President Russell Nelson, other prominent LDS leaders have been vaccinated against COVID

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Church leaders urge their members to also record.

(Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church President Russell M. Nelson will receive the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 in Salt Lake City.

| January 19, 2021, 5:15 PM

| Updated: 10:02 PM

Eight top Church leaders over 70 – including 96-year-old President of the Church Russell M. Nelson – received their first dose of the “prayers and fasting” COVID-19 vaccination Tuesday morning to demonstrate “in word and deed” their long-term support for immunizations.

And they hope that all others in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will follow their example.

The Utah Faith “urges its members, employees, and missionaries to be good citizens of the world and help fight the pandemic by protecting themselves and others through immunization,” Nelson and his two counselors to the First Presidency, Dallin H. Oaks, 88 , and Henry B. Eyring, 87, wrote in a press release.

The release acknowledged that all people will make their own decisions, but said they hoped individuals would “consult with a competent medical professional about their personal circumstances and needs.”

Nelson, Oaks, and Eyring were immunized Tuesday, as were Apostles M. Russell Ballard, 92; Jeffrey R. Holland, 80; Dieter F. Uchtdorf, 80; Quentin L. Cook, 80; and D. Todd Christofferson, 75. Most of their wives were also vaccinated at the same time.

Three other Apostles, all under 70 — Gerrit W. Gong, 67; Dale G. Renlund, 68; and Ulisses Soares, 62 – previously contracted and recovered from COVID-19.

(Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church, receives first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in Salt on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 Lake City.

“I’m glad it’s our turn to get this vaccination,” Oaks said in the press release. “We are hopeful that the general vaccination of the population will help us stay ahead of this terrible pandemic. It’s hopeful, just like the light at the end of the tunnel. There is relief and appreciation for those who invented the vaccine and for those who made it widely available on the basis of a sensible priority system. “

The church “has recognized the importance of vaccinations and immunizations for decades,” the publication said. As early as 1978, the denomination urged members to “protect their own children through immunization.”

Since 2002, the faith of 16.5 million members has also helped fund 168 projects in 46 countries, including many that provide vaccinations. Latter-day Saint Charities, the humanitarian arm of the Church, has provided financial support to “leading global immunization partners to obtain and deliver vaccinations, monitor disease, respond to outbreaks, train health workers, and provide elimination and develop eradication programs. “

These efforts have led to “more immunized children and fewer lives lost from measles, rubella, maternal and neonate tetanus, polio, diarrhea, pneumonia and yellow fever,” the release said.
In 2019 alone, Latter-day Saint Charities and partners such as UNICEF USA and Kiwanis International helped eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus in Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the release said. With such partnerships, “Africa has eradicated the wild polio virus.”

(Photo courtesy of UNICEF and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) A health worker vaccinates a baby while his mother holds it at the Center de Sante le Rocher maternity hospital in Lubumbashi, Congo, November 2018.

Most of the commentators out of the hundreds on the Church’s Facebook page celebrated the news of Nelson’s vaccination, many saying it was an answer to prayers or believed that the surgeon who became the prophet was doing what God wanted.

However, a significant minority said they would not follow his lead, arguing that vaccines are unproven or even dangerous and that and immunization showed a lack of faith in divine healing power.

Some suggested that Nelson is embracing vaccines because he is a former physician and not a prophet, saying they wish the church wouldn’t make medical decisions.

A woman, who self-identified as K. Moore from West Jordan, said in a message that she will not receive the vaccine because her son is “injured by vaccination.” She would prefer the church to be “vaccine neutral.”

This is not the first time that Latter-day Saints have been divided on vaccinations.

The anti-vaxxers of yesteryear

After one developed amid the smallpox epidemic of 1899-1901 in the US, the higher educated and urban members pushed for immunization, while the less educated, working class and rural farmers “preferred botanical and faith healing and healthy food. .. [and] folk remedies, ”says a history of debate by the scholar Ben Cater. One of the most ardent opponents was Charles Penrose, editor of the Church-owned Deseret News, and later an Apostle of the Latter-day Saint.
Penrose estimated that 90 percent of “LDS churchgoers” at the time “were strongly against … vaccination and were very outspoken about it,” said Cater, who teaches history at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, last month. The Salt Lake Tribune’s “Mormon Land” podcast.
Historian Matthew Bowman, who leads Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California, believes that backlash against vaccination was partly driven by mistrust of the US government’s involvement in public health.

After all, according to Bowman, this was only 10 years after the federal government took away Mormons and demanded that the Church give up polygamy.

“There a distinct LDS strain of Western libertarianism developed there,” said the historian. “Much suspicion of government mandates was a hangover from that time.”

Tuesday’s announcement that leaders will be vaccinated, Bowman predicted, will likely change few Latter-day Saints. Those who are already for the vaccine will get it; the opponents will not.

“A camp in the middle are the only ones,” he said, “that could be affected by the LDS General Authorities asking them to do it.”

(Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland will receive the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 in Salt Lake City.

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