https://www.nola.com/opinions/article_b8e0ef54-f931-11eb-9c4f-5f9a2edbaef7.html
Jarvis DeBerry: As Louisiana’s COVID-19 cases spread, a gospel of selfishness spreads, too

STAFF PHOTO BY MAX BECHERER
Every Christian should know the story of the legal scholar who tells Jesus he knows he’s commanded to love his neighbor as much as he loves himself, but professes not to understand who his neighbor is. Without actually reciting the parable of the man who’s ambushed on Jericho Road and then revived and rescued by his presumed enemy, Gov. John Bel Edwards, who’s Catholic, has repeatedly alluded to that passage of Scripture when he’s begged residents to think of COVID-19 mitigation efforts as part of their duty to be good neighbors.
In a state where 84% of people say they’re Christian, convincing them to show concern and compassion for others shouldn’t be a hard sell. However, nearly all the opposition to the governor’s emergency orders has come from conservative Christians (some evangelical, some Catholic) who have elevated the so-called right of the individual not to be mildly inconvenienced over the public good of fewer deaths. We’ve heard theologically flimsy arguments against crowd restrictions, vaccinations and masks, all which suggest a belief that Christianity requires not neighborliness, but a selfish disregard for the well being of others.
“So it’s not love your neighbor so much,” Du Mez said by phone. “Well, you know, they’ll say the way that we love our neighbors is to stand for truth and righteousness and they are welcome to come join us. But, you know, it’s a different conception of loving one’s neighbor, for sure.”
COVID-19 hospitalizations are skyrocketing, and last week, Edwards wisely — if belatedly — announced a new statewide mask mandate. He also said Louisiana can’t lay claim to being the “most pro-life state in the nation” if its people won’t do the simplest things to thwart the spread of disease and its politicians won’t stop fomenting defiance of public health guidelines.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Catholic, is not an evangelical, but on the same day Edwards issued the new face mask order, Landry was offering form letters to parents looking to gin up religious or philosophical objections to face masks. “I do not consent to forcing a face covering on my child, who is created in the image of God,” the religious objection form says.
“I don’t believe he’s consulting with any public health experts,” Edwards said of Landry on PBS’s “Amanpour & Co.” Wednesday, “and what he’s doing has no basis in the law.”
It has no basis in the Bible either, notwithstanding Landry loading up that letter with scriptures.
“That’s just ridiculous,” Obery Hendricks, a professor of systematic theology, said of Landry’s suggestion that people use “image of God” language to get out of mask mandates. That would mean believers shouldn’t wear hats, Hendricks said, or “wear clothes at all.”
Hendricks, an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church who teaches at Columbia University, has studied the same right-wing takeover of the faith Du Mez has. He calls his latest book “Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and Our Faith.”
“If they cared about the Bible, they would act very differently,” Hendricks said of people here and across America citing religion to resist health guidelines. “They would support the governor’s call for neighborliness. It seems their Bible doesn’t even include ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Seems like the part about obeying authority has fallen out with it. When the oppressed have protested mistreatment, conservative Christians have routinely flipped to Romans 13 and lectured that authorities are to be obeyed. But Democrats — even pro-life Democrats — aren’t called authorities. They’re called tyrants.
It doesn’t matter that conservative Christians are a small part of the population. They own a political party. That means their gospel of selfishness imperils us all.