101 Ohio Clergy Criticize President Biden for Vaccine Mandates, Abortion in Open Letter

What I want to know is where are the hundreds of pastors banding together to sign open letters affirming the facts about the COVID vaccines? The facts:

• The mRNA vaccines can’t alter your DNA (by the way, sunshine does alter your DNA, just for some perspective!)
• The big three vaccines in the U.S. weren’t manufactured using fetal tissue from abortions (cloned cells were used in the research phase: not a single cell from an aborted baby was involved)
• The vaccines are not “unproven”
• Vaccine mandates at the state level have been part of American life in many states for many decades.

[Aaron Blumer]

What I want to know is where are the hundreds of pastors banding together to sign open letters affirming the facts about the COVID vaccines? The facts:

• The mRNA vaccines can’t alter your DNA (by the way, sunshine does alter your DNA, just for some perspective!)
• The big three vaccines in the U.S. weren’t manufactured using fetal tissue from abortions (cloned cells were used in the research phase: not a single cell from an aborted baby was involved)
• The vaccines are not “unproven”
• Vaccine mandates at the state level have been part of American life in many states for many decades.

And we wonder why our church is driven by misinformation. When the clergy has no idea what they are saying and are just stating non-facts, what hope do we have with the congregants.

On various conservative blogs and even my church’s facebook, I see military vets complaining about vaccine mandates. As I recall, about day 3 of Boot Camp they lined us all up and gave us about 10 vaccines… I don’t recall anyone being asked if they wanted the vaccine, and I don’t remember anyone complaining. So “mandates” in the millitary are nothing new.

I guess I’m old-fashioned enough to think that pastors should neither be promoting Covid vaccines nor decrying them. Covid vaccination hasn’t (like pretty much every other political topic) been mentioned from the pulpit of our church, and IMHO, it needs to stay that way. In fact, the entire topic of Covid hasn’t been dealt with at all from the platform EXCEPT where we had to form and put into place policies based on local government rule changes regarding things like masks, distancing, etc., and to let people know that no matter how each of us come down on the topic, we should be avoiding divisiveness in the body.

Pastors’ primary expertise is in something other than politics and medicine, and they should stay in their lane. I don’t know how many out there are just dying for their pastors to tell them what to do and how to behave with respect to Covid, but I certainly don’t know any. I have my own opinions regarding what to do about Covid, and 101 clergy in another state are certainly not going to change my mind, or even figure into my calculations. Of course, that applies to all the non-expert media opinions and political talking-heads as well.

[Mark_Smith]

So “mandates” in the millitary are nothing new.

In fact, mandates in the military date all the way back to 1777 under George Washington. Not only did the founding fathers support it, but the military all the way to the founding of the country have had vaccine mandates. Smallpox killed more continental soldiers in 1776 than the British army.

78.5% of the adult population in the US has received at least one vaccine dose. No one has been shown to have died conclusively from the vaccine in the US. The vaccine has been fully approved and deemed safe by the FDA with no safety shortcuts.

The military requires something like 15 vaccines to be administered to military.

I guess I’m old-fashioned enough to think that pastors should neither be promoting Covid vaccines nor decrying them. Covid vaccination hasn’t (like pretty much every other political topic) been mentioned from the pulpit of our church, and IMHO, it needs to stay that way.

I get the desire to avoid politicized pulpit work. Here’s the thing, though. How do we decide what’s “political” in that sense vs. what’s just controversial but important? One key difference is how one derives their thinking on it and how they communicate it. If you’re quoting Tucker Carlson, you’re definitely politicizing. If you’re quoting Francis Schaeffer, probably not. I’m oversimplifying for brevity.

To me, it’s too important an issue to leave believers without biblical guidance. So it needs to be talked about from pulpits. But it has to be done very patiently and gently because people are not coming to these questions with their “open minded and curious, and hungry for teaching” hats on.

