by Ben Mullen

Like Gandalf, the White Wizard, Dr. Francis Collins exercises a strange hold over his disciples. It is odd, indeed, to see two erstwhile opponents – Russell “Wormtongue” Moore and Robert “Bozo Baggins” Jeffress – sit down at the table with Gandork Collins and break bread together, though their touching embrace does call to mind the sweet psalmist of Israel;

“Folly and Deceit have met together,
“Bozo and Wormtongue have kissed”.

Like oil running down on Aaron’s beard, Wormtongue and Bozo have begun to sing in perfect harmony from the song sheet of Gandork. While Wormtongue Moore has been a noisy gong and clanging cymbal for years, a strange melody lifted heads a few weeks ago when Bozo Jeffress warbled note for note a favorite refrain of Gandork, the White Wiggle.

Here’s Wiggle unchained in The Catholic World Report, “And likewise, if there are hundreds of thousands of fetuses that are otherwise being discarded through what is a legal process (abortion) in this country, we ought to think about whether it is more ethical to throw them away, or in some rare instance to use them for research that might be life-saving.”

Good grief. This is the “go-to guy” for “evangelical” thought on COVID vaccines; this guy, Gandork, Francis Collins, who can say without blushing, “hold on buddy, don’t throw those dead babies in the dumpster yet, we might want to give them a work-up in the lab!”

To his credit, Bozo – ever the student of holy writ and devotee of the cross (when he wasn’t shining shoes in the White House or hemming the garment of Jezebel) – does put a more redemptive and “Gospel-Centered” spin on Gandork’s doctrine of demons, “… if we’re talking about something from babies that were already aborted, I would just remind people that the whole Christian message is that Christ, who was innocent, died for us and brought something good out of that unjust death, and I think that if lives can be saved even from the unjust killing of a baby, there’s something to be gained there”.

Weird, huh? It’s like a Vulcan mind meld, or something.

Or like when Wormtongue had Theoden under that spell from Saruman, and Wormtongue and Theoden were practically joined at the medulla oblongata, or at least the inner chakras.

Bozo actually hat-tipped Gandork in his Fox News interview when he spewed this theological bile – which makes them equally insufferable and vile. I’ll save little Bobbie Bozo for another day, but for now, I’ll simply ask: “what doest thou here, Elijah?”

What are you doing, Bozo, under the spell of a sorcerer who conjures his potions from a murdered baby, and calls it holy because it happened a long time ago, it was legal, it hasn’t happened again, and the pandemic is so bad we have to do whatever it takes to kill it, including killing children in the womb?

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Hopefully, the previous two rants have laid to rest the first three arguments of Gandork; now we will train our fire on his final deceit of the Shire;

4) The health benefits that would accrue from these vaccines are so urgent in light of the current pandemic, that all moral reservations about abortion must be suspended.

Or, in other words, “the end goal is so urgent, so necessary, so unquestionably right, that we must do whatever it takes to achieve that end, even if means breaking laws, trampling morals, shredding Scripture, or violating conscience”.

But who besides the holy God has the wisdom to make such a judgment? The end has never justified the means in the text of Scripture or historic Christian thought. Abraham was not justified in lying to Abimelech about Sarah, just because he feared death. David was not justified in sentencing Uriah to certain death, just because he wanted to cover up his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.

I Thessalonians 5:22 urges us to “abstain from all appearance of evil”. The apostle exhorts us in I Peter 3:11, “turn away from evil and do good”, and again in 1:15-16, “But like the holy one who called you, be holy also in all your behavior. Because it is written, ‘you shall be holy, for I am holy”.

I won’t waste further breath on Gandork’s argument. It’s tedious, tiresome, unimaginative. Collins is a brilliant mind, probably a genius, a scientific guru every now and then.

But engaging him on theological and philosophical matters is like reading the journal of a fourteen-year-old who went to the Junior High Retreat at Andy Stanley’s church;

Just check out this doozy from Gandork in the Washington Post, leaning on pastors to push the vaccine, “I think of pastors as shepherds who figure out how can I keep my flock safe and secure and keep the bad things from happening”.

What in the name of grandma’s wig is this gobbledygook?

Pro-tip, Wiggle: if you’re trying to sell “evangelicals” on taking the vaccines, then at least become familiar with their holy book, learn to speak their language; you’re not even in the ballpark with a pastor’s job description from Scripture (you did accidentally back into something, though; part of what a pastor does is guard the flock from frauds like you).

When Wiggle states in a Washington Post article, “If we’re going to actually get to the point where covid-19 is conquered, it’s going to require a full investment by everybody in that solution, which is to acquire immunity. And the way to get there without losing hundreds of thousands of more lives is going to be the vaccine”, he’s speaking in strictly materialistic, fleshly terms, with no acknowledgment of the moral or spiritual.

Or again, in an online interview, he stated, “We need to be just absolutely rigorously adherent to things that we know work. But they don’t work unless everybody actually sticks to them faithfully without exception,”

Notice the urgent, physical goal, “conquering covid-19”, notice the urgent means, “a full investment by everybody … by means of acquiring immunity … by the vaccine”, and notice the absolutist ultimatum, “absolutely rigorously adherent to things that we know work … but they don’t work unless everybody actually sticks to them faithfully without exception”.

Without exception even for conscious? Without exception for one’s eternal soul before God?

Jesus destroys Gandork’s evolutionary materialism (that’s right; Gandork Collins founded the BioLogos Foundation, which espouses God creating by means of evolution) in one swing of the blade of truth in Matthew 16:26, “what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

What will it profit a man or woman to gain all fame, all fortune, all health and vitality – low cholesterol, high testosterone, ironclad immunity – and lose his eternal soul before God?

Christ’s words expose a fatal flaw in the “end justifies the means” approach to COVID-19; man is not just a materialistic mish-mash of flesh and bones; he is spirit and soul AND flesh and bone.

Man will die, whether from COVID, car wrecks, cholesterol, or cancer, and then will stand before a holy God and give an account of their life. As Paul writes in Romans 14:10, “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God”, and on that day masks will be of no help, Pfizer will be of no help, vaccines will be of no help; only the blood of Christ shed for sinners will save and give life on that day.

Gandork’s materialism has no grasp of living for the glory of an eternal God, but only a craven grasping for life in the moment. His t-shirt reads, “Eat, drink, and mask-up; at least you won’t die of Covid!”

I guess there’s nothing left, then, but to down ale and pitch washers with Gandork and Bozo at the Prancing Pony. And stay clear of the Nazgul, of course.

This reminds me of that scene toward the end of “The Lord of the Rings” – it’s so powerful – where Gandork falls into the abyss with Balrog’s whip wrapped around his leg, and Bozo leans over the deep from the bridge and screams, “GAAAANNNNNNDOORKKKK!!!!!!

Oh, wait, that was Gandalf and Frodo, wasn’t it?

Oh well, what was it Oscar Wilde said, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life”.

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