Covid vaccine: Why I will not sign a religious exemption

The discussion has already begun around increased mandates towards the Covid-19 vaccine. Some of it appears to be various employers making the leap, some of it is clearly governmental pressure, and more may be on the way. Typically, people have had the opportunity to opt out of such requirements on two grounds: medical reasons (per the ADA) or religious ones. Of the many people unvaccinated in this country, very few will qualify for a medical one. Concerns about the medical science behind the vaccine do not qualify, you have to have a medical condition that precludes you from taking the vaccine. 

Thus enters the religious exemption. Some of my colleagues have already been approached about signing off on this, as employers can - if they have reason to question the sincerity of the claim - request the exemption be validated by that person's religious leader/clergy. Thus I have had to think in the last week about the real possibility that I may be approached to sign a religious exemption. 

And I don't intend to do it. It makes me dread all of this, because I am sure if someone comes to me they will expect I will have no problem signing this for them. But it would be a *wink wink* signature and a total abuse of my power as a pastor to do so. What bothers me most is that the person will probably then simply cut ties with my church for another that will. But as a pastor, I cannot let that destroy the integrity of the office or coerce me into signing. 

But allow me to explain in a few points why I won't be signing:

1. We have no religious exemption. Really, it's as simple as this. Our church body has not come out against the vaccines. My individual congregations have not come out against the vaccine. I, as a religious leader, have not come out against the vaccine. I myself am vaccinated. We lauded their implementation and the positive effect they have for our church. I do not think they should be mandated (a bit more on that later), but I have no religious grounds to sign an exemption. To do so would be unethical. I find it interesting that the religious exemption will almost certainly be used more than the medical one. Why? Because there is a unified code of ethics and oversight over practitioners of medicine. And by and large they know it would be unethical to sign off a medical exemption if there is not one and do violate that ethic could have repercussions. Because our religions have various bodies of oversight, some very congregational, and many that will not impose any discipline for signing off on a false religious exemption it will be easier to find clergy persons to sign off. And because government, for fear of First Amendment violations, has generally been very hands off in religious oversight of such claims (or at the least there is a perception of such) it is hard for there to be any accountability. We within our religion need to speak about the ethics of all this and have some level of expectation and accountability. No one else may. And if others have to because we abuse our power it could be bad for us (more on that later). But simply put, if our church has no religious grounds how can I in good faith sign one? On what grounds can I sign that with integrity? What does that do to our mission? I want to be helpful, and a part of me did consider whether it would be right to do it if mandates became law and one considered the law unjust, but that is a slippery slope. And while I have concerns about the such mandates, I don't about ultimately getting the vaccine. And I have concerns about signing it if we have no true exemption. I don't see how the act benefits my neighbor enough to go against my (religious) obligation to the state. To be clear, some religions/denominations may have cause for the exemption, but mine does not.
2. I'm not convinced most of the people seeking exemptions truly have religious reasons. Yes, we are individualized spiritually. Yes, I believe religion should and does inform much of our lives, even implicitly. But if I'm honest, no one has ever cited religious concerns once to me as reason why they don't want the vaccine. It usually is tied to some rumor about fertility, someone dying after taking the vaccine, it altering their DNA, simply concern that it is so new, having already caught the virus and therefore having antibodies, or disbelief that Covid-19 truly warrants or requires one. To be sure, some of these concerns have religious implications if one believes them. But never does the religious concern, the concept that to do so would violate their place in their religion or put them at odds with the Almighty, never once has the religious concern ever come up. Religious morals and theistic beliefs have never been shared with me. They may be out there, but of the large number of people I have encountered who have stated their resistance to the vaccine it is anecdotally absent. Why are they asking for religious exemptions then? The answer is that they are being told it is one of the only grounds for being exempt. While your employer may not care to or even ought to judge whether your reason is truly religious, your religious leader absolutely should if s/he is being asked to sign off on it. Part of this post is to say, if you are opposed to getting the vaccine please don't use the religious exemption just because you can. That's not what it's there for. It's there so you never have to make a decision between being a Christian/Muslim/Hindi/Jew and a citizen or employee. We don't expect our doctors to falsify medical documents to meet individual needs, we should not expect religious leaders to either. The closest thing I have seen to a religious cause is the fact that abortive cells were used in the research of some of the vaccines. But I actually know that from a statement from the Catholic church not from individuals talking about avoiding the vaccine, and even that statement was not a repudiation of the vaccines but a word on which ones to seek out if one has a choice between vaccines (and allowing those who did not have a choice to receive even the ones who were developed in amoral manners for the sake of charity and preservation of life). And not only has it not been a major theme I've encountered among anti-vaxers, it would not in our church be grounds to avoid the shot. 
