Lately, I’ve heard the argument that the only loving thing a Christian could do is to get vaccinated, specifically with the Covid vaccine. This idea has been pushed by celebrities like Jen Hatmaker, in a recent Relevant article, and by many others. Often the assumption behind it is that if everyone was vaccinated then we could end the pandemic completely.
And on the surface, it makes sense. If people can spread a virus to others without knowing, then it seems better to not spread it, especially when there is a small portion of the population that could die from it. As Christians we love other people and do not want to cause the death of anyone.
The argument looks something like this:
- This current virus is dangerous
- It can be spread unknowingly
- There is a vaccine for this virus (and it’s safer than the virus)
- It is more loving to care about the health of others by getting the vaccine
Conclusion: Every Christian should get the vaccine so they can be loving and do not cause danger to others by spreading it unknowingly: Love your neighbor. Get vaccinated.
Now, there is one thing to note in that the majority of people in America at this moment are not planning to spread this virus knowingly. There is no intentional spread. There might be the usual “I’m not feeling as good as I did yesterday, but things still need to get done” mentality that we have all done and used before 2020. But this is not the same as knowingly spreading the disease because it could just be that person was out in the rain a little too long the day before, or it could be allergies, or it could be a host of other reasons that might not be contagious or Covid. In the last year and a half, how many people did not do regular activities and instead got a negative test?
If I were to take the above argument and really flesh it out, there are direct connections that could be made and more proofs that could be given for why the premises are believed to be true, but these premises seem to be the general reasons for why someone ought to be vaccinated. Like all debate arguments the premises matter because the conclusion, i.e. that everyone ought to be vaccinated, depends on them.
Just from a medical and scientific position, there are some issues with these premises and while I do not intend to focus on them long, they are worth mentioning.
On the first premise that the current virus is dangerous: The virus is actually not dangerous for most of the population. We have known the stats for people younger than 65 to be less than 3% almost since the beginning. There will be some people who will reject the vaccine based on not accepting this premise.
On the second premise that it can be spread unknowingly: The scientific community has released conflicting information on whether the virus cannot be or is rarely spread by those who are asymptomatic. However, we also know that the vaccine does not protect others as much as ourselves, i.e. those who have the vaccine can spread the virus unknowingly as well. Vaccinated individuals are more likely to spread the virus unknowingly because the vaccine prevents them from having symptoms. There are some people who reject this whole argument based on not accepting the use of this premise in only applying to the unvaccinated since it could then be unloving to knowingly not have symptoms.
On the third premise that there is a vaccine and it is safe: There are some who still question the individual side-effects of the vaccine and the benefits/health-risk of it. Implicit in the third premise is the assumption that the vaccine is safe and good for everyone or most to take and this is not completely true. There are people with allergies, people with health conditions, and people for whom getting the vaccine would be worse than getting Covid. A vaccine study cannot observe every single type of person, they only take a sample of the population and they tend to take those who are not on the fringes with potential issues. We know that the studies for the current vaccines did not test pregnant or nursing mothers. There are some people who have looked at the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System) numbers of deaths, hospitalizations, miscarriages, and complications that have happened after vaccination and are not sure that the vaccine is safe for them or their loved ones. For those who have looked into this they would disagree with the third premise that the vaccine is safe.
These are just some of the reasons why people might not agree with the first three premises and why they would then disagree with the conclusion. There is a degree to which our underlying beliefs come to bear on whether we are more or less willing to trust the government or science from the start. But it does not mean that those who are not yet vaccinated haven’t thought through the argument at all, nor does it mean that those people are unloving. They just disagree with some of the premises that support the argument.
This brings us to the last and fourth premise that it is more loving to get the vaccine than to not get it. I am covering this premise differently because it is less of a medical or science-based premise and more of a theological and definitional argument because it depends on what ‘love’ means and what the ‘most loving’ action to do in this situation is. This premise is also difficult because it is true that we should and should want to love others. It is very easy to assume that because we want to love others whatever else is said after that is something we should be doing too. Consider these phrases: Love your neighbor. Protect them with a gun. Or Love your neighbor. Stop using your car. Or Love your neighbors. Pay for their bad habits. All of these second statement are not cut-and-dry, right-and-wrong positions to take. Yes, it is true that it could be a loving thing to protect with a gun, not drive, or even pay for a bad habit, but they might not always be the most loving thing to do, or even loving at all.
There are a couple of underlying premises that need to be addressed before taking on this argument as a whole. The first is the question of who is the most important one we should love. We should love our neighbor, absolutely, however, our first and most important love is God and Christ, period. If we do not love and honor Him above all others, then we are not really loving others. And loving others is not a substitute for loving Christ. There are some who would suggest that by loving others they are loving God. Indeed, there is a verse in I John that seems to say that, but if we place our eyes on our neighbor and use God as a means to the neighbor’s ends, if we are concerned more with what happens to our neighbor or what our neighbor will think of us than what God is doing or might be thinking, we are no longer loving God and our neighbor has taken the place of God and Christ in our lives. Christ should be our first hope, our first source of refuge, our first concern, our first definer of terms.
Christ is capable to see through all that is true and false and He is willing to guide us in the direction He would want us to go. And because of Christ we are capable of making decisions about the vaccine and our own health without a doctor’s (or society’s) approval. Even the most simple-minded believer who listens to Christ is able to follow Him correctly. Anyone who believes that all people ought to be forced to get the vaccine, is not trusting that Christ might be leading some people toward the vaccine and others away from it.
