidance from scripture calls for EXACTLY the same circumstances, with no room for differences in culture,  history,  current events,  etc. and since our circumstances are so different the lessons don’t apply,  then that begs the question: what’s the point of scripture at all? By this standard the only people who would then benefit from the tale of Moses would be Jewish refugees wandering around the Middle East, who are tired of eating manna, vocal about their irritations,  and beset by poisonous snakes. Because clearly,  it wouldn’t apply to sinful people (that’s all of us,  btw) who are facing something life threatening, and who God desires to help. 

 

In my church we are counseled often to “liken” the scriptures to ourselves.  To put ourselves in the shoes of the people in the story, and to put those people in our shoes today, as a way to give ourselves an increased understanding of what discipleship can look like in multiple circumstances.  To call someone who is trying to understand their responsibility to God and their fellow men “self-righteous” for expressing how the scriptures apply to themselves smacks more of irritation at being challenged than a testimonial of our individual capacity to exercise personal agency. 

 

The moderately confused part: 

 

In his argument he conflated two issues,  the prophetic counsel to wear a mask and get a vaccine with a governmental mask mandate and potential vaccine mandate, then argued against the former with language aimed at the latter. This is called “conflation fallacy”. The problem with this fallacy is that the arguments against government force are legitimate,  good arguments.  But using those same arguments against church leadership who are inviting obedience rather than forcing capitulation is misplaced.  The prophet is asking church members to use their free will to choose civic responsibility, compassion,  and social good-will. There is no force involved, only an invitation to do good.   Condemning those who support that call and comparing their obedience and faith to virtue signaling and pride while simultaneously touting his own greater intelligence and magnificent capacity for doubt and skepticism is just pride and mockery parading as some kind of intellectual piety.  

 

The complex part: 

 

Let’s talk about snake symbolism for a second.  The snake,  as fashioned by Moses, was a symbol of faith in God’s protection, or perhaps more directly,  a symbol of God himself.   Now, most of us are familiar with the image of a snake wrapped around a pole being a symbol of medicine.  But the Rod of Asclepius (one rod, one snake) or the Caduceus (one rod, two snakes) we’re familiar with as a representation of healing is NOT the brass serpent from the story of Moses, it is a Greek symbol. In Greek history the snake was also a representation of healing,  particularly the relationship between the cause and the cure in healing. Moreover,  the symbol of a snake for healing is much more ancient than the Greeks or the story of Moses. The Egyptians also used the symbol of a snake to represent healing.  A symbol of both the source of eternal life OR the source of evil.  Deities from Egypt, to Sumer, Caanan, India, Africa, North and South America,  Asia, pretty much EVERYWHERE have been represented by a snake.  And in almost all of the representations the snake captures the concept of duality. 

The cause or the cure.  The good and the bad. Eternal life or eternal damnation. You’ve got either Mehen and Apophis, Marduk and Tiamut, Amun-Re and Mut. They are, depending upon the mythology,  father and mother,  opposing brothers,  or if we’re more philosophical, a representation of the risk and chaos of creation juxtaposed with the the order and organization needed for life.  The endless options of choice and the forward motion of obedience.  

 

All the stories symbolize the same conundrum: the thing that saves you is the thing that threatens you. You can’t create order without chaos. You can’t enjoy choice without obedience or it leads to destruction.  You can’t force obedience or you will have no choice and it will end in destruction.  

 

This symbolism would have been well-known by the children of Israel. They’d just come out of Egypt where Pharoah had the uraeus, the snake symbol of the goddess Wadjet, on his crown as a representation of resurrection,  eternal life,  and  fertility; and where Apophis, the evil one, was represented by a snake.

 

The children of Israel would ALSO be feeling pretty conflicted about relying on a brass statue to save them at that moment.  In fact,  you could argue what the heck was wrong with Moses? Isn’t that a little bit confusing for his followers, or even hypocritical of him? A golden calf gets them sentenced to 40 years of manna and a lot of trudging through the sand, and when they dare complain about it they get punished with fiery serpents, but looking to a brass statue of a snake for salvation is okay? Like,  did they need to worship snakes instead of calves all along? Or maybe God preferred brass to gold and they missed the memo? 

 

Moses held up an image of a serpent at the bidding of God. An image that could have been interpreted and understood in multiple ways by his followers. Regardless of the meaning of the snake to each individual follower, the decision to act on the prophet’s counsel to look and live resulted in the same outcome: they were saved. 

 

The simplicity after complexity: 

 

I’d like to propose that maybe, just MAYBE the lesson of this story and the comparison to our day is very simple: follow the prophet. 

 

Maybe a snake symbol, which in the hands of Egyptian priests symbolized healing, also represented healing in the hands of God’s prophet. Or maybe the healing wasn’t in the symbol at all, maybe the healing and protection was in the faith of the individual who looked to the symbol their prophet gave them.  

 

Maybe it’s even like a woman who had an issue of blood that kept her in a state of “uncleanness” for 12 years and who believed that simply touching the robe of Jesus Christ would heal her. I’d venture to say that Jesus got it right when he told her that it wasn’t the robe that saved her, it was her faith.  Her faith and her willingness to act upon that faith by reaching out to touch.  

 

Perhaps the people this man mocks for their ignorance understand something his words don’t convey an openness to. Maybe the masks our prophet has encouraged us to wear aren’t just a symbol of the medical community they have come to represent. Maybe, like the medical symbol of a snake in the hands of Moses was more than just a metallic creation,  the medical symbol of a mask in the hands of a prophet is a more powerful tool than just a barrier for exhalation droplets in the air.  Maybe, for those who believe in such things,  it symbolizes faith in a God who loves and leads his people.  And maybe,  just like that brazen serpent that divided the believers from the non-believers, this is the simple symbol of our current affliction, our call to look and live, and a symbol of our willingness to follow the prophet of the living God. Perhaps there is protection beyond the physical which is provided and an internal dedication which is strengthened through following that call. 

 

Choice,  the capacity to utilize our free will, only happens when we have at least two options to choose between.  Those who proclaim the all-encompassing importance of free choice, while condemning those who offer the opportunity to make a choice, or who take offense when an option they don’t want is offered to them,  epitomize hypocrisy. They want the freedom to choose their path,  but are ready to cast stones at those who offer or choose another.  That’s not a defender of liberty; that’s a demagogue parading  as a patriot.  

 

Rule of thumb: 

 

If your capacity to be correct is dependent upon someone else needing to be wrong,  you’re not actually searching for truth,  you’re looking for power. Knowing truth doesn’t necessarily require error in anyone else, though it isn’t opposed to pointing it out, it simply demands a searching mind,  a willing heart,  and steady effort within oneself. 

Know thyself and choose wisely.