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Loyalty in the culture wars may be one reason if not the primary reason some evangelical pastors refuse to advocate for vaccinations. For one hundred years, certainly since the Scopes Trial, when the fundamentalist fight over modernism moved from the academy to the parish, pastors carried the fight forward. The fundamentalist movement is committed to a false dichotomy: a non-scientific world view that forces its followers to swallow and regurgitate all sorts of nonsense for no other reason than science is the enemy in this front of the war. I have no doubt that your data on the influence of pastors is correct. Thousands of sheep flock to these pastors and hang on their every word. What else are parishioners going to do if pastors tell them outside sources of knowledge come from enemy communities pushing a contrary world view.
Thanks for reading, James! Given that false dichotomy, the moral guidance of pastors is critical to changing the permission structure here. Hopefully others will see that as well. - Beau
You are so right about the responsibility pastors have to speak up and do what is best for their congregants. Having been a pastor, taking contrary stands can draw a lot of fire.
What pastors fail to acknowledge is that congregants can do their own research. The science currently tells us their is a virus, it is deadly for less than 1 percent of the population, there are many with natural immunity (long believed to be better than forced immunity), there is a vaccine and it is the best line of defense for the elderly and health compromised, there are side effects, some known, many unknown. There is a need to weigh the risks and effectiveness of this vaccine on society and individuals. At the heart of all of this are people with God given liberty and intelligence that want to do the right thing for all involved but are being made to feel there is only one moral response -to get a vaccine for a virus with a 99.97% recovery rate. Why not let people act in the manner that best suits their God given liberty and conscience.
Loyalty in the culture wars may be one reason if not the primary reason some evangelical pastors refuse to advocate for vaccinations. For one hundred years, certainly since the Scopes Trial, when the fundamentalist fight over modernism moved from the academy to the parish, pastors carried the fight forward. The fundamentalist movement is committed to a false dichotomy: a non-scientific world view that forces its followers to swallow and regurgitate all sorts of nonsense for no other reason than science is the enemy in this front of the war. I have no doubt that your data on the influence of pastors is correct. Thousands of sheep flock to these pastors and hang on their every word. What else are parishioners going to do if pastors tell them outside sources of knowledge come from enemy communities pushing a contrary world view.
Thanks for reading, James! Given that false dichotomy, the moral guidance of pastors is critical to changing the permission structure here. Hopefully others will see that as well. - Beau
You are so right about the responsibility pastors have to speak up and do what is best for their congregants. Having been a pastor, taking contrary stands can draw a lot of fire.
What pastors fail to acknowledge is that congregants can do their own research. The science currently tells us their is a virus, it is deadly for less than 1 percent of the population, there are many with natural immunity (long believed to be better than forced immunity), there is a vaccine and it is the best line of defense for the elderly and health compromised, there are side effects, some known, many unknown. There is a need to weigh the risks and effectiveness of this vaccine on society and individuals. At the heart of all of this are people with God given liberty and intelligence that want to do the right thing for all involved but are being made to feel there is only one moral response -to get a vaccine for a virus with a 99.97% recovery rate. Why not let people act in the manner that best suits their God given liberty and conscience.