3. We are inviting government involvement in our religion when we abuse its power. The easiest way to invite infringement upon religious liberty is to abuse it. I genuinely fear that if too many people nation-wide cite religious exemption it will invite further investigation. If the major employers or especially the government see mass numbers of people hiding behind the First Amendment to avoid a mandate of vaccines I have no hesitation in thinking it will be responded to. Businesses can claim "undue burden" of religious exemptions, for example, and a fight in court could create new legal precedent around how that is defined. And the more the exemption is used, the more it will be fought. I won't lie, democratic leadership in the white house only increases the likelihood of this. I don't believe Christianity is incompatible with the democratic party, but I do believe religious liberty has not been a priority of theirs. Liberal leaning states have been much harsher and more punitive against both individuals and churches that have clashed with liberal clauses on the grounds of religion (including around the pandemic). President Biden's inability to clamp down on the pandemic with the delta variant spread has only increased his need for wider use of the vaccine. I would not hesitate to believe that he would act against the churches. Not in a Left Behind anti-Christ worst-case-scenario kind of way, but in an effort to limit the ability for religious exemptions to be made in the future or increase legal precedent for governmental oversight of religious exemptions. I believe we could be looking at legal battles that chip away at religious liberty, and all because we deserve it. In this case, we would be abusing our power and demonstrating a need for greater oversight (and by extension, less liberty). Christians need to reckon with the reality that we need to pick our battles. Therefore, if we don't really have a fight in vaccine mandates then we need to stay out of it. At least in regards to religious exemptions. We absolutely should speak out about concerns of such mandates and the absurdity in one of the worst employment crises of modern times to force people to leave essential jobs for ones that won't require vaccines. Suggestions, for example, that the government will pull Medicare funding from skilled nursing facilities that do not vaccinate all employees is a coercion tactic that is leading to a dangerous game of chicken as the industry is already exceptionally short-handed in employees and the unvaccinated make up a not insignificant number of its employees. If this game is played out to its fullest, many facilities will face closure because they cannot staff to state guidelines or they cannot receive the government funds that make up a necessary portion of their income. Such tactics also smear the already debated topic of socialized medicine as it concerns organizations that medical funds will be used as a weapon for policy-making. Our religion's should speak out about these concerns. There is a justice concern when a person has to make a decision not on the grounds of their health but on the grounds of their economic security or when whole portions of the population would then be excluded from certain areas of business. 
4. One of my deeply held religious beliefs is I am pro-life. I am utterly against abortion. I think it violates a God-given right to life, and legalizing it so it is "safely done" is an abhorrent claim (I would never be in favor of letting gang members kill each other in a gladiatorial arena because it would be safer than letting gang wars take place on the streets). Discussions of "quickening" or other such tactics according to the biblical view is an attempt to avoid the science of conception that validates the biblical poetry of being knit together in my mother's womb. Even if there is a legal (and even scientific) battle of when the baby is "alive" it's undisputed that once conception has begun, uninterrupted it should result in life. We should not take efforts, therefore, to interrupt that process (except when the mother faces real peril). Before going on to how this informs my view on the vaccines I will also say a word about abortive cells/tissue used in research. I would never justify murder for the sake of research/medicine. It would not be right to kill an adult to harvest their organs for someone and it is no more right to justify abortion with the research or medical benefits. That said, a person dies (even by murder) and I absolutely support organ transplanting. That saves life. And a baby has been aborted, I still absolutely support saving life through use of the stem cells or research. But also, because not all vaccines were developed the same way, even if one feels a vaccine in which the research that developed it used abortive cells is a fuel of the abortion industry or developed in a way that conflicts with their religious beliefs (although I do ask in what way that differs from transplant of murder victim's organs), one can still receive a vaccine from a different company. A pro-life religious belief does not stop one from receiving the vaccine. Now let me tell you why it causes me to not support efforts to circumvent vaccine initiatives.
