Timothy P. Carney
You simply knew this opinion piece was going to come out sooner or later.
The argument appeared in any Twitter thread that touched on religion and the coronavirus: Mike Pence put in charge of the coronavirus task force? He’s anti-science! Will he try to pray it away?! A Christian kindergarten teacher dies of the virus? I guess the prayers didn’t work!
It showed up in second-rate left-of-center media such as Salon.com. (“Is the Christian right now in charge of public health,” they ask, because “Redfield and Birx are both evangelical Christians”?)
Through this lens, a certain portion of the Left gets to see our current crisis in the most self-congratulatory way. Blaming anti-science evangelicals for this all satisfies the vanity and ideological appetites of a certain type of liberal.
Simply hating evangelicals isn’t good enough. No, it’s far better to look down on them as self-deluded, anti-science rubes (because certain liberals really love science) who offer up prayers instead of scientifically proven scientific solutions!
And now this trope has bubbled to the very top, to the opinion pages of the New York Times.
“The Road to Coronavirus Hell Was Paved by Evangelicals,” a New York Times article tells us in the headline.
The piece is by Katherine Stewart, an author whose recent book fits in a broad category of paranoid literature that is basically the Left’s version of the “Sharia law is coming” conspiracy theory. Hers is about the 1000th book in the past 20 years to warn that America is about to become a theocracy.
“Trump’s response to the pandemic has been haunted by the science denialism of his ultraconservative religious allies,” the subheadline reads.
“Science Denialism!”
“Ultraconservative religious!”
Perfect catchphrases!
But the giveaway is the weasel phrase there: “haunted by.” She’s trying to imply causality that she knows she cannot assert.
She’s trying to imply that evangelical conservatives caused this plague, even though it began in Wuhan, China, where less than 3 percent of the country is Christian.
Globally, the greatest concentrations of the virus are in Northern Italy and in Spain, which are not hubs of conservative evangelicalism. In the United States, the hubs are New York City and New Orleans — also not packed to the gills with white, conservative evangelicals.
So, how does this author pin this plague on the specific set of believers she wants to demonize?
By asserting the broad prejudices of her intended audience:
“Donald Trump rose to power with the determined assistance of a movement that denies science, bashes government and prioritized loyalty over professional expertise. In the current crisis, we are all reaping what that movement has sown.”
She then absurdly pins slavery on American Christianity. Then, she accuses Christians of denying critical thinking. She then cites two evangelical leaders who spoke about having services despite the outbreak (at least one immediately decided to cancel services).
She also points out that Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is a pro-life Christian. She points to no actions by Azar that caused the coronavirus, much less a nexus with Christianity. She levels basically the same attack against Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development.
A great tell is this sentence:
“By all accounts, President Trump’s tendency to trust his gut over the experts on issues like vaccines and climate change does not come from any deep-seated religious conviction.”
Yes. Right there we have an explanation for the shortcomings of Trump’s handling of this outbreak. It’s simple. It comports with everything we know about Trump — he is not deeply religious, he does not deeply consider hard evidence, he does trust his gut.
Yet that obvious and simple story isn’t so satisfying because it doesn’t denigrate religious people. Ms. Stewart somehow says that this example of Trump being Trump is actually a product of anti-science Bible thumpers.
You won’t be surprised to learn that this is among the New York Times articles most emailed today and most shared on Facebook.
Content retrieved from: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/new-york-times-op-ed-blames-coronavirus-on-conservative-christians?fbclid=IwAR0zv4aLn7PZnCQ9v6CkqmKLKIdYaY9FHd10XzJsyxamMIXNvd6UJQwQLyE.