The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest evangelical denomination, posted a photo on Facebook last week showing the COVID-19 vaccine. It made more than 1,100 remarks – many of them admiring Rev. JD Greear expressed, and many others who attacked him.
Some critics have questioned whether worshipers would now need ‘vaccine passports’ to enter The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, where Greear is pastor. Others have portrayed the vaccines as satanic or unsafe, or they have suggested that Greear was complicit in government propaganda.
The divided reaction highlighted a phenomenon that has become increasingly clear in recent polls and surveys: Vaccine skepticism is more prevalent among white evangelists than almost any other major American.
In a March poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 40% of white evangelical Protestants said they were unlikely to be vaccinated, compared to 25% of all Americans, 28% of white main Protestants and 27% of the non-whites. Protestant.
The findings even raised concerns within evangelical circles. The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 local churches, is part of a new coalition that will offer opportunities, work with the media and spread various public messages to build trust among cautious evangelists.
“The road to ending the pandemic is running through the evangelical church,” said Curtis Chang, a former pastor and missionary who founded ChristiansAndTheVaccine.com., the cornerstone of the new initiative, with white evangelists making up an estimated 20% of the U.S. population, would severely hamper half of the resistance to vaccination against attempts to achieve herd immunity, Chang claims.
Many evangelical leaders have expressed their support for vaccinations, ranging from the megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress in Dallas to Rev. Russell Moore, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptists.
Jeffress believes a majority of his congregation in First Baptist Dallas welcomes the vaccinations, while some doubt their safety or are concerned that they are related to abortion. Jeffress is among many religious leaders who say that the leading vaccines are acceptable, given their remote, indirect links to cells developed by aborted fetuses.
Moore expressed his hope that SBC pastors would give their congregations ‘wise counsel’ if members asked questions about vaccinations.
“These vaccines are the reason evangelists celebrate and thank God,” he said in an email. “I am confident that pastors as well as lay people want churches full again, and that vaccines will help us all get there sooner.”
Other evangelical ministers are reluctant to take a public stand.
Aaron Harris, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas, did not discuss the vaccine from the pulpit or decide whether he would be vaccinated.
“We do not believe that this is a Scriptural issue; it’s a personal matter, ”said Harris, who estimates that 50% of the congregation’s older adults are vaccinated, while fewer younger members want to do so.
“We must not live in fear of the virus, because we believe in eternity. Just because we are not afraid of it, where is the line of what we should do? He asks. “I’m not going to lie down in front of a bunch of crocodiles to show my faith like that.”
Some Christians say that they prefer to leave their destiny in God’s hands, rather than being vaccinated.
“We’re going through times of trials and all sorts of terrible things, but we still know where we’re going in the end,” said Ron Holloway, 75, of Forsyth, Missouri. ‘And heaven is so much better than here on earth. Why would we fight from here? ‘
John Elkins, pastor at Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Brazoria, Texas, about 50 miles south of Houston, said only one person in his SBC congregation of about 50 was vaccinated.
‘We are in a very libertarian area. There is a lot of hesitation about anything that feels like it comes from the federal government, ”says Elkins, who is also abandoning the vaccine with his wife, at least for the time being.
Elkins, whose father was a professor of gynecology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said his congregation members’ doubts are not theologically based.
“It’s skepticism about effectiveness,” he said. “People are worried that it has been rushed out too quickly.”
Phillip Bethancourt, another Southern Baptist pastor in Texas, encouraged his congregation at Central Church in College Station to get the vaccine and apparently most want it. The church hosted a vaccination campaign for staff and volunteers at other churches; 217 people received their first doses on March 22nd.
“Even people who are skeptical from a medical point of view can understand it from a missionary point of view,” he said. “If it helps more people to serve in their church again so that more children can learn about Jesus, that’s a good thing.”
Bethancourt, a former vice president of the SBC’s commission for ethics and religious freedom, has spoken to congregations that reject the vaccine, saying they are not afraid to die if it is God’s will.
“The sentiment does not bother me at first glance, but there is contradiction,” he said. “We do not accept that mentality in other aspects of our lives, such as not wearing a seat belt.”
Chang said he, as a former pastor, understands why some whose congregations distrust the government and sniff the vaccines rather than risk a setback when they request their flock to be vaccinated.
“Courage will be needed,” he said.
His initiative includes a toolkit for pastors that offers suggestions to address the various concerns of skeptical evangelists within a Christian framework. It ranges from the extent of the vaccine’s connection to abortion to whether it is ‘the sign of the beast’, an ominous omen of the end times foretold in the New Testament book of Revelation.
The Ad Council, known for iconic public service advertising campaigns such as Smokey Bear and ‘Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk’, is a partnership to the initiative.
“We know the important role that faith plays in the lives of millions of people across the country,” said Ad Council President Lisa Sherman, expressing hope that the campaign could boost their confidence in the vaccines.
When the vaccines were first available, there was great concern that many black Americans would be reluctant to take them because of historical, racism-related mistrust in government health initiatives. But recent surveys show that black Protestants are more open to vaccinations than white evangelists.
“This pandemic has hit our community like a plague – and it has made our work easier,” said Bishop Timothy Clarke of First Church of God, a black evangelical church in Columbus, Ohio. “We learned an awful lot.”
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Associated Press author Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.
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