So if I had the opportunity, I wouldn’t preach a sermon on “Nine Reasons Every Christian Should Get the COVID Vaccine.” What I’d do is preach a message (or more likely a SS lesson) on “How to Think Biblically About the Vaccination Issue” and include a handout with some key facts that answer some of the most common myths out there. So the teaching would emphasize principles and process over conclusion.

And this approach isn’t just practicality speaking. God’s always very interested in how we journey (“walk”) not just where we arrive, and that’s been sorely neglected.

I’m another one that doesn’t think the vaccine should be mentioned from the pulpit one way or the other. Let’s stick with the spirituality of the church. Machen is always fitting here although some wil disagree.

“There are certain things which you cannot expect from such a true Christian church. In the first place, you cannot expect from it any cooperation with non-Christian religion or with a non-Christian program of ethical culture… .

In the second place, you cannot expect from a true Christian church any official pronouncements upon the political or social questions of the day, and you cannot expect cooperation with the state in anything involving the use of force. Important are the functions of the police, and members of the church, either individually or in such special associations as they may choose to form, should aid the police in every lawful way in the exercise of those functions. But the function of the church in its corporate capacity is of an entirely different kind. Its weapons against evil are spiritual, not carnal; and by becoming a political lobby, through the advocacy of political measures whether good or bad, the church is turning aside from its proper mission… .

The responsibility of the church in the new age is the same as its responsibility in every age. It is to testify that this world is lost in sin; that the span of human life — nay, all the length of human history — is an infinitesimal island in the awful depths of eternity; that there a mysterious, holy, living God, Creator of all, Upholder of all, infinitely beyond all; that He has revealed Himself to us in His Word and offered us communion with Himself through Jesus Christ the Lord; that there is no other salvation, for individuals or for nations, save this, but that this salvation is full and free, and that whosoever possesses it has for himself and for all others to whom he may be the instrument of bringing it a treasure compared with which all the kingdoms of the earth — nay, all the wonders of the starry heavens — are as the dust of the street.”

J. GRESHAM MACHEN, “The Responsibility of the Church in the New Age,” in Selected Shorter Writings, pp. 375-76)

[Aaron Blumer]

What I’d do is preach a message (or more likely a SS lesson) on “How to Think Biblically About the Vaccination Issue” and include a handout with some key facts that answer some of the most common myths out there. So the teaching would emphasize principles and process over conclusion.

And this approach isn’t just practicality speaking. God’s always very interested in how we journey (“walk”) not just where we arrive, and that’s been sorely neglected.

I get what you are saying, but I think you can still do this by preaching the Word, and letting application be personal. As Dan Miller pointed out in another thread, application is important, but applications need to be one’s own, not someone else’s. I’m not saying that practical topics like vaccination cannot be dealt with at all, although I think they are topics for classes instead, rather than from the pulpit. Even then, since the Bible doesn’t take a hard position on vaccination, any preaching or teaching trying to push the listener to reach a particular conclusion on that topic or other topics the Bible doesn’t directly address should be avoided.

It certainly would be appropriate to preach the Christian’s relationship to government, or our care for others, both inside and outside the church, as those are definitely dealt with directly in scripture, where vaccination is not. If those texts are preached and explained well, the congregation will have the tools necessary to make biblical decisions about things like vaccination. That’s only not seen as sufficient by those who are attempting to force the listener to take their side, rather than use the Bible and their conscience to make their own informed decisions.

One thing I’ve mentioned before that we do in our church is to have an “Application class” in lieu of a traditional SS. We share facilities with another church, and they do the typical order of SS then Worship service. So we can use the same facilities they do without having to move our services to the evening, we do Worship service then SS.

For the adults, our SS class is an application hour, which the pastor leads, where we discuss the practical ramifications and applications of the message. This gives people the opportunity to “flesh out” what the scriptures are talking about. These classes can get particularly interesting when discussing a passage like Romans 13 or other passages that deal in strong generalities but that have interesting possible applications. We haven’t had one that lead into vaccination, but it could get quite interesting if we did.