   It baffles me, of course, that many pro-lifers do not take that same logic to other areas of politics. Why most pro-lifers are not in favor of governmental services that statistics show reduce abortion is beyond me (since pro-choicers are correct that outlawing abortion does not out and out stop it). I am against the death penalty because of my belief that life is precious, especially when we see that more death row inmates have been wrongly convicted than the general prison population, meaning we have killed innocent people. Our lament of Jesus' innocence on the cross ought to cause that to give us great pause. But it also occurred to me that this is an area where the pro-choice/pro-life beliefs are horribly relevant. It started because when people first talked about fear of mandated vaccines I said "no way". How can the same government that refuses to protect the life of the unborn child on the grounds of the mother's right to make choices about her own health/body justify forcing people to receive a vaccine they are against, many because of personal health concerns (even if I don't really agree with the pseudo-science/logic behind those concerns)? I found it interesting that a very pro-choice president is so anti-choice in regards to vaccines. All of the sudden the life of another matters more than the health/choices of the individual? But as I posed that absurdity, I realized my own contradiction. Wasn't I, who did not favor mandatory vaccination, now saying the government has no right to force a treatment on a person for the sake of another? Isn't that the very foundation of wanting abortion banned? And isn't a vaccine far less invasive on a person than carrying a child to birth? How am I loving my neighbor? I realized that, while my concern about forcing vaccines did involve justice and was because I felt it did not curb the culture of suspicion around vaccines and Covid-19 in general, it was inconsistent with my beliefs about life. I do think banning abortion is not enough because we do need to fight the culture of abortion, both the cultural belief that it is an ethical decision and the societal circumstances that make people feel it is the best option. I do think that it is unfair that a woman has to carry the burden, even unjust in some circumstances - especially rape. But I have always felt the right to life and the need to protect that right supersedes all of these. It is too fundamental a gift, and therefore the greatest imperative of love. For the same reason therefore, though I have real concerns about mandatory vaccines, it is consistent with the religious imperative to love your neighbor as yourself. That is the royal law of scripture (James 2:8). So no, I will not allow somebody to step to the other side of the road to avoid the neighbor's need. Not with my help and my signature at least. 
5. It sends the wrong message about the role of religion in your life. One of the things I must constantly fight against is the sense that Christianity is just some people's opinions set to paper. Religion as a whole often encompasses spiritual experience, but Christianity in particular is about a contact not only with the spiritual realities but contact with the living Christ. Jesus says we are the branches while he is the vine. That is more than a set of ideas or opinions. To be a Christian is not to have simply a philosophy about life. It is at its heart this living, breathing connection to Jesus. Religious exemption must be about the things that would be so contrary to that connection that they would threaten it, that to choose it would be to turn away from him and his connection. It must dwell in the realm of where "We must obey God rather than any human authority" (Acts 5:29) or where Christian freedom is so twisted or opposed it becomes as Paul warns the Galatians "Christ will be of no benefit to you" (Gal 5:2). But as I noted in point two, the reasons why people are avoiding the vaccines have by and large been out of other concerns. If I were to sign off on the religious exemption, not only am I using it wrongly, but I am suggesting the religion is about validating and protecting views/opinions. Rather religion often must challenge our views and opinions. It is not about being a shelter to protect them it is about the self being exposed to Christ. I am not the Lord of my religion, I am a servant of Christ Jesus. I do not get to use the office to whatever suits my needs or the needs of the congregation. I must use it according to the commission I have received. It's why when I perform marriages I lay out for couples expectations - Christian expectations. For example, even if the wedding is for family/friend I make clear the ceremony expectations are just the same as if I performed it in my church for a parishioner. My ability to perform a wedding is rooted in my call as a pastor and not just something I can use to marry whomever I'd like however I'd like. I am bound to my living Savior. Religion is not a place to express views under constitutional protection, it is a chance to come under the authority of the living God. It's not merely freedom from, it's freedom towards. Christianity is not a tool for exemption because you don't want the vaccine, it is a personal encounter with the living voice of God. The church is the body of Christ and must be used ultimately to his purposes. I didn't start this church any more than the apostles did. God did when he raised Jesus from the dead, when Christ went to those he had chosen, and commissioned them to proclaim the good news to all the world.

I know this message may be disappointing for some. I know some may have hoped I would help, and I certainly hate not doing that. But the simple fact is I cannot. Even if it is upsetting, the job has never been about people-pleasing (Gal 1:10). The more I have thought about and looked at this, it strikes me as being for the pleasure of displeased people, and not consistent with the legal exemption's purpose or consistent with our religion. Whether or not one believes the vaccine is right for them does not mean they have a religious reason to abstain from it. That doesn't mean we can't try to stop mandatory vaccinations in workplaces or society as a whole (though my pro-life position has definitely softened my view regarding whether or not we should stop it), but those efforts to stop it need to be sought through some other means. Just because there are not proper grounds here does not automatically mean there are not elsewhere in US law. Just because the religious exemption seems a convenient choice, that doesn't mean it's the right one. And I won't have a part in it.