Time Capusule: My Covid Vaccine Mandate Response

The time has come to share a personal note.

Back in October of 2021 our Federal Government announced that all employees would be required to be fully Covid-19 vaccinated by mid-November or be put on administative leave without pay, pending further decisions regarding possible other consequences. In theory there could be exceptions, but I doubted that common sense or even religious faith would be an acceptable reason. Here below is what I wrote in response to the impending deadline.

Dear XXXXX,

It is with sadness that I ask you to accept my resignation from my post as an employee of our Federal Government. I want you to know that this has nothing to do with how you have treated me. You are not the creator of the policy that I object to. You have been nothing but kind and generous to me. You provided me with the greatest opportunity of my career, and I will always be grateful for your care and support. My sadness comes from leaving that relationship with you and my relationship with the wonderful staff at Service Canada behind.

The mandated requirement to be vaccinated against Covid-19 with a vaccine that was released under Emergency Use Authorization is an imposition that I do not accept as a working condition. Emergency Use Authorization is an admission that the treatment is still experimental, with Phase IV trials scheduled to be complete in May of 2023.

I do not wish to participate in this experiment, no matter how well-intentioned it might be. I believe that the coercion involved in threatening my livelihood if I do not conform violates the Nuremburg Code regarding experimentation on human subjects.

Nuremburg Code, Article 1.

The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.

This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved, as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.

I do not voluntarily consent. It would not be voluntary even if I capitulated to keep my job. I would be resentful and be looking for any opportunity to sue at the slightest sign of a serious side effect. After all, what could possibly go wrong with training your body to produce its own foreign cytotoxic protein? There may be others considering doing just that. I leave it to others to litigate over this discriminatory practice. I will not be able to afford a lawyer.

The fact that it is my Federal Government that is violating the Code is very disturbing to me. It is disappointing that a government that prides itself on being inclusive has decided to exclude people like me on the basis of refusing a medical treatment.

What is most disappointing is the characterization by my Prime Minister and our media of thoughtful people like me as somehow being immoral for refusing to participate in the largest experimental trial in human history. If you sense that this unfair characterization makes me angry, you are absolutely correct.

If you recall, I was the only one who spoke up about my misgivings about Covid protocol shaming. Our Prime Minister’s proclamation about this vaccination mandate has raised shaming to a whole new level.

I have been following the Covid guidelines at work. Nobody in the office has been more diligent with mask use than I have. Under my watch there has not been a single case of Covid-19 among our staff.

There is no evidence that I have transmitted the disease to anyone. I have not wasted hospital resources by coming down with the disease and needing intensive care. I am a regular citizen going about my daily life, staying out of trouble and trying to be helpful.

Yet somehow, because I am careful about social contact and careful to maintain my health without vaccination I am to be treated as though I am a carrier of the plague. Somehow it is considered evil to refuse a treatment that is increasingly proving to belie the promises of stopping the spread, preventing infection and providing long-term protection. With booster shots already considered necessary I have reason to remain skeptical of the promises.

Please accept my resignation so I may quietly join the underclass that has just been created by a misguided and, frankly, immoral policy.

Sincerely,

John Valade

Epilogue: To be fair to my employer, I was eventually hired back after the mandate was suspended. I later left when I decided to devote full time to writing, which I discovered I enjoyed during my initial period of unemployment.

Kingdom Faith – Part 1: Faith beyond the trial

1 Cor. 10:13 teaches us that tests are under God’s control. God brings tests into our lives to awaken our dormant faith or strengthen our faith. Faith is proven in the midst of challenges. James tells us that faith without action is dead. James. 2:18-23. What sort of action does faith require?

James 1:12-17 shows us that there is a difference between tests and temptations. The difference seems to be whether the trial results from bad decisions or from circumstances beyond our control, but within God’s control. The difference, in essence, is whether the will that got us into the mess is ours or God’s.