In this regard, the safest thing for the most people is to let them ask God what to do since God made their bodies and knows more about science than all the scientists put together. God knows what is best for everyone. Also, God can warn us when He knows we might spread the virus and God can preserve us if we get it, just as He can preserve us with the vaccine potential side-effects. This does not mean that since God can preserve us either way, we should all get the vaccine, because there are consequences for not listening to God when He warns us not to do something. This is true too for anyone that God might tell to stay home and who ignore Him.
The argument then that we ought to love our neighbor by getting vaccinated is not a God-centered argument. No one has yet said, “Love God, get vaccinated.” If we took the latter argument, how would our vaccination be a show of our love for God, and a God who will not be affected either way by our vaccination status? Instead, we ought to love and honor God by asking Him how best to love our neighbor. Our first and primary concern ought to be our relationship with God and when we have that relationship right, we will love our neighbor right too.
The second underlying premise is that we should ‘trust the science.’ This is a phrase that many are using now, but it goes back to the same issues above. Which scientists do people tend to mean? The ones that agree with their current position. Both the pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine people have scientists and medical professionals who have presented evidence that supports their vaccination position. Neither side is actually anti-science. It is only a matter of what science we are looking at and who we trust more.
In addition, the phrase ‘trust the science’ is never placed under God. It’s not ‘trust Jesus and the science.’ Ultimately, this phrase encourages Christians not to look to God first as our source of help and salvation from the virus. This does not mean that we should ignore scientific evidence at all, but if we are just automatically believing whatever science says and acting on it without taking it to Christ first, then we are not honoring Christ as we should. If we have to chose between trusting Jesus or trusting the science, only one will last forever. Therefore, the proper Christian perspective is to trust Jesus and to evaluate and consider science.
The third underlying premise is that we can damage the health of others through our actions. And this premise is true to a point. The things we do and the decisions we make absolutely have consequences, yet it is never outside of the view or action of God. This premise assumes that if a person has the virus and is around others that those people will get it and some of them may die. It also assumes that God’s own interaction, preservation, power, and sovereignty is a non-factor. Whatever God calls a person to do, that person can do. A completely contagious person can walk through a nursing home, hugging and kissing, without killing anyone if God wants that person to do that. In other words, God is able to keep us and those around us from sickness and death even if our actions might have unintended consequences in a world without God.
The fourth underlying premise assumes that health is the goal for all people. Now it is true that health is considered better than sickness, but Jesus did not come to wipe out all disease. The body we currently have is not built to last forever. And for some, sickness is what brings them to Christ. The best thing that can happen to some is for their body to decline while their soul is restored. This obviously does not mean that we should then spread Covid like a wildfire nor that we should rejoice when others become sick and not care for their physical needs, but it is meant to point out the reality that our and our loved ones’ physical health is not the only goal that matters. In fact, next to the goal of a right, deep relationship with God, the goal of physical health is pale and frail. God also will use sickness in our lives to teach us and to guide us closer to Him, so He will not always protect us from everything for our own immortal good.
Similar to the fourth underlying premise is a slightly different assumption that caring for the physical health of others also trumps caring for their freedom, social needs, and emotional health. A person is more than the physical. There is more at stake here than just whether people get vaccinated or not. There are the questions of mandating the vaccine, of future quarantines, of isolation, of government or societal retaliations for those who do not give up freedom of choice, of how people can live in fear, and of how people can live in anger. There is the fact that we have stopped touching each other and that we avoid interactions with others in public. Each of these also have to do with our neighbor and the right way to love them. Can it be loving to care about our neighbor’s freedom enough to fight for it when they are not willing or unable to protect it? Can it be loving to our neighbor to live without fear and interact with them even if they have germs? Is it loving to force our neighbor to make a medical decision with consequences that we will not have to live with for the rest of our lives? The assumption that unvaccinated Christians are automatically not loving their neighbor is a poor view of all that love can be.
These underlying premises are valid reasons for not accepting premise four on its face value. We do want to love others, but not to place the needs of others over our relationship with God, our honoring Him as our source of guidance and help, our awareness of God’s sovereignty, and our view of humanity’s eternal condition including seeing our neighbor’s needs aside from the physical.
Thus, the primary argument that those who vaccinate are loving and those who do not are unloving is false and boarders on maligning some members of Christ’s Body. It requires others to live by our definitions and implies they are wicked if they don’t. Therefore, it is an unloving statement and a false assumption that relies on a limited and narrow human understanding of what loving our neighbor means.
This does not mean that everyone who has gotten the vaccine because they believed it would be the most loving thing to do for their elderly neighbors is wrong (at all, this is a noble thing to do for others if you feel like God has called you to do this), nor that those who have not vaccinated are right. Only that those who would tell Christians who have not vaccinated that they are not loving their neighbor are using a poor, man-centered argument. At the very least we ought to remember that for all of us who love God He is able to keep us from falling no matter what mistakes we make, no matter what wrong theological positions we hold, no matter what medical choices we pick. And that we should be cautious of how we expect others to live by our definitions, standards, and judgements and not criticize them when they have prayerfully considered other things that we have not.
Christ has defined what loving our neighbor means. He will guide us as to what we can do to love others. We can trust that God will guide and direct our brothers and sisters. We can trust that His will is accomplished in them and in us. We can trust that He is able to bring us through our current time safely to the end. For we are always safe with Him. Maybe not always physically or emotionally safe, but there is nothing we might lose that God cannot restore a thousand times when we are with Him forever. No matter what Christ reigns, even now.
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