Throughout history, those who challenge the orthodoxy — whether spiritual, political, or scientific — have faced ruin. In medieval Europe, the Church held the power to define truth, and to speak against it was heresy. Dissenters like the Lollards, early reformers who called for Bible translations and denounced clerical corruption, were met with public trials, forced recantations, and in many cases, flames at the stake.
Today, we burn no one. But in the age of digital orthodoxy, we exile, silence, and destroy with remarkable efficiency. During the COVID-19 pandemic, dissenting scientists and doctors — often grounded in evidence, ethics, and experience — were cast out as heretics in a system that has come to mimic the Church it once claimed to liberate us from.
🕯️ Then: The Lollards and the Crime of Truth
The Lollards followed John Wycliffe, who dared to believe that the Word of God should be read in the language of the people — not locked away in Latin by a priestly class. Their teachings were radical for their time but rooted deeply in biblical truth.
In their formal statement known as the Sixteen Conclusions of the Lollards (read here: UMSL Source), they condemned:
The excessive wealth and political power of the clergy
The practice of indulgences and confession to priests
The idolatry of images and transubstantiation
The idea that warfare and capital punishment could ever be "Christian"
What stands out is how their beliefs now resemble mainstream Protestant Christianity. Bible translation? Normal. Questioning papal authority? Expected. Emphasis on personal faith and scripture? Foundational.
But back then, to say these things was to risk torture and death.
🧬 Now: COVID, Dissent, and the Heresy of Independent Thought
Fast forward six centuries, and we witness a different institution — Science, or rather, the managerial class that speaks in its name — assuming a near-sacred authority. During the COVID crisis, governments, pharmaceutical giants, public health officials, and a compliant media built a fortress around a “consensus” that was too fragile to permit questioning.
Doctors who raised concerns about:
Vaccine side effects
Natural immunity
Lockdown harms
Data transparency
The true origin of the virus
...were met not with dialogue, but de-platforming, licensing threats, and smears. Their reputations were burned, even if their bodies were not.
Just like the Inquisitors of old, these modern gatekeepers claimed to act in the name of safety, for the greater good. And just like then, they wielded faith as weaponized certainty, ignoring that science, at its heart, is meant to be skeptical, curious, and open-ended.
🔁 Patterns of Power: Why the Parallels Matter
The Lollards asked dangerous questions. So did today’s outcast doctors. And in both cases, the cost of asking was not measured in truth, but in obedience.
| Medieval Heresy | COVID-Era Dissent |
|---|---|
| Bible in English challenged Church control | Raw data and alternate theories challenge Health bureaucracies |
| Burned at the stake | Careers destroyed, licenses revoked, voices banned |
| Clergy enforced orthodoxy | “Experts” enforced narrative |
| Heresy was “a threat to souls” | Dissent is “a threat to public health” |
In both eras, once truth becomes fused with institutional power, it ceases to be truth — and becomes dogma.
⚖️ The Constant Battle Against the Status Quo
Every major step forward in human history has begun with someone challenging the status quo — and paying a price for it. The Lollards planted the seeds for the Protestant Reformation, which eventually led to widespread acceptance of ideas once deemed dangerous heresy. But that acceptance came only after generations of blood, suppression, and resistance.
Likewise, in our time, when public health policy or scientific consensus is held up as unquestionable, it becomes a dogmatic institution rather than a pursuit of truth. Those who dare to challenge it — even when they are ultimately vindicated — are branded not as seekers of knowledge, but as threats to safety.
The irony is sharp: Science is supposed to thrive on challenge, skepticism, and correction. Yet in the hands of bureaucracies and profit-driven monopolies, it has become something else entirely — something far more religious in tone, and far more dangerous in practice.
✊ The Need for Honest Heresy
There is a sacred role for the heretic — the one who stands in defiance, not because they seek chaos, but because they seek clarity. Heretics are the ones who preserve the possibility that truth might still exist outside the halls of power.
What the Church once feared in the Lollards, modern institutions now fear in open scientists, critical journalists, and courageous whistleblowers: questions they cannot answer without losing control.
We must remember — science without dissent is no longer science. It's ceremony. It's priestcraft. And if we refuse to listen to the new heretics, we may find ourselves burning books and souls again, just with newer tools and better PR.
Let us never confuse consensus with truth — or conformity with wisdom.
The Lollards were right to challenge their Church.
And many who challenged the COVID orthodoxy will be shown to be right as well.
It’s not a question of if.
Only when.
Who Were the Lollards?
The Lollards were a pre-Protestant Christian reform movement in England during the late 14th and early 15th centuries (c. 1380–1430), inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe, an Oxford theologian. They challenged the authority and corruption of the Catholic Church, advocating for Scripture in English, personal faith over ritual, and opposition to clerical wealth and political power. Branded as heretics, many Lollards were arrested, tried, and executed — often by burning — under laws passed by the monarchy in alliance with the Church. Though suppressed, their ideas laid the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation a century later.
📜 What the Lollards Believed — and Were Killed For
Here are a few of the “heresies” they were condemned for, many of which now form the bedrock of Protestant doctrine:
Bible in the Vernacular:
Then: Forbidden. Only Latin Scripture was considered legitimate.
Now: Every Protestant denomination encourages personal reading of the Bible in nearly every language on Earth.Priesthood of All Believers:
Then: Rejected. Only priests had spiritual authority.
Now: Protestants widely believe that all Christians have access to God without needing a clerical middleman.Opposition to Transubstantiation:
Then: Denying that the Eucharist literally becomes the body of Christ was heresy.
Now: Most Protestant denominations view the bread and wine as symbolic.Critique of Clergy Wealth and Power:
Then: Seen as treasonous.
Now: A regular sermon topic — and a reason many left the Catholic Church during the Reformation.Rejection of Images and Relics:
Then: Considered disrespect to the holy.
Now: Many Protestant churches remain iconoclastic, focusing on Scripture over symbols.
In essence, the Lollards were punished not because they were wrong — but because they were early.
⚔️ Change Never Comes Without a Battle
History teaches a painful but clear lesson: the more truthful and transformative an idea is, the more violently it is resisted when first introduced.
This pattern plays out across every major social change:
Galileo was labeled a heretic for saying the Earth revolved around the sun.
Abolitionists were hated, jailed, or killed before slavery ended.
Women's suffrage, civil rights, and even digital transparency movements like WikiLeaks have all faced brutal opposition.
The common thread?
Power hates disruption.
Even when the disruption is necessary. Especially when it reveals injustice.
Those who control institutions — religious, governmental, or scientific — are not neutral guardians of truth. They are often stakeholders in the current narrative. To question that narrative is to threaten their legitimacy, their wealth, and their control.
And so the reformer becomes the heretic.
The dissenter becomes the danger.
The truth-teller becomes the enemy.
🌱 Final Thought
Every reformation begins with a whisper.
Every truth was once forbidden.
And every advance in freedom comes only after someone was willing to be burned — in body, or reputation — for believing in something bigger than the status quo.
So when we hear voices silenced, mocked, or destroyed for their beliefs… we might ask:
Are we witnessing heresy?
Or are we simply seeing truth too early?