Good Conscience and The Peck

10/12/2021

This may strike some as harsh, but in my mind any argument that the peck can be taken in good conscience is in and of itself a sin.

To be of "good conscience" means to be free of any feelings of guilt or wrongdoing. Thus, anyone who declares that the peck can be taken in good conscience either does not recognize the obvious wrongness of the peck and everything associated with it or refuses to acknowledge this wrongness as wrongness.

To claim that Christians can take the peck in good conscience is to claim Christians are free to engage in an obvious immoral act without the need for acknowledgement, let alone repentance.

Let's be clear. Christians who have taken the peck must not deceive themselves into believing that they "did the right thing".

No matter what the circumstances, getting pecked is the wrong thing. Thus, a Christian who has decided to get pecked or who has been "coerced" into getting pecked is not at liberty to file away the matter under "good conscience."

Regardless of the circumstances involved, accepting the peck should induce bad conscience - the knowing or thinking that one has done something bad, wrong, and immoral. The action should produce some sense of guilt.

Guilt is a moral emotion. It tends to surface when you have compromised certain standards of conduct or when you have violated moral standards. The deepest form of guilt for Christians occurs when they compromise and/or violate God and Creation. Compromising or violating God and Creation includes compromises and violations against the Divine Self.

All attempts to flip bad conscience to good conscience solely via reason and the intellect (prudence) only serve to increase and expand bad conscience.

The only way to flip bad conscience to good conscience - to be redeemed from guilt and sin - is through repentance. And that repentance has to come from the heart. From thinking that emanates from the heart rather than the head.

But repentance requires the acknowledgement of sin, and sin can only be acknowledged once the illusion of good conscience is recognized for what it really is - an illusion.

10 Comments

Andrew

10/12/2021 16:32:28

Do Christians have any freedom from sin in obeying the hierarchy?

There are many Christians who sincerely believe they need to override their own conscious in obedience, and have made vows of such obedience, to a superior such as a Bishop - and so are receiving the peck, and doing various other things, in submission.

This includes many Priests, the reasoning being God must have purposefully given you such a superior, even a terrible one, and you must obey.

This isn't a new belief, but dates back quite far, such as in monastic traditions. I find it difficult to follow - especially as an American with strong anti-authoritarian tendencies!

Francis Berger

10/12/2021 19:55:10

@ Andrew - I shared some thoughts about that a while back:

https://www.francisberger.com/bergers-blog/humility-and-obedience-have-turned-into-something-evil

Todd

10/12/2021 17:20:52

Thank you for this one.
I have had someone I listen to and respect (or did) claim that if "they" "force" you to get the peck in order to keep your job, then you are doing the right thing, or at least you should not have a bad conscience.

His reasoning is that if they threaten to take away your livelihood, and you have children to support, then you have no effective choice. And if you are compelled to do something, you did not choose to do it. Thus, you have nothing to repent for, because you can't repent for something that you did not choose.

Now, to be fair, this man is not a Christian. I would tell him that Christians have faith in something beyond this material world. We believe that we should not fear the consequences of this material world more than we love following God, and pursuing the good.
And I cannot reason my way to thinking that accepting the peck is following "the good." I see it as a spiritual error. I would be helping to drive the evil forward by accepting my peck. I would be losing solidarity with those brave enough to say no.

And even on the material level, which I know we should not give precedence to, I now know for sure (based on the testimony of ppl I trust), that the peck is the most dangerous peck to even be produced by human "ingenuity" (put in quotes to indicate it's mad scientist type cleverness). Thus, even from that perspective, if I die or am made unable to work by the peck, that would nullify the only possible good reason to take the peck.

Regardless, yes, it is at this point a pure litmus test.

10/12/2021 19:53:12

@ Todd - I sense some Christians are in circumstances in which job loss is the equivalent of death sentence. This holds particularly true for those with families to support, young children to feed, etc. In some such circumstances, taking the peck would not be a sin because the people in question are being forced to commit the sin against their will. They really have no choice in the matter.

Of course, the mere fact that they are being forced into it would denote that they understand the action to be wrong, but they would be absolved because they are powerless to stop the process of being forced into committing the sin.

