Finding Truth Amid Lies

Dr. Clare Craig experienced two awakenings during the Covid years. The first was intellectual. She was a diagnostic pathologist working for the National Health Service in the UK As did so many medical professionals in 2020, she turned her attention to the pandemic. She realized that judicious consideration of the evidence—the foundation of scientific judgment—played little role in justifying the imposition of draconian policies. She was forced to conclude that the medical establishment is corrupt. The second awakening was spiritual. She came to realize that Christianity provides trustworthy truths that even sinful men cannot corrupt.

Craig tells her story in a video produced by HART, a group of academic experts from various disciplines who are skeptical about the institutional behemoth called “the science.” She notes that in 2020 she was naive. She imagined that informed interventions in the debate about Covid policies would be welcomed. But when she pointed out the high health and social costs of lockdowns, and the detrimental effects of school closures, she was attacked and her career threatened.

The vaccine tipped her over the edge. Its release was accompanied by outright lies about its effectiveness. Widespread adoption had no noticeable effect on the spread of the virus, however beneficial it might have been for those most vulnerable. Concerns about the vaccine’s unproven safety were dismissed. Extreme measures of social coercion were employed to force people to get the jab. Most troubling was the requirement that young children receive an experimental vaccination that provided them with no benefit, given the fact that Covid poses little threat to the young.

Why were the facts ignored? Why were informed critics silenced? (They still are.) In Craig’s telling, these questions forced her to recognize that “science” is not an activity conducted by angels. Human beings “do science,” and they are as susceptible to fear, panic, cupidity, and peer pressure as anyone else. Careerism, desire for money, and lust for prestige affect scientists to the same degree as investment bankers—perhaps more so, given the way in which noble vocations can so easily be used to veil one’s base ambitions, not only from others, but more importantly from oneself.

Moreover, “the science” is an increasingly bureaucratic phenomenon. The era of the lone scientist in his lab is long past. Vast sums of government money are now necessary to sustain science as currently practiced. “Top” scientists are more likely to be effective managers and adroit academic politicians than original and independent minds. As a result, those in positions of power and prestige are the least likely to take controversial stands and risk career setbacks. Of course they went along with the lockdown catastrophe. Of course they agreed to censor dissent. Craig is embarrassed to have been taken by surprise. What ever made her so naive as to imagine that truth would win out over human sinfulness?

That question got her thinking about Christianity. She read Acts 4–5, where Peter and his colleagues preach Christ crucified and risen. The authorities in Jerusalem find their forthright speaking inconvenient. Yes, perhaps there were healings and other powerful signs that ought to be taken into consideration. But the authorities have no time for truth. Peter, John, and the others must be stopped! But the apostles are not intimidated. Even imprisonment fails to cow them. They refuse to be silent.

Craig wondered over this episode in the New Testament. What motivates us to defend ethical principles and evident truths at personal cost? Don’t we need a trustworthy place to stand in order to resist the principalities and powers that rule our fallen world? Further questions pressed upon her. Was the stunning failure of scientists and medical professionals during Covid a consequence of secularism, which creates a world denuded of higher loyalties that empower us to bear witness to the truth? Has the recession of Christianity led us into a culture ruled by a dark and perverted science, as C. S. Lewis warned?

As she conveys the lessons of Covid, Craig concludes with an arresting observation. A growing minority of intelligent and reflective people are awakening to the betrayals of secular society, of which “the science” is a central pillar. Those asking questions may not agree with the details of Craig’s analysis of lockdowns or vaccines. But they sense that the pandemic was not merely mishandled. Deliberate lies were told. Extreme measures of social control were employed by people who relished the opportunity to do so. Vast sums were spent to no good purpose. “The science” (along with the technocratic regime it underpins) was a god that failed. There’s a new openness to the God who will not fail us.