Local pastors grapple with covid
Clark Thomas buried his daughter on a Saturday, and he was scheduled to give a eulogy at another funeral on Sunday. He was torn.
“I didn’t want to do it,” he said. “But the words to an inspirational song, “Even If,” came to mind, and I knew I had to keep pushing on.”
Thomas, who has been the pastor of New Salem Baptist Church in the Sherrill-Pastoria area for 43 years, found himself at a low point in his life. His 48-year-old daughter, Vaccarlo Cartez Thomas Allen, had fretted over the health of her father and mother as covid infections and deaths rose toward the end of last year. Then she got it.
“She had some underlying health conditions, but she was strong,” Thomas said. “She had been in the hospital and she knew she had something, but she didn’t want to tell me because I would have made her go back. By the time she did tell me, covid had gotten the upper hand on her.”
That was in mid-November of last year, months before a vaccine was available. When the vaccine became available, Thomas said he and his wife immediately went to get the shots. And he quickly turned the loss of his daughter and his own willingness to get the vaccine into motivational arguments for why his congregation of some 200 members should get the vaccine as well.
Convincing Arkansans to get the vaccine has been difficult. According to state and national health figures, 50% of eligible Arkansans have been fully vaccinated, which is a slow improvement, but the state still lands near the bottom in percentage of people vaccinated when compared to other states. The same is true for Jefferson County where the
percentage of residents fully vaccinated is at 38%, placing it at 20th from the bottom in terms of county vaccination rates.
While the issue of vaccinations has, like other aspects of the covid pandemic, turned at times into a battle of political alliances, some — but not all — pastors in Jefferson County said they were doing what they could to get their church members vaccinated. And even though most of the pastors interviewed said they had been vaccinated, some were not as enthusiastic as others about divulging that fact or about getting the vaccination.
THE REV. CLARK THOMAS
Thomas took to the idea of getting vaccinated from the get-go. He has worked for OSHA for years and says he understands the guidelines that such agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) operate under.
“Everything they put forth has been dipped in blood,” the 75-year-old said, meaning there has been thorough testing before the CDC issues a recommendation. “I understood how serious this was. I took the shot early on, my wife took the shot, my kids took the shot and my grandkids took the shot. And I made sure that news was pushed throughout the membership.”
Thomas said he wanted to convey to the members how serious the problem was. To get the point more fully across, he used his daughter’s experience as well.
“I used my daughter’s death as a rallying cry,” he said. “I told our congregation that no family wants to go through what I went through.”
Thomas said he was proud of senior members in the church who “stepped up” and got their shots.
“As minister, I proclaimed its importance,” Thomas said. “I met it head on. We did group mailouts. I did it on Facebook. I discussed the challenges.”
Today, he said, most of the young people in the church have gotten vaccinated as have a majority of the adults.
“We are all back at church now,” Thomas said, “but we all wear our masks.”
THE REV. PATRICK LOCKETT
Another pastor, the Rev. Patrick Lockett, said he too has gently prodded his congregation of 350 members at New Community Church to get vaccinated.
“From the pulpit, I am saying we have to trust the science and trust our faith,” Lockett said. “I’m not pushing it on them, but we need to have a higher vaccination rate than we have.”
Lockett, who is black, said there have been particular problems with vaccine hesitancy in the African-American community. He blamed that on “myths” and a “mistrust of information” that were allowed to take hold.
“To that, I have to say, ‘I took mine and we’re still here,’” he said. “I’m not going to beat them over the head. We just talk logic. Really, you’re going to die one way or another. You might as well be vaccinated.”
In the early days of the vaccine, Lockett said, there was quite a bit of “pushback” from some of his members.
“I had a nurse in the church who said, ‘I’m not getting it and I don’t think you should be pushing it.’ I told her, ‘I have to help the majority.’ Later, she began regularly attending again. I don’t know if she got vaccinated or not, but she’s there at church, wearing a mask. We haven’t talked about it again.”
Now, however, with the increase in publicity surrounding the need for people to be vaccinated, Lockett said he doesn’t hear much from anyone not wanting to get vaccinated.
