From the unvaccinated Christian staff you fired to appease Caesar.

In 2021, Christian schools across Australia decided that their brothers and sisters in Christ should be turfed out into the cold, because although they were following their conscience before God, Caesar had ordered that only those who had received the Mark of the Beast vaccine can work. Schools and churches agreed that unless a teacher had received the Mark of the Beast vaccine, they were dispensable to ensure the “ministry” survived. It was a rare school, school board, or principal, who even contacted members of parliament to have this overturned. Bear in mind, that no government had even remotely threatened loss of funding or registration (and the Federal government is prohibited by the Constitution from enacting a vaccination mandate), nor did they ask for lists of vaccinated staff and unvaccinated staff.

I was told by the Chairman of the Board (at a school I hadn’t even started at yet as a head of department) that Christian Schools Australia and Australian Christian Lobby were advocating on their behalf. This was a false. I had spoken directly with the CEO of Christian Schools Australia and was told that this was an issue between the school and their local member and that CSA would not lobby on their behalf. ACL told me that it wasn’t a religious issue, so they wouldn’t be seeking to help Christians who did believe this went against their faith. I was even told by ACL that other Christians had found a way to reconcile it with their faith, that I should try to do so too.

I was not alone. I know one young teacher who in tears begged the Principal to use the exemptions permitted in the Public Health Order, her only reply: “see attached”. “Attached” was her termination notice. I know of one deputy at the start of 2022, wanted to pray for the staff who had separated because they refused to take the Mark of the Beast vaccine. The principal interrupted and said “we will not; it is completely inappropriate”. Schools even scrubbed social media accounts of unvaccinated staff. Christians lost their homes and careers for seeking to be faithful to Christ. They were slandered and fellow Christians turned their backs on them en mass.

Schools in a grand display of self-delusion, denied terminating staff. One particular school told their unvaccinated staff that they could no longer work for the school after a particular date. By God’s grace, those people found work in other industries, but the school board and principal will not recognise that they gave what amounted to termination notice to their employees. They fired the staff. My own termination letter stated that I had not met the “inherent” requirements of the job. One church I know wrote to congregants stating that the unvaccinated had “disfellowshiped themselves”.

By firing staff who obeyed their conscience before God, Christian schools catastrophically destroyed their ministry. Rather than holding these staff up to the school community as people taking up their cross and following Christ, no matter the sacrifice, they either disappeared the staff, or even ridiculed them as being selfish. Most schools don’t realise that they have irreparably destroyed their ministry.

What example did the students see?

Christians, trying to be faithful to God, were cast aside by other Christians at the behest of the government and then ignored an slandered.

They saw Christian schools employ non Christian staff.

They saw their Christian leaders refuse to pray for unvaccinated staff for God’s guidance and provision.

They saw Christian schools destroy the very Christians who would have stood to defend the students against requiring a Mark of the Beast vaccine to hear the gospel. I asked the principal of my school whether Jesus would require a person have the vaccine to hear the gospel, or to share the gospel. He did not understand the question.

Christian schools allowed government to decide who can be part of the ministry. Watch! In coming years, Christian schools will be forced to permit gay and trans students and drop “lifestyle” agreements, and even theological requirements, because of the legal precedent set in 2021.

The home-schooling movement has grown explosively over the last 2 years. Christian parents no longer trust Christian schools to act in a Christ-like manner.

If the salt loses its saltiness, what is it good for?

I would like to draw your attention to the following Scripture passages to help you understand the damage you have done to your brothers and sisters in Christ, and the damage you have done to the ministry.

1 Corinthians 12:24-26

Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honour to the less honourable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

Did you suffer with us when government wanted to force us against our conscience? No. However reluctantly, you joined the government. You were not even threatened with loss of funding or registration before you joined government to destroy us. You would have told Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to bow down but to stand up in their heart. Or that “God knows your heart”.

You discarded us.

1 Corinthians 8:9-13

But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols? 11 So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge. 12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.

Without concerning ourselves over whether the vaccine is good or bad, you denied Christians ministry and careers, and livelihood, based on a temporary order that lasted mere months. You did not even hold their positions for them. You became an arm of government to force people to violate their conscience. If doing so inadvertently means you are sinning against Christ, how much worse is threatening to remove their livelihood and ministry unless they violate the conscience and bow to Caesar?

Instead of siding with government against your fellow believers, you ought to have sided with your brothers in telling authorities that neither they nor you have the authority to compel people against their conscience. You ought to have echoed Paul and also refuse to be part of a system that could cause your brother or sister to fall and sin against their conscience because they need to eat.

Matthew 25:37-40

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or without clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick, or in prison, and visit you?’

40 “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

When you erased us from, the school, and refused to pray for us, you did not follow the principle of Matt 25, but instead followed the principal of saying “go, keep warm and well fed” but refused to lift a finger or voice a complaint to government.

Revelation 21:8 condemns cowards first of all, before condemning murderers and the sexually immoral.

There is no valid argument to defend the position of the schools. Not that it would justify it, you had not even been threatened with loss of registration or funding.

While you might argue that love of your neighbour was the principle here, love does not compel people against their conscience (2 Corinthians 9:7; Philemon 1:14; Galatians 2:14) because we know that there is judgement against those who cause others to sin (Matthew 18:6-9; Luke 17:1-4; Romans 14:1-23; 2 Corinthians 6:3).

Peter did not want Jesus to go to the cross.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord!This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Peter was working against the whole purpose of Christ’s ministry. Likewise, school boards who thought about their funding, and their registration and their reputation of the school, kicked people out of the ministry for seeking to obey God.

It cannot be reasonably argued that Schools prioritised the ministry. Why? Because they fired staff who had done no wrong and slandered or criticised staff to justify it implying the staff member was in the wrong, rather than holding them as examples of faith. Schools then hired many non-Christian staff to replace the faithful. And watered down, if not obliterated, the integrity of the gospel message. And because they allowed government to decide what was central to the faith and what wasn’t, gave government the precedent to force Christian schools: to abandon lifestyle agreement for staff; to abandon the requirement that employees must be Christian; to promote gender “inclusivity”.

The argument that we must obey those in authority has no foundation, else the justification for the holocaust is that “we were just obeying the leaders you gave us.” We are called to submit, not to obey. The difference is that if authority asks us to go against the laws and commands in Scripture, we cannot submit. We accept the punishment or consequences without complaint, like Jesus going to the cross. That might mean that schools would be shut down, but highly unlikely since they account for 40% of students in Australia. We tell government that they have no role in compelling people in matters of conscience.

Solution

Christian schools need to repent. The Boards need to stand down after having demonstrated they lacked discernment. They need to issue public apologies to staff. They need to stand against oppression in the guise of “public health”. They need to find ways to rehire staff into equivalent roles as soon as possible.

Why have I brought this up now?

I am not a saint. I fail and fail again. I raise this, because thousands of my fellow Christian teachers are still suffering. You have moved on and forgotten them. This ought not to be. I want your ministry to thrive, but I believe you need to apologise to those you have done great harm towards. Jesus says:

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Be reconciled to those Christian staff. It’s important. Do you think they are not hurting? Do you think they are not grieving? And you stand next to them in Church singing praises to God, that does not provide any justification for not seeking to be reconciled.

Please act this week, and come together on Sunday as reconciled to each other and to Christ.