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“The Lord God took man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15 NIV)

One of the earliest commands to humans, to tend to God’s good creation, is soon lost in the course of humanity’s desire to be a god unto themselves. We all know the story – Eve is tempted by the serpent and eats from the Tree of Good and Evil. She then shares the fruit with Adam, who had been specifically warned not to eat of this fruit, and he readily eats of it too. Humanity is shuttled out of the Garden and sent east of Eden to tend the now cursed ground, doomed to mortality and separation from God.

Bonhoeffer, in his theological work on the creation story, describes this as the moment humanity takes on the burden of being a sicut deus, a second god, “humankind like God in knowing out of its own self about good and evil, in having no limit and acting out of its own resources, in its aseity, in its being alone.”[1]

Theologically, this means that humanity foregoes its dependence on God for guidance. Practically, it means that humans traded a relationship with God for independence and reliance on our own creaturely sensibilities. We believed the lie that the serpent told us. We, not creation, forsook our command and creation suffered for it.

How often do we ponder the suffering creation felt? The animals and plants were collateral damage in our quest for personal freedom. In listening to the lie, the vulnerable that we were charged to care for suffered.

Millennia later, we are still listening to that lie. White evangelicals remain the most resistant to getting vaccinated against COVID-19. The June 2021 Religion and the Vaccine Survey by the Public Religion Research Institute reveals that almost a quarter of white evangelicals (24%) refuse to get vaccinated. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor reported in July that those who have chosen to remain unvaccinated are also less likely to resume wearing masks indoors, despite the surge in the Delta variant and amended CDC guidance, are likelier to believe that the pandemic is overexaggerated, and tend to identify as Republicans. Given that white evangelicals comprise a significant portion of the self-identified Republicans in America, from my vantage point, it seems that it is the white evangelicals, which I have sincerely tried to continue to identify with, are perpetuating the pandemic. Recently, a friend of a friend on Facebook told me that it was her freedom in Christ that was convicting her to not be vaccinated. The same person posts from highly partisan and conspiracy laden “news” outlets. Every day, at least in Texas, we are told that ending the pandemic is a matter of “personal responsibility,” by leaders that refuse to allow local entities to enact mask mandates to protect those that cannot be vaccinated, but at the same time curry the favor of churches by claiming to be pro-life. Meanwhile, Texas is rapidly running out of pediatric ICU beds, or as put bluntly by Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, if your child needs an ICU bed, “your child will wait for another child to die.”

When will Christians stop believing the lie that we are self-sufficient? When will we understand that collective responsibility for creation, for the vulnerable, is more Christ-like than personal freedom and choice? Will it be when the number of children dead from a disease, which could be controlled by a vaccine, starts rivalling the number of adults? The American evangelical church will find itself with blood on her hands unless we do better.

This is what the Lord says:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
    mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.” (Jeremiah 31:15 NIV)

[1]Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004, 113.