Inhumane Treatment of the Elderly

We are now in month seven of “two weeks to flatten the curve”. In that time, nursing homes have been essentially shut down. The people – human beings – who live there (if you can call that living) are being treated more as inmates than residents. Seven months with no visitors in many cases. Seven months without hearing from their pastor the Word of God, without tasting the salvation of the Lord who comes to us in his body and blood.

I was at a conference yesterday, and heard heartbreaking stories of faithful dear saints who have died of loneliness. No family, no pastor, nothing. What began as precautionary has vaulted past inhumane and is now an unconscionable abuse of our most vulnerable. It is yet another crime which cries out to the heavens for relief.

And do not be mistaken: God hears the cries of the vulnerable and weak and powerless. And he will avenge.

We are not only material beings. Yes, we are formed from the dust of the ground. But “It is not good for man to be alone.” We need others around us. We need our family. I have seen members take care of a sick spouse, dutifully working hard each day, keeping their health and their stamina. Once the spouse died, their bodies shut down. In a matter of months – and sometimes weeks, they just stopped. The body is more than food, the mind more than neurons. We are given souls, and those souls must be fed. If they are fed only a steady diet of lies (materialism, evolutionary theory, the latest Malthusian planetary catastrophe, etc.) they become hardened and callous. Riots are the result. We have sown the wind, and now reap the whirlwind for encouraging fatherless homes, saying that our lives are worth no more than the matter it takes to build a body. Now our medics try to lock away the elderly from any threat, as if that were ever possible. Their minds are slipping. Their spirits crushed. Their souls in danger. And pastors are told time and again “Not yet, be patient. It’s our policy.” These policies are despicable. They are wicked. And God will judge us for them – if he is not already doing so. Our cities, with their towers that reach into the heavens, are burning one after another.

We can not continue on this path. Eventually, if nothing else stops it, we will run out of things to burn. We will run out of people to kill. We will lose our humanity, and become like the beasts of the field. God has given that judgment before. He can do it again.

The time has come to stop panicking about saving lives, and start considering the damage we are doing to souls – not only the elderly, but our own. What is our inhumanity to them costing us? It is a price that, I promise, we are not able to pay.