The intersection of COVID and Conservative Christianity - What are you afraid of anyway?

The thing I'm afraid of, is that the conservative church's reaction to COVID says more about their politics and their fears than about their faith and their love for others.  I'm afraid that all those headlines about super spreader events at churches and anti-vax preachers are hurting the witness of the church.  You say you're not afraid of COVID, but you are afraid of the government and their shot?  Don't you know the persecuted church grows faster than the coddled one?  Is God not greater than the government he allows to exist?  Was Pharaoh able to stop God from liberating his people when he saw fit?  Can God not speak through a mask?  So what if the shot was straight up poison? God can protect you from snakes and viruses, but not needles?

And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."  

Mark 16:17-18

 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13 ESV

I'm struggling with the patience part right now, but a lot of you are insisting on your own way rather than looking out for others and sound like a clanging cymbal to the non-Christians around you that see you not as brave, but as a threat to their very lives.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  

John 15:13