FROM THE PULPIT: Trust in the Lord and wear a face mask

The Bible tells us repeatedly to trust in God. The psalms emphasize trust as a key spiritual quality that brings wholeness to people of faith: "The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts" (Psalm 28); "Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord" (Psalm 32); "Trust in the Lord and do good; so you will live in the land and enjoy security" (Psalm 37). Trust is a synonym for faith itself. Faith is having complete trust in God.

Trust is crucial in our relationships with one another. The famous psychologist Dr. Erik Erikson listed trust as the very first stage of psychological development. Erikson believed that a child had to learn to trust in the first few months of life in order to develop a healthy personality. If infants learn that those around them are not trustworthy, their psychological development will be permanently damaged. Parents of infants play a crucial role in conveying to their little one that they can be trusted. That trust sets the stage for everything that comes after in the child's life.

Since trust is so important, it is distressing that Americans trust their government so little. The Pew Research Center has measured American trust in government starting in the 1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower. At that time, 73% of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing. Since then, American trust in government has fallen, standing at only 17% recently. There is some variation by political party, age, and race but the overall trends are the same across American society: a downward curve with fewer Americans trusting the government to do what is right.

The current face mask controversy illustrates the damage caused by a lack of trust in government. Early in the pandemic, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the American public that wearing a mask would not help protect against the coronavirus. That advice was confusing since medical personnel in hospitals routinely wear masks. It seems the CDC was concerned that surgical masks would be snatched up by the general public, creating shortages for hospitals. It would have been more honest to say that straight out. It would have created more trust in federal advice.

When federal authorities changed their message and said that it was important to wear a mask, not everyone believed them. Some didn't like the government telling them what to do. Some felt the illness was not very serious for young people. Others thought the dangers were exaggerated for political purposes. The confusion was amplified by mixed messages from top government leaders. President Trump declined to wear a mask for months and even belittled those who did. At the same time, infectious disease authorities, especially Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, told the American public it was crucial to wear a face covering. Those confusing messages deepened American distrust in governmental authorities. It politicized facemasks instead of rallying the American public to rise to the crisis.

The tragic result of distrust in the federal government's advice is that infections are rising dramatically across the country. Many, many Americans have died prematurely, over 149,000 souls in the most recent count by Johns Hopkins. That is about 450 deaths per million people. One wonders how much lower the death toll would have been if all Americans had worn face coverings from the start of the COVID-19 crisis. In Japan, where people wear face masks routinely, the death rate is only 8 per million people.

"In God we trust," our national motto says. If we truly trust in the Lord, we will listen to the biblical perspective to love our neighbor as ourselves (Leviticus 19, Luke 10). In my mind, that clearly means wearing a face mask to protect others from our infections, known and unknown, and maybe even giving ourselves some protection from others. Then we will live out the advice of the psalms: our hearts will trust in the Lord, we will be surrounded with steadfast love, and we will do good.

The Rev. Susan H. Lee is pastor of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Fall River.