Short answer: No.
Yesterday Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf issued a mask requirement for schools. I spent my evening talking/e-mailing with three different evangelical Christian friends who were upset about this. Two of the three people I communicated with were also unvaccinated. None of these people used the term “persecution,” but it was implied.
Here is Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons at NBC News:
Are mask mandates a form of Christian persecution? That’s the argument a California man is making after his two teens were sent home for violating their high school’s mask policy.
“The Bible says we’re made in the image of God and Satan tries to cover that up. A mask is a sign of oppression,” Gary Nelson told NBC News. And then it gets worse. He claimed that Muslims and Jews would have been accommodated but that the school administrators “feel safe” persecuting Christians.
These claims are laughable. Nothing in the Bible says you can’t wear masks. And you don’t see anti-masker Christians arguing against wearing clothing or hats or sunglasses. When these conservative Christians start mandating nudity, then they might have a claim about not covering up what God has created.
The Nelson family isn’t alone in making this absurd claim. A Catholic school in Lansing, Michigan, has sued the state over its mask mandate and claimed that “because God created us in His image, we are masking that image.” Last year, a Republican legislator in Ohio refused to wear a mask, arguing in a Facebook post that the U.S. was founded on “Judeo-Christian Principles” that include “we are all created in the image and likeness of God.”
Read the entire piece here. As a Christian, I also believe that we are all “created in the image and likeness of God.” So are my neighbors.
