Evangelical leader Franklin Graham believes that Americans should receive the COVID-19 vaccine. The missionary told CBS News that he thinks Jesus would like people to receive his photos, and he is turning to the Scriptures and the Good Samaritan parable to defend his position.
It is a case that will need to be presented clearly if evangelicals – perhaps the least discussed group with high levels of vaccine hesitation – can be persuaded.
“Jesus tells the story of a man who was beaten, robbed and left to die by the side of a road, and the religious leaders passed him and had no compassion, they did not get involved. But a Samaritan had compassion,” Graham told CBS News in an interview. “And he immediately bandaged – put oil and wine on the wounds and took him to an inn, and paid to look after him. Now oil and wine were the remedies of that time … The vaccine is, for me, I believe, it is saving lives, and that is what Jesus Christ wants us to do, to help save lives. It is just a tool to help save lives. “
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Graham, son of the late evangelist Billy Graham and grandson of a medical missionary in China, noted that the church has a long tradition of using medicine to help others. Last week, he told his 9 million Facebook followers that his international charity, Samaritan’s Purse, saw COVID-19’s human suffering “first hand” and encouraged people to “talk to their doctor and pray about this to determine which vaccine, if any, is right for them. ”
While thousands of users liked and “liked” the post, most commenters reacted with indignation or dismay.
“As far as we know, Fauci helped develop COVID-19 !!” one wrote, referring to the director of the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, who is also the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden.
“The government and the media have created an insane fear about this flu – the flu of certain death has motivated people to obey like sheep,” wrote another.
“It has aborted cells … I am against abortion,” replied another woman.
Although anecdotal, the responses highlighted a trend. Evangelicals, especially white evangelicals, are the religious group most likely to say they don’t want the vaccine.
ONE February Pew Research Center survey found that white evangelicals were the religious group least likely to say they “definitely or probably” would get the COVID-19 vaccine (54%), or already had it, and the most likely to say “definitely” or “probably” didn’t would get the vaccine (45%). This is out of all Protestants, white and black, white Catholics and Hispanics, atheists, agnostics and “nothing in particular”.
Understanding why this and encouraging those who can be persuaded can save lives as the country works to achieve collective immunity, which Fauci estimates will require that 70% to 90% of the population be vaccinated. So far, about 17% of the US population has been fully vaccinated.
Curtis Chang, a former pastor who is now a consulting professor at Duke Divinity School and runs his own consulting firm working with public health organizations and nonprofits, created a project called Christians and the Vaccine. Its website offers scientific information about the vaccine from a biblical perspective, in short shareable videos to reach evangelicals who are not being persuaded by public health officials.
“The message I have been trying to get across to secular public health officials is very simple – it is that the way to end the pandemic is through the evangelical church. I mean, it is simply statistically undeniable,” Chang said in a telephone interview with CBS News. . “And public health has to start investing resources and energy to equip evangelicals to be the ones who are trying to convince their brothers and sisters.”
Graham hoped his post could persuade Christians on the fence about getting shot, which he considers a “no-brainer”. In partnership with local health officials, Bolsa do Samaritano runs a vaccine clinic in Boone, North Carolina, which has already vaccinated more than 5,000 people.
“The Samaritan Exchange has been working in the areas of COVID,” Graham told CBS News. “Last year, we were in Cremona, Italy. We were working in New York. Then we went to the Bahamas and opened another one here in North Carolina, then in Los Angeles County. We saw what COVID can do. one of my employees, one of them spent three months on the respirator. And I just, from what I’ve seen and lived, don’t want COVID and I don’t want anyone else to get it. “
The reasons for vaccine hesitation among evangelicals are manifold. Some object to the distant connection to the aborted fetal tissue, particularly with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Some are suspicious of the federal government and the big pharmaceutical companies. Still others point to the statistical likelihood that a person will recover from COVID, and from Jesus as the great healer. Some fear it is the “mark of the beast”, a reference to a symbol in the book of Revelation. The lack of long-term clinical studies and other knowledge about long-term effects is also a concern for many.
