Work For The Bread That Doesn't Perish

John 6 is often brought up in contexts like soteriology, the eucharist, and the historicity of John's gospel and miracles. That's appropriate, and it should keep happening, but the passage is also relevant in another context that should get more attention than it does.

In verses 26-27, Jesus rebukes the crowd for being overly focused on physical food and not focused enough on spiritual food. And he said that in a context in which problems like lack of food and poverty were much bigger than they are today, especially in a place like modern America. It's a documented fact that there's been a major decrease in poverty worldwide over the last several decades. It's also a fact that the modern world has far more technology, medicine, comforts and conveniences, literacy, and other advantages than people had in Biblical times. Yet, people, including Christians, frequently don't make the relevant distinctions between the Biblical context and ours. As if the tens of trillions of dollars we spend on government programs to help people in physical contexts, military assistance in such contexts, private charities, etc. don't make us significantly different than ancient Egypt, ancient Israel, or the Roman empire or only make us a little different. But even in a setting in which people were much worse off in these contexts than they are today, Jesus often made comments like the ones in John 6:26-27. How much more should we be doing it today?

The culture often suggests that the primary or only context in which Christians are doing good is when they benefit people physically in the short term (giving food to people, giving them clothing, giving them medicine, providing shelter, etc.). And Christians frequently accommodate that mindset by giving an inordinately large amount of attention to that sort of work. (And the fact that liberal professing Christians do that more than conservatives doesn't prove that conservatives aren't doing it. You can do something to a lesser extent, yet be guilty of doing it to some degree.) If people still haven't noticed the explicitly Christian names of the hospitals they go to, the widespread presence of explicitly Christian charities in so many contexts, etc., then they're culpably negligent. We can point these things out to them from time to time, but we need to keep the priorities Jesus set out in this passage in John 6 (and in many other places). There's some value in explaining to people what charity work and other such things Christians have done over the centuries, but we need to avoid taking that too far. You can be overly focused on it and leave people with false impressions. Mind precedes matter, and there are higher priorities than benefitting people physically in the short term.

I've occasionally heard John Piper make a good point in this context. One of the reasons why Christians should be so focused on work like evangelism and missions is to benefit people physically over the long term. The afterlife will have a physical dimension after the resurrection. The spiritual has priority over the physical, but as far as the physical is concerned, the long term has priority over the short term.

Chinese wet markets

Someone on Facebook is arguing it's "racist" to criticize Chinese wet markets. My response:

1. Culture is not equivalent to race/ethnicity. For example, look at the cultures of groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban. They're predominantly a religious culture (Islam). They draw from Muslims of any race/ethnicity as long as the Muslims agree with their ideological views. Yet there's no doubt these are evil cultures. And there's nothing wrong with saying they're evil cultures.

2. True, wet markets exist in China and in America. However, the difference is we have certain food safety standards to meet, and we crack down when they violate these standards. What food safety standards exist in China?

3. What's more, China has an authoritarian government that literally could and in fact has used force in the past to crack down on its own citizens. Look at how they've used draconian measures in attempts to quash the coronavirus. If China is going to use force and even violent force against their own people, China could bring force to bear in order to enforce food safety standards or even shut down wet markets if they wished.

4. Of course, I'm not suggesting China should violently quash wet markets. Rather I'm suggesting China has the will and ability to do so, but they don't seem to do anything about wet markets. And that's likely due at least in part to the fact that wet markets are a fixture in Chinese culture. So this aspect of Chinese culture is problematic to say the least. And it's not "racist" for me to say there are problematic aspects in Chinese culture any more than it's "racist" for me to say there are problematic aspects in Muslim culture.

5. There are other people-groups with wet markets. Many Africans eat "bush meat". That's how some diseases have crossed over from animals to humans. So I wouldn't limit my criticisms to Chinese wet markets alone. I could criticize Africans for eating bush meat. How would that be "racist" if I'm criticizing the practice of eating bush meat? I'm not singling anyone out by their race.

Chinese takout

Due to the pandemic, many of the businesses where I live are closed. There's isn't a mandatory lockdown. 

There's a ban on dine-in, but takeout and delivery are still permitted. In that regard, two of the Asian-American takeout joints I frequent are now closed indefinitely. I find that odd. Although they had a dine-in option, I assume that was a small part of their business. Moreover, I'd expect whatever they lose in dine-in would be offset or more than offset by increased demand for takeout at this time.

So I'm wondering if all the hysteria about the coronavirus has fomented a backlash against Asian-American restaurateurs. One joint is run by Chinese immigrants. It's not like they just got off the boat. They've been here for years, long before the virus. They didn't bring it with them. The other joint is Japanese. Maybe it's just a coincidence, or perhaps the apocalyptic scenarios have scared customers into boycotting Asian-American takeout/delivery joints. 

While the coronavirus is dangerous, there's the danger of collateral damage to the innocent by all the hype and fear-mongering. 

Tame the trajectory

We've been told to "flatten the curve" because it'll prevent hospitals from becoming inundated with too many people at one time.

What about "flattening the curve" for supermarkets? After all, I'm sure most of us have seen all the panic-buying, empty shelves, and absurd fights breaking out over nothing by now.

If everyone didn't panic-buy all the toilet paper, hand sanitizer, pasta, and other non-perishables all at one time, then maybe grocery stores could better handle the flood of sales.