When I was attended a local Bible College I was eating lunch in the cafeteria with some classmates, among whom were two young people who were engaged. She told us she wanted to be a missionary in some of the poorest Asian countries. He wanted to be the pastor of a large (presumably wealthy, though he did not say that out loud) church in California. Neither understood that nothing but heartache would follow if they went ahead with their marriage. Somebody’s career dream would be untenable and bitterness would be sure to follow. Another three couples I know (not from the Bible College) were so obviously incompatible that nothing but disaster could happen if they married. And it did. In another case the groom came to the wedding completely intoxicated – definitely not a good sign.

I cringed when I met a relative’s first and second wives. (Because of distance I met the first one after their wedding, far too late to say anything.) I tried to warn him that the next one would be difficult to live with. After his second divorce he told me he should have listened to me when I had taken him aside and suggested that it probably wouldn’t work out.

I know a man who complains that God is not living up to his promise of providing spiritual family or financial security when he moved to an isolated community because of rumors that it would become prosperous through development of local resources. He bought a house there and planned to sell it at a profit within a few short years. Years later, he feels isolated from his friends and trapped in a house he can’t sell because the development hasn’t come about as hoped. He is still working hard trying to plan his way out of the situation.

Is God responsible for his isolation? Is God responsible for his inability to sell the house?

Our own strength is the greatest source of our weakness. No sooner did Peter boast about his ability to stay the course did he cave in and deny Jesus. Only when we deal with the delusion of our competence can we learn to rely on God and his power alone.

According to Dr. Myles Munroe, “our ability to discern the source of the tests is critical to our ability to live successfully beyond the tests. Self-induced tests will tear us down while the tests God allows builds us up and strengthens our faith – if we allow them to.”

Before identifying a challenge or difficulty as a test from God, we should examine ourselves to make sure we haven’t created the problem ourselves due to wrong behavior or lack of wisdom. In such a case, confession and repentance is the proper course of action. Unlike Dr. Myles, I believe that even self-induced trials can be redeemed if we will learn to rely on God to move through them in faith.

Kingdom faith is strengthened by conviction in the power of God, not in his works. In other words, do we need to see God regularly doing something wonderful in our lives or those close to us?

We need to really, deeply understand that God has the power – and the right – to do anything. He has the right to act in ways that we do not expect. He even has the power and the right to overrule our wishes and desires about anything in our lives. He has the power to do and the power not to do.

Notice that Jesus always refused to perform a sign to “prove” who he was because such a demand revealed that true faith was not present. We find examples of this in Mark 8:12, John 6:30 and Matt. 13:58.

Faith is rightly placed in God himself, because only he has the ability and the power to work all things out for the benefit of all of His creation. In other words, it is not just for us as individuals, but also for everyone and everything else. Our job is to trust in the God who makes and keeps promises.

Kingdom faith believes even in the midst of God’s silence. According to Paul in Rom. 4:16-25, Abraham was 75 years old when he was promised a son. Would we have waited 25 years?  Moses was 40 years old when he understood that God wanted to use him to free the Israelites. Would we have answered the call 40 years later as he did? Would we have led Israel through the wilderness for 40 years, and finish well even after we were told that we would not enter?

The Revised Standard Version translates Rom. 8:28-37 differently from most versions in an important way that clarifies what God can accomplish in our trials. Verse 28 states, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” God has a much wider overall vision of the “good” that He works “with” those who love Him. The “good” is not merely for the afflicted person, but rather includes a “good” shared with many others in the long run. In other words, God works with the person undergoing the trial for (i.e: in order to produce) the greater good.

God promised that Abraham’s “seed,” Jesus, will bless all the nations. Jesus came, not to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17). Can we see that our trials are a part of the outworking of that promise of bringing blessing to the world around us? Can we see our trials as a part being “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29)

What if things are falling apart? What if you lose your job? What if office politics deny you the promotion you deserve? Or what if your house burns down, or your child dies of disease or accident? Can you keep faith in God no matter what?

What if you expect blessing, but disaster comes your way? We need faith that is bigger than our expectations in this world.

