The consequences of lockdowns were not limited to freedom of movement or assembly. Once leaders had the green light to shutter large swaths of society, they wielded that power to impose their newly established ideology.

A new creed emerged in 2020 that divided society into true believers and heretics. Its adherents donned face coverings and regularly engaged in emotional self-flagellation. They put their faith in pharmaceutical products and unrelentingly sought to convert their neighbors. Those who questioned their dogma were cast aside as irredeemable. Just as the New York Times suggested the country “go medieval” on the coronavirus, society returned to a Dark Age persecution of iconoclasts.

The central powers banished dissidents while the United States’ capital city declared a holiday for its beatified leader. In Washington, DC, the Mayor renamed Christmas Eve “Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Day” in 2020. Mass media and cultural madness ushered in the nascent faith. Rev. John Naugle later observed, “Lockdowns were the catechumenate, masks were the religious garb, vaccines were the initiation.”

The ruling class was not subtle on this point. New York Governor Kathy Hochul told constituents, “I need you to be my apostles,” urging them to spread her gospel on Covid vaccines. Lindsey Graham thanked the divine intervention of mRNA shots. Newspapers ran opinion pieces on why “Jesus would wear a mask.” Ibram X. Kendi proudly wrote in The Atlantic: “[My] dad likened me to John the Baptist, a voice crying out in the wilderness for racial data on the pandemic.” On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert parodied The Ten Commandments as a coronavirus warning to worship lockdowns. “Flatten the curve,” Colbert’s God told the audience. On Easter Sunday 2021, President Biden implored Americans to get the Covid vaccine, insisting it was their “moral obligation,” in a speech that did not mention Jesus once.