How Do We Decide What to Do with Our Faces?
Sorry for getting long again. As with the previous article, this was written through much wrestling, relationally, spiritually, and emotionally. My heart in this is to try to encourage people to give grace to one another, not expecting everyone else to see it one way.
This reflection is long because it includes a few scientific explorations, personal experiences, and practical theology applications. Please slow down, be prayerful, give grace, and if you have questions, seek out a face-to-face conversation (it is, after all, how we were made to relate to one another).
The point of the previous article was not to make any policy statements or universal declarations of behavior, but simply to emphasize that faces matter. They are important in defining what it means to be human: “our faces are meant to be both windows into our souls and mirrors to reflect our relationships with others (primarily with God).” This is true in pandemics or not.
I know personally the cost and potential risk of my healthcare decisions. My wife has a chronic illness and is on medication that suppresses her immune system. Her 90-year-old grandparents live across the street from us with very serious heart and lung problems. Many of our church members work with vulnerable patients. This isn’t a hypothetical discussion. It is very real to me.
The point of the article is to remind ourselves of our humanity and the importance of our faces. We must carefully consider the very real human effect of separating and covering faces. We live in a complicated time when it is easy to drown out important ideas in the chaos of the current crisis.
My previous article did not make a blanket statement that wearing a mask is right or wrong. I simply said, “It could be” a way to love our neighbor. Or it might not be. There are a thousand different ways to love our neighbor right now and we must carefully examine God’s call on our lives (both in Scripture and in where he has placed us), and we must give others grace for trying their best to do the most Christ-honoring thing for themselves and their neighbors. In all these things we want to communicate confidence in the death and resurrection of Christ. And we do it by unifying around that theme even in our differences. That is our witness to a struggling world (John 13:35).
Theology: The Queen of the Sciences
My goal in presenting a theology of faces was to put forward an important lens to consider trying to see current debates through another perspective. I’ve tried to avoid talking about science because my perspective as a non-scientist could be quickly dismissed because I’m not an “expert” in the field.
But I am trained in theology, which for centuries was considered the “Queen of the Sciences.” That is simply a way of saying that God designed, created, ordered, and holds together the world in a way that is consistent with what he has revealed in Scripture. Good science is a fun adventure in learning more about how God ordered things in accordance with what he has revealed in his Word. The Bible is not a science book, but the conclusions of science should coincide with the principles of Scripture.
I love science. I grew up wanting to be an astronaut studying astronomy, physics, and engineering. I ended up changing focus slightly, becoming a civil engineer and designing roads and bridges, using science to safely and efficiently improve people’s quality of life. During the pandemic I’ve done more scientific study on this topic than on any other topic besides road design (far more than I’d prefer).
I have consulted multiple medical professionals, each having different perspectives on current events, decisions, and mandates. I have considered a myriad of different scientific perspectives. Science is not a monolith. While there certainly is one scientific reality (what God designed), as we pursue it, we must be humble enough to admit that we don’t have access to his design code. We know very little of how things actually are. In our pursuit of certainty we must consider multiple perspectives, weigh it against the plumb line of Scripture, and withhold condemning those who differ as ignorant or unscientific. We are all shaped by various biases. Nobody is completely objective. But we always tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt (trying to “save face”) while assuming the other guy is more influence by personal experience, politics, money, or some other agenda.
The wise leader (of a business, country, city, church, even our homes) will try to consider many perspectives and all the circumstances of the people he has influence with, and try to walk a fine line to lead his people through the chaos. Rarely is an extreme response the right answer. Very seldom is a blanket, universal, indefinite mandate the best solution. People are so diverse and unique that everyone deserves grace as each individual tries to determine what is the best way to care for himself, his family, and his neighbors.
Indeed, that was the point of my first article. Faces are important. Each face is unique in representing God and giving a different look into the world. Assuming everyone fits into a couple of broad categories doesn’t value the uniqueness that each face represents.
