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In Episode 131 of Tearing Down High Places, Pastor Jeff & Average Joe are joined by Pastors Seth Brickley, and Pastor Eric Anderson for a hard look at Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent Senate appearance and the deeper failure it exposes. While Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times and continues to hide behind a controversial autopen pardon issued in the final hours of the Biden administration, the conversation turns to a more troubling silence: the near-total lack of repentance and public accountability from many Christian leaders.
The pastors reflect on how large portions of the church responded during COVID — closing doors for extended periods, binding consciences on masks, substituting live streams for gathered worship, and spiritualizing compliance with the vaccine. They contrast this with those who stayed open, resisted government overreach, and formed new alliances with others willing to fear God rather than man.
Years later, with clearer evidence of lab origin, gain-of-function research, and the human cost of the policies, most institutional Christian leaders have still offered no public reckoning. The episode presses the question of why so many remain silent about both the autopen protection shielding Fauci and the devastating consequences of the decisions he and others advanced. It calls the church back to courage, honesty, and the fear of God over the fear of man.
Digestible Show Notes / Skimmable Parts
Opening & Context
- Fauci’s Senate appearance and 111 Fifth Amendment pleas
- Lab-origin evidence, gain-of-function research, and the human cost
- Why this moment forces a hard look at how Christian leaders responded
Fear of Man vs. Fear of God
- COVID responses became moral and spiritual tests, not merely medical ones
- Many churches prioritized not offending, not losing people, and not appearing unloving over clear biblical principles
- The difference between calculated, principle-driven decisions and fear-driven ones
Standing Firm & Unexpected Alliances
- Churches that stayed open, sued governors, and formed new partnerships
- Realizing that doctrinal closeness is less important than shared willingness to fear God at personal cost
- Parallel lessons from the social-justice push of prior years
Specific Leadership Failures & the Absence of Repentance
- John Piper’s “Reason to Be Vaccinated” article and how it has aged
- Greg Strand / EFCA theology that conflated submission to Christ with surrender of rights before government
- Binding consciences on masks, prolonged shutdowns, and the vaccine
- The pattern of “memory-holing” instead of public acknowledgment and course correction
- Contrast with those who have quietly or publicly admitted early overreach
Pastoral Temptations Exposed
- Mortgage payments, attendance numbers, and church-growth models that reward people-pleasing
- The “Christian secularism” of holding orthodox statements while functionally following a different set of marching orders
- Preaching that avoids offense versus preaching that trusts God with the results
- Long-term damage: many people still stay home and no longer treat physical gathering as essential
What We Learned & What Must Change
- Individual rights come from God; the church should have been the clearest voice defending them
- True repentance is public when the error was public
- Forming “foxhole” relationships with those who will actually stand
- Recovering the conscience that physical, gathered worship on the Lord’s Day matters
Closing Exhortations
- Call out sin in the public square and among leaders
- Model and bind conscience biblically rather than leave it unbound
- Gratitude for the deeper fellowship forged through adversity
- Keep tearing down high places—especially the high place of the fear of man