My Religious Objection to Vaccine Mandates

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My Religious Objection to Vaccine Mandates

Proverbs 25:2  It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

The purpose in life of a Christian is to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”.  In so doing, it is necessary to seek the wisdom of God. The book of Proverbs begins with the exhortation to seek wisdom and states that wisdom begins with the fear of God. The fear of God causes us to seek Him, his protection, guidance, and teaching. It leads us to seek the redemption found in Christ and we are saved and changed into vessels of grace and glory. We no longer have allegiance to the things of the world, instead we have one Lord, one Savior, one King, who is Jesus Christ. His will and glory become our imperative, not our own, nor that of anyone else. We seek to emulate Him and bring justice, mercy, and grace to bear in every situation and decision.

My decision to object to the vaccine mandates given by President Biden comes after seeking wisdom in the word of God and seeking understanding of the issues involved. Wisdom calls us to seek many counselors in making decisions. We are blessed in our time that information (counsel) is readily available if you are willing to seek it out. I have searched out information on Covid the disease and on the vaccines themselves and have drawn my conclusions. But both of these are secondary issues to the primary issue: who is sovereign over the human body, God or man? The answer is ultimately God, for He alone decides when and where and to whom we are born, and when and were and from what we shall die. Yet He delegates sovereignty–gives authority to men over the affairs of the body, most especially as to what goes into the body.

When Adam and Eve were in the garden, God gave them authority to eat of any of the food of the garden that they wanted, with the exception of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In the law of Moses, there were restrictions on what animals were to be eaten for food, but no prescriptions on what to eat except during the feasts. In the new covenant the restrictions on animals were lifted and the only prescriptions for what to eat are bread and wine in communion. In eating we are simply called to give thanks for the provision of the Lord. The choice of what to eat is ours: we are to choose with wisdom, are responsible for our choices, and will receive the consequences of our choices.

Another relevant aspect of body sovereignty is decisions about health: how to prevent and treat diseases, injuries, and other ailments of the body. Throughout the bible, God does miraculous healings of people, but it is in accordance with the choice of the individual. When Israel was afflicted with the punishment of the fiery serpents in the wilderness, God commanded Moses to raise up a bronze replica of the serpents. All who fixed their gaze on the replica would be healed, but none were compelled do so. Jesus healed many of diseases, infirmities, blindness, deafness, etc., but never against their will. The decision to seek Him out was theirs and theirs alone. The woman healed of the issue of blood had sought out many physicians and spent all her substance on them before she sought out Christ, but all the decisions were hers. This sovereignty of the individual in medical decisions was upheld in the Nuremburg trials after World War 2 in reference to medical experiments that were performed on German prisoners.

Are there limitations to this delegated sovereignty over health decisions? There certainly are: the law of Moses mandated the quarantining of people who had diseases where there was an issue of fluid from the body. The law effectively mandated a determination by the priests as to whether the infection was serious and contagious. If so, the person was to be quarantined until they were no longer infectious as determined by the priest. So it is in principle the prerogative of civil government to quarantine people who have a highly contagious infection that has highly deleterious or lethal effects. Polio, smallpox, and tuberculosis are historical examples of this.

So what about vaccines? Almost all people in America have received DPT vaccines, measles vaccines, rubella vaccines, pertussis vaccines and others. Some of us who are older received smallpox vaccines. Many younger have received chickenpox vaccines. Many of these vaccines are mandated by state law in order to attend public schools. The notable thing about these vaccines is that they are sterilizing in nature: the vaccines stimulate the immune system in such a way that long term (years or decades) immunity to the contagion is obtained. All have potential side effects and a small chance as well that immunity is not conferred. Nonetheless, parents are not obligated to vaccinate their children unless they are to attend public schools. The military has mandated various vaccines to members, including some more esoteric vaccines for those deployed abroad, but this is not without controversy and the consequence of refusal is limited to discharge from the military. And again, most of these vaccines are sterilizing in nature.