And if faces are important in God’s design, we will see the science line up with that, and we will be careful to balance the importance of the faces in our lives with all the other things to consider.
The Science of Faces
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:13 that the body was made for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. What we do with our bodies affects our spirits. We are embodied souls. The two fit together. And we see that all over the place in science.
It wasn’t long ago that science was telling us we need to get our faces out more. Up until our world leaders told us to stay away from each other and cover our faces, everyone knew that faces were important. Study after study revealed that being isolated from others was detrimental to our health. Parents may have been in proximity to their children, but their faces were more engaged in phones than with their children (a problem exacerbated today by many of us constantly checking the news or searching social media for connection with others).
In 1975 Dr. Edward Tronick began to study the importance of faces in child development. He found that children deprived of active face engagement quickly experience fear and anxiety with long-term negative effects resulting from repeated and extended periods of lacking face-to-face interaction. Just this year Dr. Tronick published a book called The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust. It emphasizes the importance of interacting face-to-face to develop deeper relationships with our children and with one another.
Researchers at TCU developed parenting methods called Trust Based Relational Intervention to help parents especially help kids with traumatic backgrounds (think kids who were abused, isolated, or raised in orphanages [i.e. their faces were ignored]). These kids (as do all kids) can overcome big obstacles, but it takes extensive effort getting down on their level, giving them eye-to-eye, face-to-face contact, and interacting with touch and very expressive facial features and sounds/words. Kids need more than a few minutes of this type of contact, but their days must be filled with this close, intimate interaction.
So I fear the effects that kids not going to school will have on their emotional stability and relational skills. Online distance learning is going to have terrible consequences, not only for the individual children, but for a culture that over the next 20 years is going to be suffering the consequences of an entire year of separation from many faces. Our system isn’t set up for kids to be at home and do distance learning well. They need relationships to learn. Kids need to play with other kids. This is what homeschoolers have been warned about for generations, but we are now rushing headlong into making everyone fit the stereotype.
This isn’t a hypothetical for me. It is very personal as I have noticed the fallout of our eagerness to separate and mask up in my own family. Last year we adopted a child who turned one at the height of the pandemic. Scientific research in adoption has taught us to restrict intimate interaction with an adopted child for the first 6–12 months of life (longer if the child is older) to build intimacy and trust with the new parents. Toward the end of this period with our son we begin allowing others time with him to build that trust with other faces. But in a season of separation, we haven’t been able to bring him around other people and now he has developed a great fear of everyone else. If we put a mask on in his presence you can see the anxiety rise in his face as he wonders where his comforters went. The best way to calm him when he gets really upset is to put my face up to his and calmly, repeatedly tell him I love him.
Years ago, when we adopted a four-year-old girl from Uganda, Africa as soon as we arrived in the States the doctors found that she had latent tuberculosis. They assured us that nobody under the age of 11 has ever been confirmed to pass on TB, but they quarantined us to a hospital room for three days: nobody could come or go except hospital staff. It was an extremely frightening experience for this little girl in a new place, with new people, new smells, and new foods. She didn’t know whom she could trust (not even me). They tried to give her iPads and TV shows, but coming from an orphanage, she had no idea what these were. She just wanted to see faces she could trust. She didn’t know mine very well, and the infectious diseases team kept entering wearing masks and hoods with breathing pumps looking like scary monsters. Our little girl screamed much of the 3-day quarantine so afraid of this terrible place she’d been moved to. All of this treatment for a risk of transmission that was (according to science) zero. She just wanted to be assured through calm, happy faces that everything would be fine.
Faces aren’t just important for adoption relationship development. My older kids almost daily lament in tears the rejection they feel from others. They don’t articulate it exactly this way, but they feel like people hate them because they are hidden from other faces. I have worked hard to train my kids to match other people’s expressions, welcome others in with hospitality, and make others feel important by engaging them with affection. And as they try to do this they have been told, “Get away from me, you have germs!” “Stay six feet away! “Don’t come in our house.” “Sorry, I can’t hug you.” “I’d love to hold your child, but I am waiting until a vaccine comes out.” In the meantime, my children are driven to tears as they wonder why they can’t play with their healthy friends, now thinking that so few people love them.
