How to Debate Vaccines* and Still Come Out a Christian
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“Baby’s First Shot” Richard Sargent, The Saturday Evening Post, March 3, 1962
(*or organic food, essential oils, education, health care, immigration, soteriology, eschatology…)
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that there have been several outbreaks of measles across the United States recently. Not surprisingly, this has led to vigorous (if not often, one-dimensional) debate about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccinations. And all I have to say to CNN, FOX, NPR, and every other news outlet that is now covering this story: Y’all are late to the party. We mamas have been debating this for years.
I remember the first time I realized that the questions surrounding vaccines were more than theoretical. I was visiting a friend when she opened her freezer to get some ice. There, sitting next to a chub of frozen hamburger, was a tray of lab vials. When I asked about them, she casually replied, “Oh, those are my kids’ vaccines. I ordered them from XYZ instead of the standard ones. My doctor said he would administer them if I bought them and stored them myself.”
Since then, I’ve watched the vaccine debate play out on blogs, Facebook feeds, and in the corners of church nurseries. And I’ve learned a few things—mostly, that we don’t debate well and that we tend to have an unhealthy relationship with the certainty of our own choices. So in the interest of making the next few weeks easier on all of us, here are some suggestions about how to debate vaccines and still come out a Christian:
1. Realize that we live in a broken world.
One of Christianity’s core tenets is that we live in a world devastated by sin. Not only does this account for the presence of disease, it also means that our ability to combat disease will always be, in someway, inadequate. Learning to navigate the brokenness isn’t simply about having enough footnotes to back up our conclusions; navigating the brokenness requires the wisdom to apply the principles we know, weigh the relevant contingencies, and come to the best possible answer. Even as we accept that we will never arrive at a perfect solution. In a broken world, the questions surrounding vaccines are more an exercise in applied ethics than a simple choice between black and white.
2. Pursue true wisdom.
Very early in the vaccine debate, one side will inevitably wallop the other with “the truth”—whether it is scientific research or a secret government memo. And that’s when the trouble really begins. If we believe that we have a corner on “the truth,” we will also believe that weunderstand things that other people don’t. That we have discernment that others lack. (How sad for them.)
I’ve seen this happen from both sides, but the ironic thing is that this posture is fundamentallyunwise. In fact, Proverbs calls this kind of arrogant certainty by another name: foolishness. True wisdom does not boast about what it knows but humbly listens and learns. In fact, the difference between wise people and foolish people isn’t how much they know. The difference is that wise people know that they don’t know everything while foolish people are convinced they do (Job 12:2).
3. Consider you neighbor’s well-being.
Jesus Christ taught us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Because of moral proximity, our closest neighbors are those who live within our own homes, and it is our God-given responsibility to care for our children to the best of our ability. But loving our children also means remembering that they are part of a greater family where God is our Father and Christ our older brother (Heb. 2:11). Unfortunately, too many people parent with the aim of preserving their own nuclear families intact. We see our own families as ends in themselves rather than a reflection of a greater family.
Instead of simply weighing my responsibility to my children, I must also weigh the responsibility thatmy children have to their neighbors—both today and tomorrow. My goal is not to give my children the safest possible life but to teach them how to love God and their neighbor as themselves. My goal is to teach them how to live within this larger family and draw their brothers and sisters into deeper fellowship with our Father.
4. Do nothing out of fear.
Whether it is fear of what may happen if you don’t vaccinate or fear of what may happen if you do, many people approach these questions from a posture of fear. This is why reactions become so intense when you offer an alternative perspective. Honestly, these conversations are rarely about the issue itself but about what we are trusting to keep us safe.
But for a Christian, fear is the worst possible motivation to make any decision. We are to be awed by nothing other than God Himself—our loving Father who is sovereign over all. When we stop fearing the wrong things and start fearing Him alone (Prov. 1:7), we’ll be able to engage the questions with power, love, and sound minds (2 Tim. 1:7).
