FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Warrenton, Virginia – June 23, 2021
A group of pastors have collaborated to create the “Warrenton Declaration on Medical Mandates, Biblical Ethics, and Authority.” The declaration was released Wednesday, June 23, 2021, and the “Initial Signers” are made up of mostly pastors across the United States.
According to the statement website, the declaration was created “in order to provide doctrinal clarity and coherence on issues of biblical authority and ethics related to medical mandates.” Further, the declaration’s purpose is to “equip local churches and their officers in providing transparency on where they stand and to assist individuals who are being mistreated in their churches with a well-ordered summary of belief in this regard.”
The Preamble of the statement describes the reasoning for the urgent need of the declaration saying, “With the rise of COVID-19 and all of the attendant ramifications, it has been incumbent upon the church to come to terms with what it believes related to the intersecting areas of biblical ethics, authority, and medical mandates.” Furthermore, chief concerns are said to be that churches have “defaulted to almost reflexively acquiescing to whatever government health agency statements are made and the policies they put in place” and that pastors “often become little more than mouth pieces for government health agencies and are then used by these same agencies to help carry out their bidding.”
The statement lays out two broad sections, first a section on authority which describes the Warrenton Declaration’s perspective on Christian responsibility in submitting to government, and in the second section, it makes application to the issue of medical mandates. The statement takes a strong stand against civil governments overstepping what is said to be their bounds of authority with relation to issues like mask wearing and vaccination and asserts the role of the individual and the family as the true authority responsible for decisions in these areas.
An appeal is made to churches and pastors to make clear where they stand on these issues, and for Christians to discuss these issues in their churches rather than staying silent.
The Warrenton Declaration allows those who agree to show their support by signing the statement. The statement can be read by visiting www.WarrentonDeclaration.com.