Vaccine Skepticism Runs Deep in White Evangelicals in US

The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest evangelical denomination, posted a photo on Facebook last week of him getting the COVID-19 vaccine. It drew more than 1,100 comments — many of them voicing admiration for the Rev. J.D. Greear, and many others assailing him.

Some of the critics wondered if worshippers would now need “vaccine passports” to enter The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, where Greear is pastor. Others depicted the vaccines as satanic or unsafe, or suggested Greear was complicit in government propaganda.

The divided reaction highlighted a phenomenon that has become increasingly apparent in recent polls and surveys: Vaccine skepticism is more widespread among white evangelicals than almost any other major bloc of Americans. Read More

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White Evangelical Resistance Is Obstacle in Vaccination Effort

Life is not going to return to the way that it was before COVID-19. People really need to accept that reality. There is no going back. People have died. People are suffering the long-term effects of COVID-19, the so-called "long covid;" people have lost their jobs; businesses have closed; more infectious and possibly more deadly, new variants of COVID-19 are making an appearance; younger; healthier people and children are becoming infected due to pandemic fatigue and the new variants; Europe is seeing a surge of new cases and the US may soon follow; and health experts are warning that the worst may not be over as some church leaders would have us believe. It may be premature to describe our present circumstance as the "post-pandemic recovery stage." It may be cathartic to carry signs and shout slogans in front of CDC headquarters in Atlanta, but it is not going to change things. COVID-19 does not care one wit about what we think. The virus seeks opportunities to spread and replicate and takes advantage of those opportunities that we give it. 

While white evangelicals may believe that God will protect them and say that they are prepared to die if that is God's will, they are taking a view which  from a biblical and theological standpoint is both flawed and selfish. God does not confine himself to the extraordinary. He also works through the ordinary. He works through people as a means of fulfilling his purposes, as a way of getting things done. The protection that he is offering us may be the face mask that white evangelical refuse to wear and other precautionary measures that they refuse to adopt . It may be the vaccine that they are refusing to take. They appear to have forgotten that God is sovereign and does thinks his way and not the way that we might like him to do. White evangelicals may be prepared to die. But those whom they may infect with the virus may not be prepared for death. They may be sending those they infect into an eternity without God. They are hastening the suffering and death of others out of the belief that God will spare them. They show a lack of caring toward their fellow human beings, which is inconsistent with what the one whom they call Lord taught. Jesus said that he would not acknowledge those who did  not show mercy to others in this life.