francis collins – Page 2

We are quickly discovering that the beliefs of Francis Collins, one of the world’s leading geneticists, scientists and professing Christians, are more thoroughly compromised than we imagined (including his views of Pride Month and LGBTQ) Collins is the Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the founder of BioLogos, the self-described “Christian organization” that seeks to bridge the bible and evolution while insisting that humans evolved from apes 200,000 years ago and that Adam and Eve never actually existed.

In an interview with Ed Stetzer, who tried to smuggle him in as an authoritative voice Christians should be listening to, Collins informs Stetzer that it’s more important that kids have in-person school than adults and kids have in-person church.

Stetzer: If kids need in-person school, and we don’t have any clear end to this pandemic, do people need in-person church? Are there ways to do this more safely?

Collins: The consequences of missing out on that personal interaction for educational progress, for social interactions, just for human development as a child are really significant. Those of us who are adults that are missing our church gathering, we’re suffering too. But if I have to make a priority, it’s getting those kids in school is even higher in my list...

…It troubles me greatly, that somehow we’ve gotten in this big political debate about whether masks need to be worn in school for kids under 12, who can’t be vaccinated, who could therefore get infected and could then spread it to others. If we don’t have mask wearing in school, it’s guaranteed we’re going to have outbreaks and then the kids will be back home again, doing the virtual thing that we were trying to avoid. Really too bad that it’s turned into such a strange argument that’s going on… In special circumstances, especially if your church can meet outside, well, take advantage of that because we know it’s safer. Otherwise, if there was an absolutely critical need, keep that physical distance and insist that everybody wear masks.

Stetzer: What I’m not sure I’m on the same place as the esteemed Dr. Francis Collins is, if kids need in-person school and we can take appropriate mitigations, why don’t we also say that we need in-person church? You’ve been a Christian a long time, you know, they’re gonna have to quote the verses to you, but people want me to quote the verses to you. But you know the verses. Church is not just about electrons and avatars, it’s about feet and faces. If we can have kids sitting in desks and follow mitigations, can we do that in church?
Collins: We can do it. And again, the question is, what’s the risk? And how strongly do we feel that that risk is worth taking? If Christ’s strongest recommendation to us; how love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, we’re supposed to use our mind about this. And of course, the next is the commandment love your neighbor as yourself. This is a ‘love your neighbor’ circumstance.

Because if you are gathering in person, in a church, even being careful about it, there may be somebody sitting there who’s got an immune deficiency, maybe they know it, maybe they don’t. And then that individual, despite thinking they were protected, turns out to get COVID, ends up in the ICU and maybe loses their life.

So how do we balance that risk, which is not zero, against the deep desire that we all have to gather together? What is God calling us to do in that circumstance? I guess I come back to love your neighbor. And if I’m doing something that I think might be putting my neighbor at risk, then I’m worried about moving in that direction.

Collins concludes by explaining that if he were the ‘king of evangelicals” overseeing the churches who insist on meeting in person, he would “certainly continuing to insist on mask-wearing for everybody vaccinated or unvaccinated physical distancing, trying to maintain that six-foot distance” and explains that the most dangerous part of a service is afterward, where everyone wants to stop and greet and hug each other.

h/t to @wokepreachertv

One of the world’s leading scientists and geneticists and professing Christians, Francis Collins, has refused to answer the question of whether or not we can trust the CDC as a reliable source for our scientific advice on account of their advocating from unscientific pro-trans “pregnant people” language.

Francis Collins is also the Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the founder of BioLogos, the self-described “Christian organization” that seeks to bridge the bible and evolution while insisting that humans evolved from apes 200,000 years ago and that Adam and Eve never actually existed.

During the September 2021 Church leader podcast, he and Ed Stetzer discuss vaccine hesitancy and the role of the CDC is contributing to that, after a hundred qualifiers and reassurances that he’s on Collin’s side, he asks him how we can have confidence that the CDC is “trusting the science” and operating solely on a scientific basis unencumbered by external pressures, on account of the woke and unscientific practices of the CDC to drop language like “mothers” and replace it with “pregnant people.”

To quote @wokepreaherTV, “As Collins dances around the issue, declining to say that such transgender-appeasing language is untrue or unsupported by science, he bizarrely asserts that anyone who worries about anything more than COVID-19 is “unmoored” from a commitment to truth.

ED STETZER: A lot of people are suspicious of a lot of the apparatus that you oversee…Some of that comes from…the changing guidance on masks…but also, too, it’s the question of...I tell people, “Believe the CDC,” and then I see people from the CDC go on and change language about “mothers” to “pregnant persons,” and things of that sort. So…it’s becoming increasingly hard for me in the last few months, as one who wants to be your champion, when the apparatus that is under NIH and all the health stuff, seems to have been caught up in some of the currents of the day.

So why should I, as an evangelical Christian who believes that mothers have children, and yet that’s different language now coming from different parts of areas you oversee, then say, but what they’re saying about the virus, which I believe. Remember, I’m on your team. But I’m having to answer these questions to people in my churches. So how would you answer that as a fellow evangelical, that I trust?

FRANCIS COLLINS: Well, I would say, first of all, it’s probably not a surprise to any of us that all human institutions have flaws, and that certainly applies to government institutions and to churches, as well. They’re created by human beings. We have this incredible wisdom that is poured into rusty vessels, and it doesn’t always come out quite the way you would like. And so, be a little bit accepting of the fact that institutions are always going to have these flaws, but then try to look past that.

And again, let’s come back to this issue about what is the truth. And if there’s something I’m really worried about, more than even COVID-19, it’s this sense that we’ve become unmoored from an appreciation that truth is what really matters, that we will be guided by that. And if we start to step away from that, even if we don’t like the message, well, where will we be?

And this is not just the secular world that’s all about alternative facts, it’s the church, too. If we’ve lost that, if the truth is what we need to set us free, well the alternative is not a place that is going to have a future. So yeah, okay, go ahead and be frustrated about institutions that don’t say things quite the way you want, I hear ya. But ask, what’s the truth here? And where are you most likely to find it? And I would say you’re going to find a lot more truth in the CDC website than on Facebook.

Collins points out that like the CDC, churches also have issues and flaws and that we need to “look past that.” This may be true for some things, but if a church is vocally stating as a scientific fact that pro-trans nonsense like “birthing people’ is a thing, or is being pro-LGBTQ in any way and insist on using that language, we ought to thoroughly condemn and repudiate them as two-fold sons of hell and hand them over to satan. So not a good illustration or comparison at all.

Stetzer, dealing that Collins dodged the question, tries to apologetically goes in for a second time, but gets shut down.

STETZER: No. I agree with that. I agree with that. I would be remiss, and people will yell at me, if I didn’t say: I think, also, the truth is is that mothers are the people who are pregnant and have children. And so it’s hard hearing from you, who I know, and I know, you know, I know your journey. I know you love the Lord. That’s kind of a hard message. I want to say to you, yes, can you address that in some of your areas that you oversee, as well? Because that’s true, too. We’ve got to follow the science in multiple places. But again, remember, I’m on Francis Collins’ team, and I’m trying to answer people who, I say, “Listen, you’ve got to go to the CDC website, believe the truth.” And they say, “You mean the same CDC website that can’t say that mothers are pregnant?” So it’s harder for us to persuade those conversations. So what I hear you’re saying-

COLLINS: I’m really sorry that those issues are getting tangled up here, believe me, and I’m not the director of the CDC, right? And I am worried that, in fact, the credibility of some of the things we’re trying to say gets all muddied over with some of these other issues that are very controversial. So I totally hear you.

h/t Wokepreacherclips for the vid and transcript.