As significant numbers of Americans seek religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates, many faith leaders are saying: Not with our endorsement. Various denominations are speaking out against such exemptions.
Appeals to Christian identity were common during the Trump administration, but with Trump out of office and hundreds of Jan. 6 insurrectionists now facing federal charges, hard-line Christian Nationalists are increasingly fueling their movement with opposition to COVID-19 vaccines and mask mandates.
Pope Francis said Wednesday he didn’t understand why people refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines, saying “humanity has a history of friendship with vaccines,” and that serene discussion about the shots was necessary to help them.
Douglas Laycock argues that under the general law of religious liberty — including the Constitution and state and federal religious freedom laws — the government has an easy case to refuse religious exemptions from vaccines against infectious disease.
Columnist Bruce Frogge considers what it would be like to break ties with Christianity. Have Christian ministers making a national name for themselves by offering religious exemptions to anyone seeking to avoid vaccine directives or mask mandates stretched the Big Tent of Christianity to its
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, acknowledged Friday that he is “a bit” frustrated with fellow evangelicals who have hesitated or refused to get the vaccine, even as the delta variant has led to an average of more than 1,000 U.S.
The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention announced Wednesday (Sept. 8) it will require “IMB missionaries and their children ages 16 and older to be vaccinated against COVID-19.”
Senior Editor Beau Underwood interviews Joy Martinez-Marshall, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, for the latest installment of our “Behind the Pulpit” series intended to pull back the curtain on the minister’s life.
The core issue runs deeper than simply vaccine hesitancy in certain pockets of White evangelicalism. At its root, evangelical vaccine hesitancy likely results from the acceptance of conspiracy theories and the ubiquity of far-right misinformation in certain corners of the evangelical world. Read full piece
Christians are called to be people of truth. Dan Darling lost his job because he refused to “stay neutral” on COVID-19. Read full piece