Even Nick Wilson seemed a little surprised at how hearty a cheer he received when he announced, “Chicken pox is making a comeback.”
The return of chicken pox, and of measles too, was good news in Dr. Wilson’s considered opinion, and the 1,400 or so supporters of preventable childhood diseases gathered at the Freedom Summit at the Lake Geneva Christian Center in Alexandria last Saturday could not agree more.
Now in its seventh year, this daylong event, subtitled “Empowering Voices for Faith and Health Freedom,” gathered an Evangelical crew now marching under the banner of “Make America Healthy Again” and energized by broad, disturbing successes at the federal level.
You could call them “anti-vaxxers” as shorthand, but vaccine resistance was just the tip of the needle here. All of modern medicine is “a demented, sick cult,” in the words of propaganda film producer Del Bigtree. Over the course of a 10-hour program with 15 speakers, we were taught how to “win” (a direct quote) against our doctors and exposed to health insights that “the elites” (another) are hiding from us. We were reminded, again and again, that god wants us to be healthy and happy but hubristic man keeps getting in the way with his intrusive science.