Kids instinctively know the importance of faces. When I discipline my children they shift their eyes away and put their faces down to the floor. Another family has a two-year-old son who covers his face when he was disciplined for misbehavior. They didn’t teach him this. But even when he hears, “No,” he puts both of his hands over his face in shame. Then mom and dad come in, pull his hands down, and show their faces to him to him to show them that they still love him.
Again, this isn’t to say that everyone covering their faces is hiding in shame and fear. It is just to say that intrinsically we know that faces are important. And finding ways to show them in the presence of one another is worth figuring out because it is the way God designed for us to love one another.
This isn’t just a lesson for us in parenting and child development. Faces represent who we are as humans. Pornography use is way up because people are hungry for intimacy being face to face with another human. And because body and spirit are connected, using pornography rewires the brain to make real, face-to-face intimacy more difficult.
Drug abuse is skyrocketing. I mentor recovering drug addicts and meet with others weekly who express how much a face-to-face meeting, sharing a meal in my home with them makes them feel so valued. Throughout their lives they’ve dealt with unbearable shame that led them to drug use. Like children from hard places, this shame can be rewired through regular face-to-face contact that builds trust and relational value.
Depression and suicide rates are through the roof. Separating from others, not seeing emotion on people’s faces, getting intimacy unsatisfying dopamine hits through social media all leave us feeling incredibly depressed. “Face”book friends can’t hug you. Social media is full of happy faces while we know our own faces are downcast.
The costs of current policies are myriad and long-lasting. Our current battle with racism is because we struggle to respect people with different shapes and colors of faces. We need to work to see and celebrate each other’s faces. I know retired soldiers who struggle with PTSD and everyone wearing masks makes their anxiety shoot up, not knowing who they can trust. I’ve had multiple couples approach me recently looking for marriage counseling because they are struggling to know how to be in such close (face-to-face) proximity without others to model the example in their homes. They don’t just need information about marriage, they need a place to see how marriage works and explore difficult conversations together. Justice is at risk right now because we don’t get the right to “face our accuser” and defend ourselves from false accusation. Conflict is rising between people who are supposed to be unified because they can’t “say it to my face.” In the absence of being together, we are left to assume others’ motives, to spiral into the darkness of our own hearts, and pray for the light of God’s face to break through.
I say all of this because I am working to help people through all of these difficult circumstances when these challenges are a far greater risk to them than COVID. Some say, “What if you spread the virus to others?” But I can’t live in a world of “what-ifs” when I have other challenges that exist right in front of me that require face-to-face connection. Everyone is wrestling through different things trying to balance all the commands from Scripture, mandates from government, guidance from science, and a thousand problems next door. I don’t want to automatically treat someone as a threat to my life, but let my guard down and treat them like a valued human being. I want my face to be known as one inviting people to share my joy.
Biblical Love for Neighbor and When to Wear a Mask
We must be careful throwing around the phrase, “love your neighbor” and attaching whatever nice thing we want to do. The Bible actually gives us wisdom on what it means to love our neighbor relating to our faces. Again, what we do with our bodies communicates love. Sometimes that means wearing a mask and sometimes it doesn’t.
I have interacted with so many people over the last few months who have said they feel so alone and disconnected. It’s because they are alone and disconnected. And I have been striving to bring them into my home, share a table with them, and smile to let them know that Christ is with them through homes and faces like mine.
We’ve all heard the word “hypocrite” before. It is a person who acts one way in one place and differently in another. They say to do one thing, yet behave in a different way. In Greek the word “hypocrite” comes from the acting world. It is a person who, in a sense, puts on a mask and acts like a different person. When they are done, they take off the mask. Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites for standing on the street corners play-acting their prayers and their generosity (Matthew 6:5) and for teaching certain things but acting differently (Matthew 23:13–32). We must be careful to let our faces always portray what is true about God and ourselves.
