The Great Mask Debate {Revisited}

Revisiting “The Great Mask Debate” post from late summer 2020 — (about five months ago and about five months in to the pandemic). It sparked a lot of feedback on social media, on both sides, and I appreciated the honest discussion. I’m revisiting the post since visiting some college friends recently had me in airports and on planes masked up for hours along with so many others with lots of time to contemplate the great mask debate.

I know a piece of cloth covering your nose and mouth seems like a pretty trivial topic of discussion, but conspiracy theories aside, I still believe it’s indicative of a greater masking. One that is silencing and censoring anything contrary to the controlling narrative, and to me, that’s downright dangerous and threatens way more than our physical well being by blurring and sometimes blinding what our spiritual eyes are seeing.

Listen, I know it’s tricky. I know a lot of us disagree right now on a lot of things, even those of us who have historically agreed on just about everything. But now that a pandemic has plagued us and a political battle has enraged us, the various opinions of people in our lives have engaged us in conversation and in conflict.

We find ourselves at odds more now than ever before. These issues and our responses to them have pitted us against each other and left us wondering what in the world is going on and who is right and who is wrong.

Well, friends, it didn’t happen overnight. The enemy has been at work long before the onslaught of a pandemic, and just because it may seem he’s upped his game, he’s not all to blame. We, as Christians, also have a role to play and Biblical truth to proclaim.

I asked this question in that original mask post (you can find it in its entirety here), and I’ll ask it again, “What have we believed?” And I’ll take it a step further and ask, “Are we being deceived?” Are we blindly trusting man and his mandates over God and His commandments?

And we find the two greatest in Matthew 22:37-40, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind” (v. 37) and “love your neighbor as yourself.” (v. 39)

Contrary to a rather trending and popular opinion, loving your neighbor does not equal wearing a mask, especially when there’s such discrepancy with their efficacy. Loving your neighbor does, however, mean caring for them BOTH with patience, kindness, humility, (and other ways listed in 1 Corinthians 13) AND by speaking the truth (Ephesians 4:14-15).

Love is not merely complying, love says no to lying. A love that lies in order to comply is no love at all.

It’s time we stop hiding behind our masks as some signal of virtue, and speak the truth in love, a more honorable pursuit. If you believe the mask protects you and others, by all means, wear the mask, and if you choose not to wear a mask, by all means, keep your distance and respect those who feel otherwise.

Either way, I feel the mask mandates are more about compliance and control, and less about loving others like you may have been told.

I still feel (as I did five months into this pandemic and five months later), that now, after ten months of mask wearing, we have not succeeded in flattening a curve, but we have succeeded in conditioning a response.

I still believe we are masking far more than we realize, and it is revealing much more than meets the eye.

Just a little food for thought. You can remove your mask while you chew on it if you’d like….