Oct. 7, Stephanie Martin, an associate professor of communication and public affairs at SMU Dallas, for a piece questioning the vaccine hesitancy of evangelical Christians because such behavior seems counter to the traditional church stance of ‘mutual obligation’ to society. Published in Religion News Service with the heading Edmund Burke wouldn’t recognize evangelicals’ vaccine resistance as conservatism: https://bit.ly/2WPBCZm
(RNS) — In the nearly 10 months since COVID-19 vaccines were made available to the public, white evangelicals have been more opposed than any other group in American society to taking the shot, with more than 20% — at least 13 million people — refusing the vaccination, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Though there are no numbers to quantify it, it’s also clear that evangelicals are upset with President Joe Biden’s recently announced vaccine and testing mandates for all companies with more than 100 workers.
In August, when New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham responded to a surge in delta variant infections by pushing hard for vaccines and reissuing the state’s mask mandate, Skip Heitzig, pastor of Calvary Church in Albuquerque, one of the largest churches in the United States, issued a statement saying his congregation would not comply.
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