A survey by the National Association of Evangelicals found that 95% of evangelical leaders planned to get inoculated, but that number hasn’t translated into widespread advocacy from the pulpit, he said.
The disparity matters because vaccination rates are generally low across the Bible Belt, where Southern and Midwestern churchgoers are a formidable bloc that has proven resistant to vaccination appeals from government leaders and health officials. While many Black and Latino people haven’t been vaccinated, the large number of white evangelical resisters is particularly troubling for health officials.
A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in March showed that 40% of white evangelical Protestants said they likely would not get vaccinated, compared with 25% of all Americans, 28% of white mainline Protestants and 27% of nonwhite Protestants.
Some national voices including Black megachurch minister T.D. Jakes, evangelist Franklin Graham and former Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear have taken public stances in favor of vaccinations. But there hasn’t been a sustained, unified push that could give local pastors “cover” to speak out themselves, Chang said.
First Baptist Trussville has taken multiple steps to guard against spreading the virus, including following public health guidelines and limiting in-person events, according to spokesman and business manager Alan Taylor. Yet when it comes to the vaccines, church leaders consider them “a personal choice,” he said.
“When I am asked personally, I say it was the right choice for me and my wife,” said Taylor, who contracted a relatively rare breakthrough case of COVID-19 despite having been vaccinated. “I firmly believe it helped when I became infected.”
The story is much the same in Mississippi and Georgia, where some churches are returning to online services and some pastors are quietly talking about the need for vaccination.
More than 200 pastors, priests and other church leaders from Missouri went further as cases exploded last month, signing a statement urging Christians to get vaccinated because of the biblical commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Springfield Mayor Ken McClure said the region saw a big jump in vaccinations after the pastor of a large church used his sermon to tell parishioners it was the right thing to do.
Dr. Ellen Eaton, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said churches could be effective at promoting vaccination as a way “to love your neighbors during this pandemic.” “Many Southerners are very close to their pastors and church communities. Next to their personal physician, many here in Alabama routinely turn to their church leaders with health issues,” she said.
One pastor at a liberal United Methodist church in Birmingham issued a plea on social media for members to get vaccinated, while the minister at a moderate Baptist church nearby prayed during worship for divine intervention for more vaccinations.
“We pray, Lord, that there will be good judgment used and that people would see the need for the vaccine and that it would be available not only here in our own country but around the world and that that might stem the tide of this terrible, terrible virus,” said the Rev. Timothy L. Kelley of Southside Baptist Church.
Evangelical pastor Keven Blankenship was among those trying to walk that tightrope after COVID-19 invaded his independent church in suburban Birmingham, sickening three of his family members, among others. Initially he didn’t preach about the vaccines, considering it a personal choice.
But on a recent Sunday, during the first in-person services in a month, Blankenship revealed he had gotten his first shot and was due for a second.
“If you feel comfortable receiving it, I want you to receive it. If you don’t feel comfortable, I want you to talk to your doctor and you get your doctor’s guidance,” he told worshipers. “But I want you to do what you feel is the best thing for you and your family, and don’t be bullied into anything.”
Blankenship ended with an “Amen,” said almost as if a question. He was met by silence.
https://apnews.com/article/health-relig ... 7a20161e4e
Also a divide in the US Catholic Church.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia is the latest district of the Catholic Church to reject religious exemptions to coronavirus vaccination mandates, reflecting a stark divide among the church’s hierarchy over immunization requirements.
Church leaders in the nation’s sixth-largest city urged priests Wednesday not to help parishioners evade the shots, which the Vatican has deemed “morally acceptable.”
“Individuals may wish to pursue an exemption from vaccination based on their own reasons of conscience,” Kenneth Gavin, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Archdiocese, said in a statement. “In such cases, the burden to support such a request is not one for the local Church or its clergy to validate.”
Philadelphia joins at least five other dioceses that have given their priests similar guidance, including San Diego, New York, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Camden, N.J. Their stance sharply contrasts with the position of other bishops and Catholic organizations that have supported those seeking exemptions for reasons of conscience.
In a vaccine promotion campaign, Pope Francis on Wednesday called receiving a vaccine “an act of love.”
“Vaccination is a simple but profound way of promoting the common good and caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable,” he wrote. He added that he hoped “everyone may contribute their own small grain of sand, their own small gesture of love.”
Each Catholic bishop makes policy for his own jurisdiction. Some dioceses, including El Paso and Lexington, Ky., have announced vaccine requirements for their own employees. Mark J. Seitz, the bishop of El Paso, wrote that his decision was guided by Jesus Christ’s focus on the love of neighbor. Bishop John Stowe of Lexington said vaccination was urgent.
Despite disagreement on mandates, most Catholics report having received their shots. Hispanic Catholics’ coronavirus vaccine acceptance stood at 80 percent in June, while 79 percent of White Catholics said they had also been immunized, according to a survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute.
The number of Catholics rejecting vaccination for religious reasons is unknown. But some Catholics’ hesitancy to get immunized has centered on the use of fetal cell lines in developing or testing the three federally approved vaccines. The lines are basically reproductions of fetal cells from decades-ago abortions — acts that the Catholic Church teaches are gravely immoral. None of the vaccines include fetal tissue.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion ... exemption/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan