Since the terms here clearly states that" we dont condone anything political on this site" i suggest we better refrain from posts like these which can bring on a political debate in the comments.
I know i already have a bad relationship with the mods here but it seems unfair to me to do this kind of posting . Feel free to correct me though
The whole point is that vaccination shouldn’t be politicized. The fact that it has been is a problem that needs to be addressed.
A brief echo:
Yes, and the fact that he is a very big voice for evangelicals and can earn trust with the vaccine hesitant population.
But aren’t you politicizing it by demanding everyone get the shot? The notion of freedom is a very biblical concept if we read our Bibles. If a younger person doesn’t want the shot and they are healthy, who is the state to demand that they get the shot? Even if an older person doesn’t want the shot, why should they be required? Personally, I had no issue to get the shot, though there was some side effects I did experience.
You haven’t read this, I guess:
Or this:
Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities…
Titus 3:1
Not this, either?:
Maybe you are misconstruing what the Bible says we are free from.
Is it being political to demand that everyone wear a seat belt or put their toddler in a carseat? How about driving on the correct side of the road, obeying speed limits and other laws about not driving recklessly? Have those been politicized?
Refusing to be vaccinated is living recklessly and endangering others, too.
Health is not political.
Vaccination isn’t about “personal freedom” or “civil liberties.” I think the only reason you think it is has to do with the fact that a public health issue has been politicized by people with political interests.
People should be required to get the shot because the unvaccinated population is spreading a disease that is killing people, including people who cannot be vaccinated because they are too young. The unvaccinated population is putting an untenable strain on the healthcare system both in terms of capacity and cost. Vaccination is not a silver bullet that prevents all infection, but it significantly reduced spread and severity. The intended results for curbing the pandemic work at the population level, not the individual level.
I read French’s Sunday column (and most of his others) every week and usually agree with him. I mostly agree with him here, too, but for a couple issues.
Beyond the shortest of time frames, it’s very difficult to make a case that people who choose not to be vaccinated increase the peril to anyone but themselves (vaccine slows but does not stop transmission)
Almost nobody accepts the truth about vaccines but still refuses to get one. It’s their beliefs, not their morals, that are the problem.
There is a huge difference between patients and laypersons confused by mixed messages and those who are actively propagating disinformation on the subject.
I went into these in greater depth here:
Valid observations for the most part, but I would argue this is not:
The reason being that the ICUs and hospitals are full of unvaccinated Covid patients, leaving patients needing care for other conditions in the lurch. Also delaying elective surgery and causing suffering, And causing severe distress and burnout as well as compassion fatigue in caregivers, Not to mention the cost we as taxpayers bear to support their care and long term disability. And their families who suffer financial distress and grief from their actions. I would say they place many in peril.
It is very easy to make such a case. I completely agree with @jpm, an MD (or DO? 
). A refrain of mine which you may have had the misfortune to have seen before, “It’s not being called a pandemic of the unvaccinated for nothing!” Also not to mention the mental health of weary and weeping frontline medical staff.
Interesting thoughts to consider. In my original statement I was primarily thinking of death/hospitalization from COVID, and not so much about secondary mechanisms. The crowding is a temporary effect and we are already seeing several of the southern states on a downslope. Nobody I know of predicted this last wave to rise so rapidly, but the faster it goes up the faster it goes down.
I’ve been practicing medicine for over 40 years now. It’s been a fact my entire career that a large majority of hospitalizations are for preventable illnesses. We wish patients were more responsible, but we can’t control them.
I have difficulty seeing why someone refusing COVID vaccination - because they’ve been misinformed - is morally more culpable than a smoker (25% of US population), a motorcyclist with or without helmet, an unrestrained driver or passenger, etc. (Not that you’re actually saying that).
I guess you’re just saying they injure others because the health systems are temporarily overwhelmed. But many of those who might be displaced are just as culpable for their situation. Their risk will continue indefinitely. COVID won’t because eventually most everyone will be immune - the easy way or the hard way.
(For context, since I’m not here much, I’ve been pretty rough on antivaxxers. Some have unfriended/blocked me on FaceBook. I’ve been repeatedly attacked elsewhere for taking them on).
I don’t see why that at all necessarily follows, with schools opening and other public events more frequent.
Passing the contagion on to others injures them regardless of the capacity of healthcare systems.
You may not have noticed, but there are a lot of prideful antimaskers and antivaxxers – “No one is going to tell me what to do!” If healthcare systems were overwhelmed with helmetless bikers, unrestrained accident victims and the like, moral triage would be relevant for them, too. Those addicted to nicotine are a different case (many may want to quit).
Not necessarily so. There are variants coming down the pipe and those who spread the virus by willingly renouncing countermeasures contribute more than others and are culpable. And vaccines plus antibodies from natural infections give better protection than just the natural.
Thank you for your efforts. I have been pretty hard on them also to little avail. The only one who I know directly changed his mind was a brother-in law on immunosuppressant therapy for ocular myasthenia who was not going to get it because his niece who is a nurse told him not to because “they don’t work if you are on those drugs.” After explaining how he was at greater risk and the vaccine helps though may not be as effective, he got it. Unfortunately, most people are NOT misinformed, but rather have chosen to ignore sound advice because their tribal/political group demands it as a social marker. That is disheartening.
Certainly there are limitations to the states power.
Matthew 22:20-21
New King James Version
20 And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?”
21 They said to Him, “Caesar’s.”
And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Now some states were dictating if churches could be opened literally usurping the church’s authority.
And the notion of shutting down people’s livelihoods was another act of usurping of power.
The view that the state should be our nanny is very un-Christian to say the least.
While watching the evening news, I realized that I forgot to include the Labor Day weekend and what are likely to superspreader events which will be slow to recover from.
I won’t post them again, but the appropriate nanny state scriptures are above. If what Christians are doing is endangering public health, then what they are doing isn’t Christian, including assembling indoors together in public places (or even indoors anywhere, if it violates current advisories about group sizes) and rebelling against effective countermeasures such as masking, vaccinations and social distancing.
That kind of behavior is immoral because it rebels against the mandate to love your neighbor. It isn’t even loving your fellow church member. Those behaviors are based more in pride than they are any kind of love. I am all for civil disobedience when called for, as I have said before, but that is not the current situation with COVID restrictions.
The same applies if someone’s livelihood is endangering public health. Why shouldn’t it? If someone were selling inherently dangerous products (say, contaminated food), that is absolutely within a government’s jurisdiction. If a fellow Christian is affected, then the church should band together (with appropriate COVID precautions ) to help support them.
Were early Christians meeting in church buildings? Meeting in a church building is not a God-given right under any and all circumstances. I don’t recall any scriptures to that effect, do you? The objections to restrictions are pride based and not at all necessarily godly. There is a lot of false nobility being paraded.
I love that passage. N, T. Wright points out the importance of context and knowledge of setting in that passage, as the Pharisees having a graven image of Caesar in their pocket was of course in violation of the covenant law, plus he mentioned the inscription which on the denarius read “Son of God” to further indict them in their folly.
It is complicated, but the passage could also be interpreted as giving government proper authority within its realm, which would include public health measures. Sadly, churches in general did and are doing a poor job of taking the initiative in caring for the vulnerable and disadvantaged in this pandemic. Not all of course, but the majority. I fear many church leaders have acted in the role given the Pharisees in this passage, trying to put their rules and desires ahead of the kingdom of God.
One of the difficulties of covid seems to be that there are a lot of asymptomatic cases and if the symptoms do become obvious, they occur up to 10 days after infection. This is a perfect sort of stealth. People can wonder about perfectly unaware, yet blowing this everywhere. Those people, in turn get infected and spread it all over the place. Before you know it, it is everywhere.
If people would just wear masks and get vaccinated, it would drastically reduce the ability of this thing get around. You sneeze into a mask, most of it goes into the mask, and only a little can get out. That means less chance that it gets to other people. If it gets to less people, that is the same as if you blocked it coming in.
The most important thing about the vaccine is that it reduces the severity of the infection if you do experience a breakthrough infection. When the virus tries to attack your insides, the immune system already knows about it and can garner the support to defend itself. So, even though the delta variant can get started, when it gets beyond your sinuses or your throat, the “bouncers” know that guy.
by Grace we proceed
Epidemiologically speaking, slowing transmission matters a lot. SARS-CoV-2 isn’t going away. In both the short and the long term, transmission will occur, but it will occur at a higher rate in an unvaccinated population than in a vaccinated one. Either way, most will acquire immunity, but it makes a big difference for the immune-compromised (and for others vulnerable to severe breakthrough infections) if those around them are acquiring their immunity through vaccination rather than through infection, since it means less chance that they will be exposed to the virus.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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