So, to answer the question posed at the beginning: what action does faith require?

If the trial is one over which we have no control: trust that Jesus and his Father will work it out as we endure it.

In the case of trials caused by our own wrong or unwise impulses: confession, repentence, a willingness to learn and grow, and endurance.

In both cases we need faith that God will somehow, no matter how impossible it seems, work it out for the eternal good of ourselves and the whole world. He promised, and He chose each of us to work with Him to accomplish it, even with our trials. God is much, much bigger than time, space and this world.

We need faith in the love, the promise and the “bigness” of God to endure and overcome the trials.

New Menu Item: Video Sermons

There was a time when I posted synopses of Wascana Fellowship teaching sessions. Life and busyness, writing books (and fading energy) have worked against that for a long time now.

There is one other thing I have been doing that is not directly related to our Wascana Fellowship ministry that still makes use of our teaching. We are friends of a local “brick and mortar” church that has lost a pastor due to health issues and has not been able to hire one yet. I have become a regular guest preacher for that church as they attempt to find a suitable pastor or church planter. In spite of this and other trials this church remains a witness to Jesus Christ and to the gospel in worship and especially prayer.

They regularly record their sermons from members and guests like me and post them to their YouTube channel.

I have taken the liberty of collating the ones I have preached and created a page with links to them from a new menu item named “Video Sermons.” You will find it on the top menu bar of our site or you can click here to see it. I have also included a link on that page for anyone who wants to see what the other preachers bring to that unique church.

All of the messages I speak at that church are based on teaching I have done at our own services. Since our venue and format do not lend themselves to being recorded for publishing I hope this page will help fill in some of the gaps from not blogging here for a while.

Death and Judgment: Exploring the Final Frontier

While Gene Roddenbery had us imagining a future of exploration that included “space: the final frontier,” human beings have been confronted with a real frontier where “all men have gone before.” Of course, this is no longer the 1960’s, so I must correct that to “where all people have gone before” in order to be politically correct.

In spite of the blandishments of technophiles and sci-fi writers, the prospect of human immortality is as unrealistic as ever. Every one of us must face the reality of our demise, sooner or later.

I am a Christian, and I look at the world through a biblical lens. I am also a biblical literalist, so I tend to read what the words in the Bible actually say and believe them as literal truth. (I am not a robot, of course. I read literary genres like poetry, biography, narrative and psalms on their own terms.) I also look at what they don’t say, and tend not to believe what others fill those blanks in with.

The “filling in” happens a lot. Some examples:

Wise men arriving at Jesus’ birth to the stable. It was up to two years later, at a house.

Mary remaining a virgin throughout her lifetime. She actually had four named sons (James, Joseph, Simon and Judas) and at least two daughters after Jesus.

The ones that I address in my new book, Death and Judgment: Exploring the Final Frontier, have to do with the ideas many well-meaning Christians have about what happens after we die.

Do we graduate to a “better life” or become “angels” or immediately go to heaven or hell? Do people in hell burn forever? What about “Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates” who accepts or denies people entry into heaven?

What does the Bible actually say about all of that and more? What fanciful notions are floating around that have no real grounding in the book that tells Christians what the facts are about their faith? There are many.

Death and Judgment: Exploring the Final Frontier sets out “just the facts” and points the reader to the incredible and awe-inspiring grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is now available on Amazon.

Have You Ever Wondered…?

…How, exactly, Jesus’ death “pays” for our sins?

…What “he was numbered among the transgressors and he bare the sins of many” means?

…Whether Jesus had to go to hell to pay for our sins? If so, why only three days?

…Why the ”Book of Life” is open in Revelation 20?

…Why the “Beast” and the “False Prophet” are immediately cast into the “lake of fire,” while everyone else gets judged after the Millennium?

If you had not been wondering before, are you wondering now?

I hope so, because I explore those questions and more in my upcoming book, Death and Judgment: Exploring the Final Frontier. It should be available on an e-reader near you in a couple of months.

You can find out more at my new author website: JohnValade.ca.