At the most fundamental level, this is the level of the slave - and yes, one can still be a good Christian if one is a slave. We are all sinners. Slaves are sinners who have little or no say in the sins they are forced to commit - but they still must acknowledge the actions they are forced into as sins, even if they lack the power to stop the actions themselves. And of course they still must repent.

But this is a very different thing from allowing oneself to be "coerced" in the name of comfort, security, and stability. In some cases it is probably flippant to say the "coerced" should look for other work, but in many cases it is a perfect valid suggestion. The same could be said for resistance and non-cooperation. This is something each individual must decide for himself or herself. But if an individual chooses sin due to some weakness or other, he or she must acknowledge the sin and repent it.

Those who don't really want the peck, but take it in "good conscience" in the name of comfort, security, and stability are deluding themselves. Those who believe they are actually doing good are the most delusional.

And those who preach that the peck can be taken willingly and in good conscience for whatever reason are the most delusional (and sinful) of all.

As you say, it is a pure litmus test at this point. Whoever doesn't see that is lost.

10/18/2021 16:46:01

Thank you for the discussion.
I do understand it a bit better.
Let's look at it statistically. If there is a 100% certainty that I and my family will die if I don't get the peck, and there is only a 1% chance that getting the peck will kill or maim me, then mathematically, I should get the peck.
However, this calculation neglects the possiblity that God will provide a new path for those who stand by their convictions. That is, it neglects miracles. Of course, you can go the other way and imagine that God might protect you from the peck.
But yes, many people are being forced.
I just befriended online a young Australian woman who got the peck after joking that it might kill her. Now, she is suffering from major effects, includng a stroke and ruptured main artery to the brain, and may never work again. I am mainly angry at the evil of the people who are forcing this on people. And the doctors who are actively covering up the adverse effects. Legions of people are damning themselves (barring repentance).

Mark Alexander

10/12/2021 20:52:29

Thank you for this very good analysis Francis. It is shocking that a large majority of Christians and the overwhelming majority of 'Christian' leaders have not only contended that taking the jab was the right thing to do, but have also advocated that not taking it is wrong. Their position is based on an erroneous understanding of the "Love your Neighbour" commandment and a total disregard for all that the Scriptures say about (i) Truth ("Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour..." Eph 4:25), (ii) Killing (the Fifth Commandment) and (iii) Ends Justifying Means (Paul in Romans 3 rejecting the notion of doing evil that good may come.

Max Overhead link

10/12/2021 21:38:51

They can only force people by threatening their attachments to the world. The more attached, the more beholden, the less freedom of choice. For decades it has been obvious that attachments to the world promoted by this system work to enslave us. High octane careers, living in the "best" zip codes, new cars, fine foods, beautiful women. Those who saw the writing on the wall long ago sought to decrease attachments to a minimum; they knew it was a Faustian bargain; they saw the clouds long before they felt the cold rain.
A stoic threatened with the loss of his job, would blame himself for taking that crummy job in the first place.
Compromising is how you get rich in this world, and poor in the other.

10/12/2021 21:51:48

@ Max - "They can only force people by threatening their attachments to the world."

Yes, which is why I have often advocated for what I refer to as system distancing.

Michelle

10/13/2021 03:17:12

I contemplated the feeling of guilt that many are having surrounding the firing of good employees who will not submit to the peck. My husband's boss told my husband on the phone today about how he "feels bad" and that he thought about my husband's impending dismissal all weekend. "Feeling bad" is a self-absolving way of forgiveness of one's one own guilt. Guilt, just like you said in your post, he is guilty. And what he feels bad about is his own guilt. He is sinning, he is actively engaging in or complicit in evil, and he knows it.
Just like your fellow students who said they would have never complied in Germany in the 1930s, I'm sure my husband's boss would have said the same thing.
Nothing gets under my skin more than coercion, especially the type of coercion in which the perpetrator "feels bad" about doing it.

10/19/2021 07:51:02

@ Todd - Health is a concern, but there are social / freedom issues as well. I don't understand how anyone can argue for the case of good conscience when the peck is being used to terrorize and coerce people in submission through punitive actions like social isolation, unemployment, higher costs for everything, denial of healthcare and education, etc.

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Good Conscience and The Peck

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