Here are some quotes to consider:
“Being afflicted last NIght, with discouraging Thoughts as if unavoidable Marks, of the Divine Displeasure must overtake my Family, for my not appearing with Vigor enough to stop the proceedings of the Judges, when the Inextricable Storm from the Invisible World assaulted the Countrey, I did this morning, in prayer with my Family, putt my Family into the Merciful hands of the Lord. And with Tears, I received Assurance of the Lord, that Marks of His Indignation should not follow my Family.” (Cotton Mather, Diary I: 216, February 1696/7)
“As confident as I’d like to be about my own health, and despite my joking that I’m blessed to constantly breathe in the most sterile (frozen!) air, my case is perhaps one of those that proves anyone can catch this.” (Sarah Palin, interview with People April 2021 https://people.com/politics/sarah-palin-tests-positive-coronavirus-urges-others-wear-masks/)
“What he’s asking […] is does [abstinence only education] work. You know what? Doesn’t matter [….] AIDS is not the enemy. HPV and a hysterectomy at twenty is not the enemy. An unplanned pregnancy is not the enemy. My child believing that they can shake their fist in the face of a holy God and sin without consequence, and my child spending eternity separated from God, is the enemy. I will not tell my child they can sin safely.” (Pam Stenzel, quoted in Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming 135-6).
“One of the big issues that we have heard today and we’ve talked about lately is that without [gender-affirming] surgery the risk of suicide goes way up. Well, I am one of those parents who lived with a daughter who was suicidal for three years […] Someone once asked me, ‘Wouldn’t I just do anything to help save her?’ And I really had to think and the answer was, ‘No.’ [….] I was not going to give in to her emotional manipulation because she was incapable of making those decisions, and I had to make those decisions for her. I was not going to let her tear apart my family.” (Kerri Seekins-Crowe speech to Montana House of Representatives )
Cotton Mather was a major figure in the 17th and early 18th century New England Puritan culture. The son and grandson of major figures, he was educated at Harvard (finishing his degree early), a prolific author, and the minister of a major church in Boston. When, in 1692, Salem Village started on a witch hunt that was unprecedented in so many ways—no bonds required of accusers, testimony done in public, the accused not interviewed separately, and the reliance on spectral evidence—Mather didn’t say anything. After it had gone on for a few months, and the number of people executed, accused, jailed, and “afflicted” was unprecedented, Mather had some doubts about the trials, which he expressed in private. He was particularly concerned about the trials’ reliance on “spectral evidence.”
Spectral evidence is the term for testimony from people who claim to have been visited by a spectre—so, Mercy Lewis saying that she had been attacked (or was being attacked) by Rebecca Nurse, although no one had been present to see the attack. Spectral evidence was suspect for many very good reasons. I’ll mention two. First, the devil could attack the “afflicted” (as the accusers were called) in the shape of anyone he chose. He was, after all, the devil. Another reason was that the “afflicted” all admitted that they were in communication with the devil; they could be testifying under his power.
Although in private Mather admitted that spectral evidence was problematic, in public (especially his book Wonders of the Invisible World) he defended the trials unequivocally and yet, as the author Stacy Schiff says, at times incoherently (Witches 347).
His reasons for defending the trials in public were mixed and many. He was part of the existing power structure (his father had hand-picked the new Governor), and he might have been worried that admitting to an out-of-control witch hunt didn’t reflect well on that power structure; some scholars say he was worried that substantial criticism of the trials would lead to chaos (which is just another version of the first); he was personally ambitious, and might have thought that the most strategic choice was to support the trials; his diaries show him to be someone who believed he was chosen by God to succeed (just world model), so he might have believed that he could ignore the possibility of innocent people being executed—God wouldn’t let that happen.
God let that happen.
More important, so did Mather.
After the smoke cleared, and it was clear that innocent people had been executed, Samuel Parris (the minister who was initially most vehement in unhinged witchcraft accusations) publicly apologized. He did so because several of his children died (not as a direct result of the witch hunt chaos), and he believed that God was punishing him for his part in the witch hunt. Mather’s family also suffered tragedies, and he worried that he was being punished—through his family members’ suffering—for not having been more public in his criticism of the trials. He wrote in his diary:
“Being afflicted last NIght, with discouraging Thoughts as if unavoidable Marks, of the Divine Displeasure must overtake my Family, for my not appearing with Vigor enough to stop the proceedings of the Judges, when the Inextricable Storm from the Invisible World assaulted the Countrey, I did this morning, in prayer with my Family, putt my Family into the Merciful hands of the Lord. And with Tears, I received Assurance of the Lord, that Marks of His Indignation should not follow my Family.” (Cotton Mather, Diary I: 216, February 1696/7)
Take a minute to think about that. Mather knew he’d been wrong; he believed God thought he’d been wrong. But he decided not to go public about his having been wrong because he believed God wouldn’t punish his family.
It was always about him.
Sarah Palin was a covid denier and minimizer, until she got it. Then, suddenly, she cared about covid. It was only real when it affected her. Covid was about her.
It’s very clear how we could lower our abortion rate: give easy access to effective birth control; have accurate sex education; lower teen unemployment. When I argue with people who want to criminalize abortion rather than engage in those policies that would actually reduce it, they always say some version of, “I will not support sexual immorality.”
Goldberg has a nice quote to that effect. Michelle Goldberg quotes an anti-birth control advocate (Stenzel) who said, when it was pointed out to her that the policies she advocates don’t work, “You know what? Doesn’t matter.” (135) It’s about her being rigid to the rules, regardless of the consequences. It’s about her salvation.
Recently, a Montana legislator said that she had a child who wanted to transition, and she prayed constantly that the child would change their mind. She knew that the child was so unhappy that they might kill themselves. Instead of getting her child help, she chose to pray. She said, “I was not going to let her tear apart my family and I was not going to let her tear apart me.”
It was about her.
There are people, who consider(ed) themselves Christians, who believe that what God wants is for them to be fanatically committed to the rules they believe he’s set, because commitment to those rules will get them into heaven. They are more concerned with their personal commitment to those rules because that fanatical commitment will get them into heaven than they are with what that fanatical commitment does to others in this world and in this life.
They are looking out for themselves.
I don’t think God wanted Mather to look out for himself, his political faction, and his family. I don’t think God cares more about whether we follow the rules than we prevent abortion. I think Palin could have figured out about masks before she got covid. I think a parent should care more about preventing a child’s suicide than about following the rules.
I don’t think God is calling us to look out for ourselves.