The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest evangelical denomination, posted a photo to Facebook last week showing him the COVID-19 vaccine. More than 1,100 responses were received – many of them admiring Pastor JD Greear, and many others attacking him.
Some critics questioned whether worshipers would now need “vaccine passports” to enter The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, where Greear is a minister. Others portrayed the vaccines as satanic or unsafe, or suggested that Greear was complicit in government propaganda.
The divided response revealed a phenomenon that has become increasingly evident in recent polls and surveys: vaccine skepticism is more widespread among white evangelicals than among almost any other major block of Americans.
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 Protestants in the mainline and 27% of non-white Protestants.
The findings have sparked concern even within evangelical circles. The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 local churches, is part of a new coalition that is organizing events, partnering with media outlets, and spreading various public messages to build trust among wary evangelicals.
“The path to ending the pandemic is through the Evangelical Church,” said Curtis Chang, a former pastor and missionary who founded ChristiansAndTheVaccine.com., the cornerstone of the new initiative. With white evangelicals making up an estimated 20% of the U.S. population, resistance to vaccination by half of them would seriously hamper efforts to achieve herd immunity, Chang said.
Many evangelical leaders have spoken in support of vaccinations, ranging from the Dallas megachurch Pastor Robert Jeffress to Reverend Russell Moore, chief of the Southern Baptists’ public policy department.
Jeffress believes a majority of his congregation in First Baptist Dallas welcomes the vaccines, while some have doubts about their safety or concerns that they have ties to abortion. Jeffress is one of several religious leaders who say the major vaccines are acceptable given their remote, indirect links to lines of cells developed from aborted fetuses.
Moore expressed the hope that SBC ministers would provide “wise counsel” to their congregations if members asked questions about vaccinations.
“These vaccines are a reason for evangelicals to celebrate and give thanks to God,” he said via email. “I am convinced that pastors and lay people alike want to have the churches full again and vaccines will help us all get there sooner than later.”
Other evangelical ministers were reluctant to take a public stance.
Aaron Harris, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas, has not discussed the vaccine from the pulpit or decided if he will be vaccinated.
“We don’t believe this is a Scriptural matter; It’s a personal matter, ”said Harris, who estimates that 50 percent of older adults in the branch have been vaccinated, while fewer younger members plan to do so.
“We must not live in fear of the virus, because we have faith in eternity. But where’s the line of what we should do just because we’re not afraid of it? he asked. “I’m not going to lie in front of a bunch of alligators and show my faith that way.”
Some Christians say they would rather leave their fate in God’s hands than get vaccinated.
“We will go through times of trials and all sorts of terrible things, but we still know where we are going,” said Ron Holloway, 75, of Forsyth, Missouri. And heaven is so much better than here on earth. Why should we fight to leave 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 has been vaccinated.
‘We are in a very libertarian area. There is a lot of hesitation with anything that feels like it is coming from the federal government, ”said Elkins, who is also abandoning the vaccine for now, along with his wife.
Elkins, whose father was a professor of gynecology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said his congregation’s doubts are not theologically based.
“It’s skepticism about effectiveness,” he said. “People are concerned that it has been brought out too soon.”
Phillip Bethancourt, another Southern Baptist minister in Texas, has encouraged his congregation at Central Church in College Station to get the vaccine and believes most will. The church organized a vaccination program for staff and volunteers in other churches; 217 people received their first doses on March 22.
“Even people who might be skeptical from a medical standpoint can understand it from a missionary standpoint,” he said. “If it helps more people to return to their church so that more children can learn about Jesus, that’s a good thing.”
Bethancourt, a former vice president of the SBC’s Committee on Ethics and Religious Freedom, has spoken to congregants who reject the vaccine and say they are not afraid to die if it is God’s will.
“The feeling doesn’t bother me at first glance, but there is inconsistency,” he said. “We don’t adopt that mindset in other aspects of our lives, such as not wearing a seat belt.”
Chang said that as a former pastor he understands why some whose congregations are the government and the vaccines are suspicious of the government and the vaccines, instead of running the risk of hitting back if they urge their flock to get vaccinated. .
“It will take some courage,” he said.
His initiative includes a toolkit for pastors with suggestions for addressing – within a Christian framework – the various concerns of skeptical evangelicals. They range from the extent to which the vaccines are related to abortion to whether they represent “the mark of the beast,” an ominous harbinger of the end times prophesied in the New Testament book of Revelation.
Participation in the initiative is the Ad Council, known for iconic public service ad campaigns such as Smokey Bear and Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk.
“We know the important role faith plays in the lives of millions of people across the country,” said Lisa Sherman, chairman of the Ad Council, who expressed the hope that the campaign could increase their confidence in the vaccines.
When the vaccines first became available, there was widespread concern that many black Americans would hesitate to take them because of historical, racism-related distrust of government health initiatives. But recent studies show that black Protestants are more open to vaccinations than white evangelicals.
“This pandemic has plagued our community – and it has made our job easier,” said Bishop Timothy Clarke of First Church of God, a black evangelical church in Columbus, Ohio. “We’ve delivered great education.”
Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri contributed to this report.
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