A Christian who does not want to get the vaccine for religious reasons is Othneil Hinckson, an evangelical pastor in Texas whose family often depends on prayer instead of medicine to overcome the disease. He believes that COVID-19 is real and that it is a serious illness. But for him, COVID-19 is no different from other illnesses, and believers can be healed by the power of prayer. Hinckson may be among a small minority of evangelical communities that generally avoid medical intervention in favor of divine healing, but his beliefs are firm.
“Any vaccine, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t need it, because I have something better,” he told CBS News. “When a man heals you, there is always the possibility of complications … It is difficult to explain, but we are doing our best to trust God all we are.”
He said his family has been avoiding the disease so far, and he doesn’t know anyone in his congregation who has fallen ill with COVID-19.
Graham said he understands concerns about a new vaccine and said there will always be skeptics about any issue, not just among Christians.
“I think people are afraid of new things,” said Graham. “Especially when it comes to where you get an injection in your arm and they put a serum or vaccine in your arm. I think there will always be people who will be afraid. So I don’t blame them, and I certainly understand if they have concerns. I think my statement was only for people who might be on the fence a little bit. I just want them to understand where I came from and why I did it. But I’m certainly not telling others that they have to take it. , I think it’s a good health decision. Again, I saw COVID and what it can do to a person, and you don’t want to. It’s as simple as that. “
Chang started his project in late December, after a conversation with the CEO of a leading health agency in the bay area, who had never heard of or did not realize the importance of specific concerns for evangelicals around the vaccine. He realized that public health professionals had no language to communicate with the evangelical community, and the evangelical community, in turn, sometimes did not trust public health officials.
“Secular public health [officials] are going to pump all kinds of scientific and medical information, which is necessary, “said Chang.” This is an important piece of the puzzle – it’s not like it doesn’t matter. But there is this whole other set of spiritual, religious, moral and cultural concerns that they just don’t have the language or understanding to speak with. So, they’re basically going to be like serving steak to a vegetarian. “
So Chang, who was already concerned that evangelicals might not accept the vaccine due to the politicization of the mask issue and the reaction against church restrictions, launched the ChristiansAndTheVaccine.com website.
“I produced these videos, with each one trying to address one of the issues that I think especially secular public health would have a hard time addressing,” said Chang. “The reason I put it in short video formats was, if you continue in terms of how misinformation is spreading on this issue, this is happening through short videos being passed on from person to person within their own networks This is how misinformation is spreading and is spreading in a viral way. “
Chang hopes his project will serve as a particularly useful resource for pastors, who may not want to preach on the hot topic or be drawn into lengthy e-mail discussions with members, but can share a short informative video. Evangelical leaders are more likely than their faithful to say they are going to get the vaccine. According to a January Survey of Evangelical Leaders, a surprising 95% of evangelical leaders who responded said they would get the vaccine, and 89% said they would encourage others to do the same.
“The reason I’m creating these videos is so that pastors don’t have to come up on Sunday morning and preach about it,” said Chang. “They could just, when they get the question, they could just say, ‘here, watch this video.
Public health professionals are slowly beginning to realize the importance of addressing vaccine hesitation among evangelicals, Chang said.
On Thursday, the Ad Council announced a new partnership with the COVID Collaborative and Chang project, ChristiansAndTheVaccine.com, and other evangelical groups to try to reach evangelicals with information from people they trust about COVID-19 vaccines. The Biden administration began to realize the importance of reaching out to evangelicals as well, and began partnering with religious leaders to help them reach their faithful.
“This is a chance for us to be really good citizens of the world,” said Chang. “As evangelicals, if we allow the virus to replicate without control within our own community – even if we think, ‘Okay, we are willing to tolerate that risk’, we are allowing the virus to continue to replicate, and that is precisely the recipe to develop variants of this virus that could eventually bypass the vaccine and ruin it for everyone else. “