5. Trust God.
So let’s say you do your due diligence. You research every possible scenario. You humbly submit to counsel. You make your decision before God. Guess what? It’s still not going to be enough to protect your child.
One of the hardest lessons of parenthood is learning that you can’t protect your child from suffering;an even harder lesson is learning that your own parenting failures will cause some of that suffering. Just as the world around you is broken, so too, are you. You are sinful and limited. If your parenting philosophy relies on your ability to make the “right” decision, you’re going to end up one massive ball of anxiety or worse, self-righteousness. And in the end, you’ll model a works religion for your children.
It’s been said that what makes us afraid and what we trust in to keep us safe reveals what we worship. In the case of vaccines, a lot of us are trusting ourselves and our own ability to know enough to make the “right” decision. But by its very definition, this approach is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, the gospel calls us to embrace our weakness, to humble ourselves, and to cast ourselves on God’s mercy. Even when it comes to something as prosaic as vaccines and the safety of our children.
Especially when it comes to something as significant as vaccines and the safety of our children.
handerson Bio
Hannah R. Anderson lives in Roanoke, VA where she spends her days mothering three small children, loving her husband, and scratching out odd moments to write. She blogs at Sometimes a Light and has recently published Made For More.
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but the US, for example, stopped using the live polio vaccine because people given it excrete a tiny amount of live virus in stool. If polio is rampaging the population, the tiny risk of infection from exposure to this waste is worth it. When polio is practically eliminated it isn’t worth the risk. The vaccine does not kill people it is given to (by and large not like people accuse them of). Of course, an extremely rare few have reactions to the shot of ANY kind practically.
The new form of polio given in the US isn’t as effective as the live virus vaccine, but it eliminates accidental infections of others.
…..then I think Scripture tells us we ought not remain silent. The one caution I’ve got, Anne, is that the source, the NVIC, is an anti-vaccination group. So if they’re going to put their finger on the scales of truth—and lots of groups do—you know what way they’re going to do so. You therefore want to be very careful about taking their statements at face value.
I would look to the CDC and WHO for probably more objective data on this one. It could indeed by that the Gates Foundation has done something truly barbaric in Uganda, and history and perhaps the courts ought to even deal harshly with it and Mr. Gates. However, I’m not about to make that judgment based on the testimony of the NVIC.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Personally, I tend to be skeptical of no-name, no-face big-govt organizations with billions of dollars invested in this issue. And the studies they produce.
The fact that this no-vaccine group would have a person speak who is not personally against vaccines says something, and listening to a real man talk about his real experiences and how he came about sacrificing so much of his life to address this and dirty deeds done to try and silence him … does a lot more for me personally. The govt, of course, is not going to tell you what they are doing. Listen to that man. Just try it.
We have the Russian govt spending boatloads of money on pushing their lies about this war in Ukraine on the world. I am surprised by how many believe, support, and then re-communicate Putin’s open lies. But talk to people on the ground, and it’s a whole different story. A couple was sitting in my living room just yesterday from the war zone, and they left months ago when 100s of russian soldiers came to their town. … oh wait, no, there are no russian soldiers here, that’s just Ukraine’s civil war … right?
? What does a truth-lover do?
….about not completely trusting NGOs and the UN. One of the tricks I use to dig deeper is to test everything with a second source, and then to look at how the primary source makes the argument. Are they saying “trust me I’m an expert”, or are they pointing to other sources? Makes a huge difference. I also look at whether the sources make simple unforced errors like indulging personal attacks, not having any data at all to justify what they’re doing, appealing to consensus, and the like.
Prayers for your home, BTW. All I know for sure there is that it was designed as a mess (move borders and people to create mixed population),and that Putin’s all too glad to take advantage of it. Oh, and that our media doesn’t seem to have a clue about how read between the lines.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
- Airbags save lives until one explodes and kills you!
- Any injection can cause an infection at injection site.
- I understand one can even choke on a spoon!
