President Russell Nelson, other LDS leaders vaccinated against COVID

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Church leaders also urge its members to receive gunfire.

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

| January 19, 2021, 5:15 p.m.

| Updated: 10:02 p.m.

Eight Latter-day Saint leaders over the age of 70, including 96-year-old church president Russell M. Nelson, received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccination on Tuesday morning in prayer and fasting. “to show” in words and deeds “their long-standing support for vaccines.

And they hope that everyone else in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will follow suit.

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

The statement acknowledged that all people will make their own decisions, but said they expected people to “advise with a competent medical professional about their personal circumstances and needs.”

Nelson, Oaks and Eyring were immunized on 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 his wives were also vaccinated at the same time.

Three more apostles, all under the age of 70: Gerrit W. Gong, 67; Dale G. Renlund, 68; and Ulisses Soares, 62, previously hired and recovered from COVID-19.

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

“I’m glad it’s our turn to have this vaccine,” Oaks said in the statement. “We are very hopeful that the general vaccination of the population will help us to anticipate this terrible pandemic. It’s hopeful, like the light at the end of the tunnel. There is relief and gratitude for those who have invented the vaccine and for those who have made it generally available in a sensible priority system. “

According to the statement, the church “has recognized the importance of vaccinations and vaccinations for decades.” As early as 1978, the denomination urged members to “protect their own children through vaccination.”

Since 2002, the faith of 16.5 million members has also helped fund 168 projects in 46 countries, including many that provide vaccines. Saint Charities in recent days, the church’s humanitarian arm, has provided financial support to “prominent global vaccination partners to procure and administer vaccines, control disease, respond to outbreaks, train health workers and develop eradication and eradication programs.” .

These efforts have resulted, according to the statement, in “more immunized children and fewer lives lost to measles, rubella, maternal and neonatal tetanus, polio, diarrhea, pneumonia and yellow fever.”
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 Congo, according to the statement. With these partnerships, “Africa eradicated wild poliovirus.”

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

Most commenters on the church’s Facebook page celebrated the news of Nelson’s vaccination, with many saying it was an answer to prayers or believing the surgeon turned prophet was doing what God wanted.

However, a considerable minority said they would not follow their example by arguing that vaccines are unproven or even dangerous and that, by being immunized, they demonstrated a lack of faith in the divine healing power.

Some suggested that Nelson embraces vaccines because he is a former doctor, not a prophet, on the subject, and said they would like the church to stay out of medical decisions.

One woman, who identified herself as K. Moore of West Jordan, said in a message that she will not get the vaccine because her son “is vaccinated.” I would prefer the church to be “vaccine neutral.”

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

Anti-cowboys from before

After the outbreak of the smallpox epidemic of 1899-1901 in the United States, more educated and urban members pushed for vaccination, while less educated, working-class, and rural farmers “favored botanical and faith and dietary health … [and] folk remedies ”, according to a story from the debate of the scholar Ben Cater. Among the most ardent opponents was Charles Penrose, publisher of Deseret News, owned by the church and later a holy apostle of the last days.
Penrose estimated that 90% of the “LDS church attendees” at the time “were strongly opposed to vaccination and were very vocal,” said Cater, who teaches history at Point Loma Nazarene University in St. Louis. Diego, last month at The Salt Lake. Podcast “Mormon Land” by Tribune.
Historian Matthew Bowman, who directs Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California, believes opposition to vaccination was caused in part by distrust of the U.S. government’s involvement in public health.

After all, Bowman noted, this happened just ten years after the federal government disenfranchised Mormons and required the church to renounce polygamy.

“There a different variety of Western LDS libertarianism developed,” the historian said. “Much suspicion of government mandates was a hangover from that era.”

Tuesday’s announcement about the vaccination of leaders, Bowman predicted, will likely change opinions among Latter-day Saints. Those who are already in favor of the vaccine will receive it; the opposites will not.

“A camp in the middle is the only one,” he said, “that could be influenced by LDS general authorities by asking them to do so.”

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

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