The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest evangelical denomination, last week posted a photo on Facebook where he received the COVID-19 vaccine. He drew more than 1,100 comments, many of them expressing admiration for the Rev. JD Greear, and many others who attacked him.
Some of the critics wondered if worshipers would now need “vaccine passports” to enter Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, where Greear is a pastor. Others described the vaccines as satanic or unsafe, or suggested that Greear was complicit in government propaganda.
The divided reaction revealed a phenomenon that has become increasingly evident in recent polls and polls: vaccine skepticism is more prevalent among white evangelists than almost any other major American bloc.
In a March poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 40% of white evangelical Protestants said they would probably not get vaccinated, compared to 25% of all Americans, 28% of white mainline Protestants and 27% non-whites. Protestants.
The findings have aroused 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 will host events, work with the media and distribute various public messages to build trust among suspicious evangelicals.
“The way to end the pandemic runs 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 representing about 20 percent of the U.S. population, resistance to vaccination by half of them would severely hamper efforts to secure herd immunity, according to Chang.
Many evangelical leaders have spoken out in support of the vaccinations, ranging from Dallas Megasturch pastor Robert Jeffress to the Rev. Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist public policy group.
Jeffress believes most of his congregation in First Baptist Dallas welcomes the vaccines, while some have doubts about their safety or worry they have links to abortion. Jeffress is among the many religious leaders who claim that major vaccines are acceptable given their remote and indirect link to cell lines developed from aborted fetuses.
Moore expressed hope that SBC pastors would provide “sound advice” to their congregations if members raise questions about vaccinations.
“These vaccines are a reason for evangelicals to celebrate and give thanks to God,” he said in an email. “I’m sure both pastors and lay people want churches to be full again and vaccines to help us get there sooner rather than later.”
Other evangelical pastors have hesitated 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 whether to be vaccinated.
“We do not believe that this is a biblical subject; it’s a personal problem, ”said Harris, who estimates that 50% of the older adults in the congregation have been vaccinated, while fewer younger members plan to do so.
“We should not live in fear of the virus because we have faith in eternity. However, just because we are not afraid of it, what is the line of what we should do?” He asked. “I won’t stand in front of some alligators to show my faith that way.”
Some Christians say they would rather leave their destiny in God’s hands than be vaccinated.
“We’re going to go through trial moments and all sorts of horrible things, but we still know where we’re going to end up,” said Ron Holloway, 75, of Forsyth, Missouri. “And the sky is much better than here on earth. Why would we fight leaving here? ”
John Elkins, pastor of the Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Brazoria, Texas, about 50 miles south of Houston, said only one person in his SBC congregation, about 50, has been vaccinated.
“We are in a very libertarian area. There’s a lot of hesitation in anything that seems to come from the federal government, ”said Elkins, who is also giving up the vaccine, at least for now, along with his wife.
Elkins, whose father was a professor of gynecology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said the doubts of his congregants are not theologically substantiated.
“It’s a skepticism about effectiveness,” he said. “People are worried it rushed too fast.”
Phillip Bethancourt, another South Texas Baptist pastor, has encouraged his congregation at Central Church, College Station, to get the vaccine and believes most will. The church hosted a vaccination campaign for staff and volunteers from other churches; 217 people received the first doses on March 22nd.
“Even people who may be skeptical from a medical point of view can understand it from a missionary point of view,” he said. “If that helps more people be able to serve in their church again, so that more children can learn about Jesus, that’s good.”
Bethancourt, a former vice president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Freedom Commission, has spoken to congregants who reject the vaccine and have said they are not afraid to die if that is God’s will.
“The feeling doesn’t bother me, but there is inconsistency,” he said. “We don’t adopt that mindset in other aspects of our lives, like not wearing a seat belt.”
Chang said that as a former pastor, he understands why some of his congregations distrust the government and the vaccines that make fun of themselves instead of running the reaction if they ask that their flock be vaccinated.
“There’s going to be a little bit of courage,” he said.
His initiative includes a set of tools for pastors that offers suggestions on how to address, within a Christian framework, the various concerns of skeptical evangelicals. They range from the extension of the vaccine link to abortion to whether they represent “the mark of the beast,” a disastrous omen of the end of time prophesied in the New Testament Book of Revelation.
The initiative’s collaboration is the Ad Council, known for iconic public service advertising campaigns such as Smokey Bear and “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk.”
“We know the important role that faith plays in the lives of millions of people across the country,” said Ads Council President Lisa Sherman, who expressed hope that the campaign could increase their confidence in vaccines.
As vaccines became available for the first time, there was great concern that many black Americans would hesitate to take them because of the historical racism-related distrust of government health initiatives. But recent polls show that black Protestants are more open to vaccinations than white evangelists.
“This pandemic has affected our community like a plague, and that has made our job easier,” said Bishop Timothy Clarke of the First Church of God, a black evangelical church in Columbus, Ohio. “We’ve done a great job of education.”
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Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.
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