(Please don’t read this as saying everyone who wears masks are hypocrites. Keep going to see my point.)
This is why hospitality is such an important concept in the New Testament (Rom. 12:13; 1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8; Heb. 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9). Hospitality is the act of treating someone as a member of the family. It’s not just being nice to someone, but welcoming people into your home to eat with you, to watch how you treat your wife and children, to observe how God works in your private life. It is a way of overcoming hypocrisy by showing people that the face you wear in public is the same face you have in private. It is vital that Christians not only show our faces to others, but that we bring people into our homes to show that our faces are consistent in reflecting the glory of God. Even in difficult circumstances, God expects us to welcome people in our homes (Acts 2:46; 16:34; Luke 19:1–10; 1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8). We are commanded in scripture to love our neighbor by being hospitable (Matt. 25:35; Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9).
Without being in each other’s homes to see faces of our redeemed brothers and sisters, to express hope to our neighbors, we are left to make assumptions about the character and decision-making of others. We aren’t able to see their heart at work in private. The more we are separated from people, the more we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, and we assume the worst of others. With the fighting and division going on right now over a variety of things, it is clear we aren’t spending much time together. Then how do we resolve that tension and conflict without coming together in the same place (Matthew 18:15–20)?
All of this is not to say we should be careless and never take precautions. Admittedly, we are not in our final heavenly home, so until then there will be things that prevent us from experiencing this wonderful intimacy (like respiratory illnesses). But that doesn’t mean we should all mask up all the time. We are told that the church should be a representation of heaven on earth as much as we are able. The gathered, redeemed people of God are the testimony of Christ at work in this sick and confused world. We can take precautions, but we should be eager to gather, have the glory of Christ in one another shine on each other’s faces, to hospitably show our faces to comfort others in our homes, and to send each other out into the world to radiate his glory on our faces. We still must find ways to display this hope in the world.
Everyone is welcome to gather with us whether they need to wear a mask or not because we will not add barriers to coming to Jesus beyond what Scripture commands. We do not feel we have the authority to bind someone’s conscience on an issue that is not clear in Scripture (keeping in mind and balancing biblical truths of valuing faces, protecting the vulnerable, honoring the government, etc.).
In the spirit of unity and a desire not to be contentious, if a business requires me personally to wear a mask, or someone asks me to their home for dinner and requests I wear a mask, I’ll do it. It’s their business, their home, so I’ll comply to show respect. I’m not completely against wearing masks. I am just eager to show my face when I can.
Indeed, when it is 30 degrees below zero here in January, I will cover my face when I’m outside to keep my face from freezing, but I will take it off as soon as I can in order to be more intimate with people in conversation. There are times when masks might be necessary, but my desire is to have as many of us unmasked as possible. In fact, in its ancient wisdom, the Bible tells us how we ought to care for the gathering of believers with the threat of communicable diseases. Leviticus 13 describes the rules required for someone struck with a contagion. After inspection by someone trained in recognizing the ailments, the diseased person was to live outside the camp (we call it quarantine) to stay away from the healthy people. If for some reason the sick person came near a healthy person they would need to cover their mouths in some way and make the healthy people aware of their contagion. Anyone caring for the sick also would become unclean and would be required to stay away for a period of time. A biblical quarantine isolates the sick (and their caretakers), not the healthy, general population.
Those who were sick and cared for the sick were kept out of the gathering at the temple. This may seem like unfairly singling out people keeping them from worship. But the temple was to be a representation of heavenly intimacy with God where there is no sin or sickness. To keep the sick out of the temple wasn’t to single them out for shame, but, exactly the opposite, it was to put before them hope that one day they would be without their sickness and be able to enter into the presence of God completely clean.
