And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and
causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first
beast, whose deadly wound was healed. Revelation 13:11, 12
News Global advocating the idea that Sabbath rest is not something only one person does, but rather “Sabbath happens collectively when entire communities agree to rest.”
Even though the article claims that it is
not advocating for the return of Blue Laws, it does call for all
businesses to collectively close for one day a week, in the same way
that lockdowns were mandated during the pandemic, so that rest is not
just a “luxury for the privileged” but rather a “basic human need for
all.”
If that isn’t referring to the Blue Laws, then this article is
partaking in some sort of fictitious fantasy because that is exactly
what the Blue Laws accomplish. The Baptist News Global reported the
following in part:
The Baptists are advocating in this statement that all businesses close on Sundays, as was done during the lockdowns that occurred during the Covid pandemic." AdventMessenger• “Communal Rest – During the height of the pandemic, countless articles were published about how the lockdowns were forcing society to rest as the hustle of life grinded to a soft murmur. Even the earth got a moment to breathe as emissions from planes and cars were drastically decreased. This kind of involuntary rest [mandates] was possible only because it was communal.”• “Sabbath happens collectively when entire communities agree to rest. When I talk about the sabbath, I say it’s not just non-work or non-productivity. It’s absolutely collective non-work and non-productivity because I simply cannot stress this enough. If it’s not happening collectively, it’s not going to happen.”• “Shulevitz cites the 1961 Supreme Court decision about Sunday closing laws when Justice Felix Frankfurter defended a societal need for collective rest. Frankfurter “talked about Sunday and Sunday quietness on the streets, near the stores. He talked about it as a cultural asset of importance, a release from the daily grind, a preserve of mental peace, an opportunity for self-disposition. … It made our civitas a better society.”• Neither Shulevitz nor I are pushing to reinstate blue laws, but Shulevitz is pointing to the reality that not everyone can rest until we’ve all committed to set aside the demands of productivity and capitalism for the purpose of sabbath. And when that happens, the whole of the community is bettered.• Shulevitz compares the biblical rules of Sabbath to a “mutual noncomplete clause” where closing businesses for one day a week, for example, is only possible if competing businesses do the same. Similarly, we are able to individually rest only because of the mutual societal agreement that we all rest. Without a collective commitment, rest is a luxury for the privileged rather than a basic human need for all.