Is it legitimate that a website which bears the name of 'Christ' should debate and discuss the possibility that people should deceitfully claim that they have been vaccinated when, in fact, they have not.
And, also, is this within the policies and practice of the Stack Exchange platform ?
I agree that it is a great blight on the name of our Christ for Christians to be promoting such things.
But as a Trinitarian Christian, I think it's even worse when people deny the divinity of Jesus. Likewise the Unitarians on this site would think we are blaspheming when we say Jesus is God.
We can't ban questions on some part of Christianity without becoming a sectarian site. That means that questions about beliefs we think are reprehensible remain on-topic.
But I do think it would be acceptable, when it's something like the question being raised above, for answers to state the near universal opposition to the practice, as well as linking to a question arguing the opposite, that we can't use fake vaccine records.
I am not aware of what particular postings on here have discussed a claimed 'biblical basis' for deceptive claims, but I take your statement and respond to it. This question links to people who deceitfully claim that they have been vaccinated when, in fact, they have not. This with regard to Covid-19 vaccinations.
In Britain, government seems set to insist on proof of vaccination, or of currently being Covid-negative, before allowing people entry into certain large, public gatherings. This seems to be initially aimed at an age group from teens to 30-somethings who frequent popular music events, either outdoors or indoors, and at a broader age group who go to large sporting events. It is guaranteed that some of those people will fake proof of vaccination in order to get to those events. But it is questionable whether any of those ones would even claim to be Christians. If some do, then they are hypocrites and liars, and the Bible is crystal clear that such ones are not in the Kingdom of God to begin with, nor will they get into it (without genuine conversion and repentance.) They fool themselves, and some others, with claims to bear the name of Christ. Nobody fools God.
But you ask if it's legitimate for a website invoking Christ's name to allow discussion of whether deceptive claims could have a biblical basis. Sadly, there are some people who invoke Christ's name (or the name of some other whom they worship) who believe that their holy books allow for deception in order to either promote their religion, or to get themselves out of a difficult situation. The question is, does faking vaccination certificates involve such matters?
Christians are free to exercise their consciences when it comes to vaccinations (the Bible does not say a word about such modern medical procedures). Some do feel it is ethically un-Christian to accept any vaccination that has been initially based on use of farmed cells from aborted foetuses. That has rightly been asked about on here. Yet is there a chasm between that and the ethics of lying and deceiving others into claimed receipt of vaccination? Perhaps there's a wobbly bridge between the two, but I think that anyone trying to invoke the Bible in support will find themselves falling off their wobbly bridge into a chasm of spiritual disaster.
As a trinitarian Christian I am repelled by anyone claiming to be a Christian who thinks there can be legitimate use of lying and deception. I have had to repent of that myself, in former years, and am becoming more aware of the evil nature of anything short of truth and honesty. There can be situations where silence, or not answering a compromising question as expected is the course of wisdom - Jesus often fielded wrong / bad questions by asking his own right / true questions instead. And, at the end, he kept silence, even though that contributed to his unjust death.
All of that is so far removed from today's vaccination deceivers that I have to conclude that such people are so self-centred, so selfish, so carnally minded as to the pleasures of their short lives that they cannot claim to be Christians. Yet this site may inadvertently cause them to expose themselves by allowing questions such as you ask about. When we come across questions that are offensive to us, we have the choice of down-voting, or of responding to show why the question is offensive. Thirdly, we may treat the question with the contempt we feel it deserves by utterly ignoring it. But as this is not a Christian site - it asks about Christian issues - we must expect offensive questions, and answers, if we have spiritually Christian-sensitive consciences. Most people in this world do not.
My answer is that it is within the current policies of Stack Exchange, and it is certainly being practiced, but perhaps now would be a good time to think again and perhaps tighten up certain policies and practices.
Questions about illegal activity are usually deleted on the other sites. But it's not particularly clear that obtaining a fake vaccine card is even illegal in the USA, at least. The only violation people are being accused of is illegal use of the copyrighted CDC logo.
It is definitely OK to ask "What is the Biblical Basis" for such and such a belief. I'm sure we have questions about a Biblical Basis for slavery, subjugation of women, castrating mentally challenged, etc... Which, are usually worse than falsifying vaccine papers.
If a person is looking for cover from the Bible for a dastardly deed, they're going to find it. That, you're correct in pointing out, is a very bad service that this site could provide.
I'm more than happy to put the "current events" banner on that post, but I don't know what good it'd do. Probably the best thing to do is to downvote the question to ignominy.
The question of a biblical basis for using a fake vaccination ID seems to rest upon whether or not the injunction to get vaccinated is a biblically righteous injunction and, since I think that is even harder to establish one way or another, it is near impossible to establish an answer to this question on it's own merit.
I have voted to close the linked question for a simple reason - it's unanswerable except for opinion.
The linked video is of the 'preacher' in question giving his own 'biblical' reasons for why he thinks forged vaccine passes are moral. Thus there is no point in an answer duplicating what is linked in the question.
Anyone else's reasons are purely a matter of opinion. There is no organized group that takes the view that fake vaccine passes are moral, so there can't be a 'general' justification, just lots of individual justifications that may or may not be the same.
Most answers are doing a good job of recognizing that we are not debating the obviously wrongheaded notion that it’s Biblically acceptable to lie in word and pen and deed to protect one’s ability to go to a concert. And this site does not represent any Christian group or Christ’s name by any group’s standards.
Instead, as recognized, we are trying to decide whether to censor views we don’t like. The default position should be “no”, and then see if we have a real exception. I don’t see one here. Here is Doug Wilson claiming it is Biblical to make fake vaccine cards. So the case can be made, whether well or not is opinion.
But we must remember that the question should not be merely opinion based. It should focus on what prominent figures or councils or denominations etc are saying (which is not an opinion question), or on historical examples, or on other fact-based matters. Open debate about whether it’s right, or the Christian thing to do, or frankly even “Biblically based”, is not helpful and not allowed here. But someone should be able to ask something like “On what basis do proponents of Christians faking vax cards argue their case?”
Also, recall that facts from personal experience are allowed. (Might come up).