That promise is fulfilled in Christ. Amazingly, Jesus comes across a leper in his ministry, and while everyone tried to run, Jesus walked right up to the man (Matt. 8:1–4). How often had that leprous man had others twist their faces in disgust at him? How often had people turned their faces away from him? How many times did he have to hide his face from others? No doubt, without getting to look into the faces of others, he began to feel less than human (kind of like how it feels to walk through a grocery store today). But Jesus walked right up to the man and touched him. He was close enough to breathe his air. He looked him in the face and he didn’t just heal his sickness, he restored his human dignity.
This is what I want to be in this world. I want to restore human dignity in a world that has been (not just recently, but for years) taking it away. We cancel each other out for everything. We shame each other for not stepping in line. We treat one another like everyone is infected and we are all going to die if we come close to one another. We assume the worst motives of one another.
But Jesus came to restore humanity. In his death he took upon himself our shame and the Father turned his face away from his perfect Son. In his resurrection Jesus guarantees that we can now stand face-to-face with the Father. In his ascension Jesus sent his Spirit to dwell in us so our faces would shine his face into the world.
Our world is one that needs hope. The world is scaring people into believing the threat on their lives is over 100x what it is in reality. Because the news doesn’t seem to match reality, people are believing all kinds of conspiracy theories. We believe something much better than either despair or conspiracy, Jesus guarantees we will rise from the dead (even if we die of COVID). That is the hope we are supposed to be all about. What greater time to proclaim that hope that viruses and death do not scar us and our King reigns over all rulers (not some elite secret society). We aren’t giving into fear and we’re not banging the drum of FREEDOM! Our desire is to unify in the death and resurrection of Christ alone.
Conclusion
So where are we? The point in this entirely too long set of articles is that faces are a big deal. Wearing a mask might keep our neighbors physically safe for a moment, but we must ask if it just pushes the problem down the road a little bit. Certainly people are dying right now (not just from COVID, but increasingly from many other things). And the majority of them are going to stand before God for their sins without ever having the chance to see his face in his redeemed people, speaking his voice of hope coming from our faces. This is why I am eager to show my face. I want to display the hope of glory written on my face whenever possible.
We evangelicals like to emphasize the Word of God a lot (as we should, it is the power of salvation). But when we study the concept of faces throughout his word we see that God never intended for his word to be heard apart from the faces of people who are near (Eph. 2:13). Jesus came at a time in history when it wasn’t possible to record a sermon or live stream it on the internet. That’s because he wanted his word to be proclaimed from the redeemed faces of his gathered people, going out into the face of the earth to represent his image on the face of the earth.
Might we get sick? Some will. We still live in a fallen world. We will strive to avoid sickness, but even if we do we have the responsibility to reflect the hope of the resurrection on our faces to those laid up with us and those caring for us. (I do not say that lightly as one who has stared into the face of severe sickness and death on multiple occasions.) Might others die? It’s a possibility. But we do not control life and death. Only God himself holds that power in his hands. Apart from deliberately infecting someone, knowingly being careless when we are sick, or inflicting suffering, life and death are not in our power. God is in control of the “what-ifs,” not us (Heb. 4:7; James 4:13-15).
We do the best we can at balancing all the information we have (scientific, theological, economic, relational, etc.) and we make decisions that we think we be most beneficial for the people that are in our care (in our homes, in our church, in our workplaces and neighborhoods). And trust God with orchestrating his plan. There is no one-size fits all answer for everyone. To require one thing for everyone is to cause harm somewhere else. We don’t have all the wisdom on our own (which is why we need to be in relationships with each other), so we must be careful to proclaim only one solution for everyone and give grace to those who see it differently.
Our lives were bought at a price: the death of Christ in place of ours. The Christian’s only call in everything in this life is to proclaim hope through our redeemed faces trusting Christ to display his power to rescue us from the fear of sickness and death through his promised resurrection.
May we wear that hope on our faces in joyful anticipation of that day and confidence that he will save many through us until faces from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation reflect his glory back to his face.