- It’s all about knowing the facts, managing risk, personal responsibility, and obeying the law
As an aside, it looks like the school associated with my church has an unusually low vaccination rate. Not saying it is good or bad. But interesting
Database search: Look up your elementary school’s rate of unvaccinated kindergartners
And that is why parents have to enter the fray with prayer and discernment, and both sides need to be forthcoming about the realities of risks, percentage, chance of getting disease, when it’s better to get the disease naturally, the number of vaccines and at such a young age, etc.
And very few are able to do that. Very few caregivers or parents are able to do that. Dr. Bob Sears is pretty middle of the road in his book The Vaccine Book. Shonda Parker is good, too, for educating while leaving final decision to parents.
you decide to not give your child the MMR vaccine, which by and large is safe any way you look at it. Millions receive the vaccine every year in the US alone for crying out loud.
So, you decide to NOT vaccinate your kids. Your child contracts Rubella, aka German measles, which is horrible if a pregnant woman gets exposed to it. let’s say your child exposes a pregnant woman.
So, given that you could’ve prevented that, are YOU RESPONSIBLE for the birth defect that develops?
….all others must provide data. (W. Edwards Deming)
Mark, I tend to agree with you, but part of me says that we need to also provide the incidence of measles/rubella prior to, and after, mass vaccination to show what degree of problem we’re avoiding, as well as incidents attributed to MMR vaccine and incidence proven to result from MMR vaccine.
Then, when we’ve proven (a) the vaccine reduces infections by X orders of magnitude vs. no vaccine, we can build a model that shows what level of infection we are likely to have with a vaccination rate of 70%, 80%, 90%, etc.. And then we can tell people that their part in loving their neighbor can be to assume the y% risk of “adverse events” in order to reduce the total risk fo epidemic.
(we’re math people, we can do graphs, right?)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I am that pregnant woman, in a sense. I have been pg 4 times, and my children are not vaccinated.
Are you assuming that her MMR vaccine does not protect her?
i was actually more concerned that I was vaccinated for varicella (chicken pox) as a child, and we are not sure that I ever had real chicken pox as a child. Vaccine effects are temporary, they wear off over time. Getting the real disease produces life-time antibodies. So I was concerned that, having been vax’d and not having had the real thing, I could then get it when I’m pg if I were exposed to it. However ..
I am actually more concerned about driving in cars and safety than this issue–driving caused me great anxiety during my 3rd pg, but I still did it. I could have a baby with birth defects from many other causes. I went to the dentist and had an x-ray done on my teeth, not knowing i was in the early stages of my 3rd pregnancy.
Risk is all around me. We live in the Chernobyl zone when we lived out in our village house with this fourth child’s pregnancy.
I educate myself a lot about health. I have running water (#1 issue in cleanliness) and money to pay for medical care, I have sanitary living conditions. I have a healthy and varied diet. I have clean water source. These are the real factors, not vaccines.
I’m rambling here, but personaly, I am a terrible skeptic when it comes to allopathic medicine because of my birth studies. Malpractice insurance ($, $ and again $) decides how a doctor will treat a woman, not the health of her and her baby. And this operates on a mass scale in society—most women give birth with malpractice insurance deciding the course and outcome of their pregnancies/births . .. . And how many times allopathic practitioners and their organizations have foisted dangerous, birth-defetct-and-death-causing, untested practices and medical treatments on pregnant women and their babies— they deserve the litigious atmosphere they have caused. But I will not risk my life in that sphere unless I know exactly what I want, and that I am asking them to do something they are specialized at, like surgery.
The medical advances of the past century (including the reduction of epidemics) were more due to understanding hygiene (no thanks to doctors who refused to wash their hands even after being told (they laughed!) and killed multitudes of birthing women by spreading infections with v’ginal exams), the invention of sulfur antibiotics, societal advances that allow for food distribution and cheapness, running water everywhere, etc. than to the medical field. … They have made their valuable contributions, but not in the ways we usually assume.
I desist. It maketh me hot under the collar :)
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