Married to Medicine in a Pandemic

This is a very odd time in our world to be married to medicine. It has certainly been the strangest time in my ministry overall. Even more-so than divisive elections, Covid has brought the longest sustained low-grade stress on the local church that I’ve experienced. And that’s true even though I’ve been very fortunate. Compared to what many of my colleagues have faced, I’ve been blessed to serve a healthy congregation that is gracious even when everyone doesn’t agree.

I have had cognitive dissonance for two years. I am all too aware of many in America and elsewhere who deny or downplay the scientific consensus and the medical profession. Some of them are friends and neighbors, people I love. But my wife is a primary care physician who works in a hospital and treats Covid patients.

Now, she would be the first to say that others have been far more exposed on a regular basis. Folks such as ER nurses, or hospital staff that may have to enter a Covid room multiple times a day, have been in greater danger. That said, my wife has been a front-line worker through all this. Supporting her, hearing her stories, and caring about her through this has very much impacted how I have experienced the pandemic.

Inconvenience vs. Constant Vigilance

#DoneWithCovid recently trended on twitter. I appreciate the frustration. But for medical staff, Covid has not been an optional inconvenience, it has been a daily reality for two years. When late night hosts and political leaders were dismissing Covid in early 2020, physicians saw what was coming. When many of us thought we were through the worst of it, stories about Delta were already circulating in the medical community. As Omicron raged in South Africa and elsewhere, public health officials and others prepared for another devastating surge.

My wife and I were together when she was in medical school and residency. I got an up-close view of her training, and I even occasionally helped her study.

There’s School…and Then There’s Medical School

I’m a pastor. I thought my graduate school experience was challenging. I went to a top-rated, competitive seminary, surrounded by very bright people.

My training was nothing compared to medical school.

And so it has been profoundly disheartening to hear people talk about “doing their own research,” as if being able to read is the same thing as being able to comprehend medical studies. Sorry, John Stockton, but being good at basketball doesn’t make you qualified to understand research. Learning to interpret research is something that requires training, not just basic literacy.

In a similar way, anyone could read an academic article. You could pick up a journal article on christology, just war theory, or the eucharist, and read them thoroughly. But reading and comprehending are two different things. You’re likely going to need a significant background in areas like doctrine, church history, Christian worship, or ethics to comprehend them. Reading is not the same as understanding. I could give my toddler Shakespeare, but she is not capably of grasping it right now. I’ve tried to read my wife’s work, and I when I do so I feel like a child attempting Hamlet.

Selfishness as Freedom

Most disturbing has been the short-sighted selfishness of so many in the name of freedom. I am generally a ‘live-and-let live’ person. I treasure the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They are imperfect but nonetheless invaluable documents which guard human dignity.

But with masks and vaccines in a pandemic, we are talking about public health more than personal preference. Being asked to wear a mask is less like being asked to wear shoes and pants – a statement of decorum – and more like being asked not to smoke indoors. I am all for maximum individual liberty, up until that liberty infringes on someone else’s. When your freedom of choice has potentially damaging consequences on others who are simply in the same vicinity, it is no longer the paramount concern.

I get along with people from all walks of life. I count among friends, family, and neighbors the blue collar and white collar, mechanics and professors, those without homes and those with multiple homes, left and right. I have loved and served congregations where most of the people were conservative, and ones in which the majority were progressive. I have tried to be very understanding of people different from me. But I’ve struggled to comprehend the tragic choices that some make. And though I have tried to avoid thinking the worst of people, I am sympathetic when one doctor responds to complaints about public health measures with, “grow up.”

This season has tested my empathy. As I alluded to in this piece, I fear that among Christians much of the resistance to public health strategies is rooted in fundamentalism. Think here of the rejection of evolution going back to the era of the Scopes Monkey Trial.

But it is also worse than that. Our toxic media landscape rewards more and more extreme views. We increasingly contend with a myopic ideological tribalism. It encourages us to surround ourselves only with people and perspectives that agree with us. Together, these forces are bringing us to a place where truth has no meaning. We are in danger of losing our ability to distinguish information from opinion.

Postman & the Decline of Knowledge

Neil Postman saw this coming with the advent of television in the 80’s:

I know this sounds terribly elitist. I’m well aware that experts can be wrong. There are plenty of pastors with seminary degrees who I wouldn’t want preaching to my cats, let alone a congregation. But there is such a thing as scientific consensus. And yes, that will change as new data, and new variants, emerge in a pandemic.

The Church Should Be Better

As a follower of Jesus, I try hard to love everyone. But I also love my wife, and my respect for she and her colleagues means I’ve also been supremely disappointed in many of my neighbors.

Your Google search is not a medical degree. Your freedom is not absolute. For followers of Jesus, love of God and love of neighbor come first. Our responsibilities take priority over our rights. Or rather, they used to.

In the early church, the Romans were amazed when a plague would rip through a community and the Christians would stay behind to tend to the sick. Everyone with means would flee to their country estates and wealthy relatives elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Christians remained and cared not only for their own, but for all of the sick.

Fast forward to today. We have reached a place, politically and culturally, where many Christians now won’t even do something as basic as wear a mask in a grocery store. In Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, the religious folks who walked by the wounded man at least had the decency to ignore him. Today, some Christians might be more likely to listen to a podcast and tell the hurting person that bandages are a plot from Caesar and chastise the Good Samaritan for being a dupe of Big Pharma.

Conclusion: Expecting Too Much?

Being married to medicine in a pandemic has been strange. I’ve been amazed and how the medical community has sacrificed for their patients. Their sheer endurance is stunning. Their selflessness has been noble, especially in the face of a public who have often ignored them. Thus, it’s also been incredibly disheartening to see so many people dismiss the medical profession so easily.

I expect more from Christians. Maybe I expect too much. But I’m married to medicine, and watching people disparage what my wife and her colleagues have been trying to do for two years has been befuddling.

My local comic shop has two signs on the front door, pictured at the top of this piece. The first says, “Masks strongly encouraged.” This is followed by, “SERIOUSLY, be cool about it!”

To my fellow Christians: the medical community has suffered for you for two years. Honor their ministry by acting in love and responsibility toward your neighbors. Be at least as thoughtful as my local comic book shop. Get your shots. Wear a mask around strangers indoors, especially in places that ask you to do so. Be cool about it. And pray for those whose ministry of healing has gone unappreciated by those they serve.