No one has been unscathed from all the banter and volatility around masks, vaccines and mandates. It is tragic to see how these issues have polarized our society, fractured families and even brought great disunity into the Church. The Church should be leading the way in how to discuss and handle these issues with grace and respect. Unfortunately, these issues have exposed within the Church community how our opinions about things are more formed by media and bias than by biblical conviction.

In Romans 14, Paul deals with certain issues that were disputable. These were issues where different believers could take different positions on things like whether to eat meat or drink wine and Paul urges the church to respect each other’s convictions. Later in the chapter Paul calls on believers to be considerate of each other and not lead anyone to stumble, which means, we should not influence anyone to do anything they could only do in defiance of their conscience. The main point of the chapter and what we must apply to all of our convictions is:

“For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23)

Leon Morris states, “It is important that we act in accordance with our fundamental Christian beliefs, for “any action that is not based on faith is a sin” (Moffatt). The apostle is condemning conduct that springs from motives like selfishness or greed or fear. Faith is that by which one receives salvation, but it is also basic to the whole Christian way of life. Faith is a humble reliance on God, on God alone, for salvation and for the living out of the implications of that salvation. What cannot be justified by being in accord with our relation to Christ is sin.”

People of faith can have different convictions about vaccines and masks and both stand on faith for their decision and therefore both need to respect each other for the sake of unity. Some might have a conviction about masks or vaccines that they need to follow the rules given by the government, while others can have conviction that transcends those mandates out of obedience to God. What matters is that the believer’s conviction stems from faith and not fear or selfishness.

Now the issue of mandates is tricky. When anything that is a disputable issue, in other words, not the law of the land, is mandated for a society there will be disunity and unrest. This is especially true when it comes to something that impacts our personal body or our future children’s body. People should be able to make personal decisions and believers should make a decision based on faith and not be forced to make a decision against their own conscience and faith conviction. (Side note: this does not apply to abortion, since there is another living being involved that should be protected) However, it seems that we as a society are far down the road of not recognizing individual faith conviction. So, this comes back to the individual and what they believe being faithful to God looks like when pressured into a decision against their conscience. Again, different believers can have different convictions on what to do and each position if it is a faith decision should be respected. The scriptures are clear that as the end draws near believers faith convictions will be challenged more and more. If we do not learn how to make decisions from the Word of God and the wisdom of the Spirit we will easily be led astray in the future.

In conclusion, it is critical that the church foster a healthy grace atmosphere on disputable things, where everyone is encouraged to take time to make sure their convictions flow from faith rather than fear or bias so that we are able to stand strong when the stakes get much higher.