Featuring Francis Collins, a born-again Christian who led the Human Genome Project and was the director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) during the covid era
In the About section1 of this Substack I refer to the song The Sound of Silence:
The idea for the Dear Church Leaders Substack came in the context of emails that I was writing to the leaders of the large city-centre church that I attend.
As 2020 went by, I was becoming increasingly concerned about what appeared to be happening in relation to covid. After a brief discussion with the vicar in late 2020, during which it became clear that no-one else in the congregation had raised similar concerns, I began writing to the senior leaders of the church, not least because it was illegal to gather for a discussion at the time.
One of the main things that I was concerned about was that Christians, and particularly Christian leaders, would maintain their reputation — such as it then was — for telling the truth.
Since then I have written multiple times on various issues. But I think it is fair to say that engagement with the issues has been — and still is — fairly minimal. Particularly among those responsible for making key decisions. And that, unless I have missed it, there is essentially no forum at church for such things to be discussed. From my perspective, The Sound of Silence feels louder than ever.
When I wrote those words back in May, “fairly minimal” was something of an understatement. It still is.
Some of the lyrics of The Sound of Silence have thus increasingly resonated with me over the past few years. And I thought it worth sharing four renditions of the song, each remarkable in its own way.
Firstly, here are Simon and Garfunkel, with a moving live performance of their original version:
Secondly, here is a 2015 cover version from Disturbed, a US heavy metal band from Chicago. But please don’t let that put anyone off. There’s not a lot of metal here2 in this impressive interpretation which has been viewed more than a billion times on YouTube:
Thirdly, here is a parody version from Francis Collins — of whom more later — who led the Human Genome Project and was the director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) during the covid era. The context is a graduation ceremony at the Yale School of Medicine:
And fourthly, in stark contrast, here is the rather poignant The Sound of Sirens from Monkeyboy,3 an anonymous Northern Irish musician4 who has garnered many views on Twitter/X, despite extensive censorship.56 I learned a new word from the final verse while transcribing the lyrics, but then thought it better just to provide a link to the video in this case:
For context, this chart from a recent UK government report7 shows the numbers of the most serious ambulance calls in recent years: around 500 extra per day since mid-2021, and still ongoing:
And here is what was happening with “cumulative vaccine uptake” in 2021 according to p10 of this UK government report:
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If you are still unconvinced of a link, consider e.g. the US life insurance data discussed here:
As to Francis Collins, he is no stranger to cover versions of popular songs. Here he is performing Genesis, sung to the tune of the Beatles’ Yesterday, along with New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham Tom Wright:
Maybe Collins is a fan of The Beatles? Here8 is his rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine, featured at the end of Broken Truth’s epic documentary Epidemic of Fraud:9
That was before Collins was picked by then-President Barack Obama as the new NIH Director in 2009. In the words of a Washington Post article at the time:
Rare among world-class scientists, Collins is also a born-again Christian,10 which may help him build bridges with those who view some gene-based research as a potential threat to religious values.
And Collins still evidently has his admirers today, not least those who awarded him the £1.1-million Templeton Prize for 2020 for “demonstrating how religious faith can inform and inspire a rigorous quest for knowledge of the natural world through the sciences”. But he also has his detractors — consider e.g. this recent article which pulls few punches.
Until recently, I was unaware of Collins’ track-record at the NIH in the 2010s. But in the context of covid I had noted his role in 2020 in the suppression of the rather sensible-sounding Great Barrington Declaration…
And I would be interested to hear more from him about why he thought there needed to be a “quick and devastating published takedown” of an open letter that was eventually signed by nearly a million people.
There was also his appearance on the BBC’s Thought for the Day, pushing the covid injections on New Year’s Eve 2021:
…the rigorous clinical trials to test the vaccines revealed an astounding 95% protection against infection… an answer to prayer… God has given you a gift in the vaccine, but you have to open the gift… give thanks and then roll up your sleeve…
Collins’ words from 2021, like those of Justin Welby — as discussed here — are not ageing well.
Particularly given this recent report on the effect of covid injections on children (more details here).
As it happens, Collins is, like Welby, featured on the World Economic Forum website:
But as the NIH Director, Collins could hardly have been unaware of e.g. the data on the US Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). Even I knew enough to put together this slide more than two months before that BBC broadcast in December 2021:
So I would be particularly interested to hear from Collins how he would answer this question that I raised in the Medical propaganda from church leaders post mentioned earlier:
Is it not highly questionable — to say the least — for any public figure ever to promote any medical product? However “safe” and/or “effective” it is claimed to be.
Especially where children are concerned.
And in the context of covid injections we might reasonably add:
Let alone a medical product that uses novel technology… and which plainly cannot have undergone long-term safety studies… and for a disease with an infection fatality rate comparable to a bad flu…
I wonder what I am more likely to hear over the coming months: Collins — or indeed any of those various church leaders — addressing that question in any detail; or the now familiar sound of silence.
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Some context for the Monkeyboy character can be found in this sketch that was released in 2022 around the time that the WHO declared “monkeypox spread” to be a “global health emergency” also known as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (try pronouncing the acronym PHEIC…)
Shadow-banning, for example; plus I have seen his view numbers massively reduced by X, i.e. posts that previously had (at least) tens of thousands of views now show only a few thousand
When I tried this link to the The Sound of Sirens on YouTube, I got a message to say “An error occurred”. Even in 2024, YouTube is still censoring content questioning efficacy of the so-called covid vaccines.
Epidemic of Fraud (two-minute trailer here), which has been viewed over a million times and won several awards, is well worth watching if you have the time; watch for the Bible verses that appear during the closing credits while Collins’ rendition of Imagine is still playing
I am disinclined to use the phrase “born-again Christian” myself, not least because of its tautological nature — from reading e.g. John 3:1-8, I wonder how is it possible to be a Christian who is not born again