The vaccines against Covid, by contrast, are not sterilizing in nature: they do not prevent a person from either being infected or infecting others. At best they are therapeutic in nature–perhaps lessening symptoms and duration of the disease. They are known to have severe potential side effects, such as myocardia, blood clotting, and stroke. The levels of side effects are difficult to ascertain accurately because they are only voluntarily reported by people. Rigorous testing of the vaccines has reportedly been compromised by at least one manufacturer who prematurely terminated monitoring of the control group in testing and administered the vaccines to them, so no determination of side effects will be possible other than within 1 year of the vaccination. Additionally, the recent decision by the FDA to allow booster shots of a different vaccine than that originally given will hopelessly confound determination as to the origin of any side effects.

An uncoerced decision on vaccination would weigh the likelihood of having a severe case of Covid leading to debilitating illness or death vs. the likelihood of debilitating effects or death from the vaccine. Uncoerced, each person would make their decision and accept the consequences for their decision, in the same way they would make a decision about surgery, medications, or any medical treatment. This decision would not hinge on whether the vaccination would prevent the recipient from infecting others, because the vaccines do not prevent infection or its transmission to others. An uncoerced decision on vaccination would also consider whether person had previously had Covid and thus has natural immunity to the virus. This is particularly important because numerous studies have shown longer lasting, better immunity is obtained via surviving a Covid infection than that obtained from the vaccines. Yet, the mandates only consider the limited, short term immunity obtained from the vaccines and summarily dismiss the longer term more effective natural immunity. This is a textbook case of anti-science.

The mandates are also unjust: the unvaccinated is accused of being an infected carrier of Covid and an incubator of new strains of Covid. Nor are they allowed to prove they are not infected, at least in the potential mandate at my place of work. The authorities there have stated that natural immunity is unacceptable and testing to prove no infection is present is also not acceptable. Only proof of full vaccination status will be acceptable. The consequence of non-vaccination status will be termination of employment. This is manifestly unjust: the unvaccinated are in effect accused of a crime and denied due process. Furthermore, this would seem to my woefully ignorant eyes to be a violoation of the ADA and its protection of discrimination based on health status.

But the mandates are also unjust in that the pharmaceutical companies are immune from civil suit for harm done by the vaccines as is the federal government. At this stage it is unclear whether employers are immune from civil suit and unclear that insurance companies will pay for injuries or death due to the vaccines. Thus the only risk entailed is by the recipients, yet they are compelled to pay for the vaccination, whether out of pocket or by the health insurance premiums they pay for. In effect, they are being required to involuntarily supply the livelihood of the pharmaceutical companies. This is involuntary servitude–it is slavery. This is not new: it was recently done with the passage of Obamacare mandating purchase of health insurance: that too was unjust and a form of involuntary servitude.

Returning to the primary issue: who is sovereign over the human body and medical decisions? The federal government is making the claim that it is sovereign. There is not a medically valid reason for the mandates: the severity of Covid does not exceed that of influenza in most cases; the vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission of the disease.  So what is the purpose of the mandates if it is not prevention of disease? The conclusion is that proof of vaccination is a token of submission to the dictates of the federal government as administered by private agencies. The mandates are a claim of absolute sovereignty by the federal government. They are a claim of deity. As such they are unacceptable to any Christian. Our fathers in the faith faced a similar claim by the Roman empire that required burning incense to Caesar. It too was a token of submission to Caesar as Lord and was a claim of deity. The penalty for refusal, then as now, was ostracisement and persecution. It also was death. Our forefathers refused to submit and declared only Jesus was Lord.

I likewise refuse to submit. These mandates are unjust, they are medically ineffective. That is reason to resist them. But they are also a blasphemous, idolatrous, claim of deity and driven by an antichristian spirit. On this hill I make my stand: Jesus Christ is Lord, Him and Him alone. All of creation, all men, all nations, all governments are subject to Him, as am I.

I will not submit.

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