“We had a vaccine clinic at the church that was sponsored by JRMC and some church members came out and got it,” Lockett said. “Now, there’s no pushback because it’s everywhere, on TV, people talking about it. It’s getting around.”
The pastor said one thing that has changed at his church are funerals. Because his church is large and can seat several hundred people, he has allowed other smaller churches to use New Community’s sanctuary for their funerals, mainly because those attending can spread out and safely distance themselves from each other.
“There were so many graveside services because churches couldn’t handle those wanting to attend a funeral,” Lockett said. “The family members and friends were very sad at only being able to have the gravesides. It just seemed like a waste for our church to be idle when there was so much need. Now, these families can properly eulogize their loved ones. That’s the vision that the Lord gave me.”
THE REV. STEPHEN HARRISON
Stephen Harrison, pastor at one of the larger churches in the area, the White Hall campus of Family Church, said he tries not to lean one way or the other on vaccines or getting vaccinated, to the point that he won’t say if he has or hasn’t gotten the vaccine.
“I’ve tried not to say either way,” he said. “I don’t want people to feel like they need to get it or feel like they don’t need to get it.”
Harrison said he encourages his flock to be “informed scientifically” and to seek guidance from their family medical doctor.
“I tell them to do their own research,” he said, “and to find trusted sources and physicians they know. We’ve not told people to get the vaccine or not get it. We don’t talk about it every week. We pray for people. Everyone knows someone who has passed away and they are struggling. We pray for those who have been affected.”
Asked if the political divide on vaccines has played a part in how he has approached the topic, Harrison said “maybe a little.”
“We kinda think purple here,” he said. “We’ve got Democrats and Republicans in our congregation, with some in the extreme in either direction. Some haven’t been back since last March and others say they don’t need a vaccine or a mask. We try to stay right in the middle.”
Within the walls of the church, Harrison has tried to follow safety protocols but even that is difficult at times, he said.
“We’ve done social distancing and masks and, when needed, temperature checks,” he said, adding that such moves can irritate segments of the congregation. “You can’t make everybody happy. I’ve got members coming to church with stage four cancer who don’t wear masks and others who are as healthy as a horse and they wear a mask — and everything in between.”
THE REV. ROOSEVELT BROWN
The Rev. Roosevelt Brown, the pastor at the Pine Bluff campus of Family Church, sounded like Harrison in as much as he doesn’t talk much about the vaccinations with his congregation.
“I let the people know that I am the pastor of the church, and they have a family doctor to talk to about medical conditions and they should guide themselves accordingly.”
Brown said he didn’t think it was right for him to use his authority as a pastor to influence people to make decisions about their health.
“I do not use the stage that the Lord has given me to preach the gospel of the vaccine,” he said. “I don’t think the church is the place for me to tell people about vaccines any more than it is a place for me to talk to people about their high blood pressure. I don’t do that. That’s not the place to throw your weight around.”
Asked if he had been vaccinated, Brown said he had — in a roundabout way.
“I don’t get into sharing that around with people,” he said. “But if I had the chance to take the vaccine I would get it, and you can assume I’ve the opportunity.”
And he tells his congregation something similar.
“If you have the opportunity to take it, that’s something you need to think about,” he said, describing what his message is to members.
THE REV. JESSE TURNER
Another pastor, the Rev. Jesse Turner, an outspoken advocate on a number of public topics, has also urged his congregation of 30 or so members at Elm Grove Baptist Church to get vaccinated, although Turner himself says he doesn’t think getting the vaccine changes anyone’s life expectancy.
“I’ve told people you need to get vaccinated, but that it’s your choice,” Turner said. “I’ve had my two shots.”
Turner’s other thoughts on covid have more to do with his religious beliefs than with the science of getting vaccinated. Earlier in the fall, national headlines stated that the results of three large studies, published by the CDC, showed that unvaccinated Americans were 11 times more likely to die of covid than people who are vaccinated.
Turner dismissed the studies, at least in terms of how getting or not getting vaccinated might affect someone’s time on earth.
“That’s what they say,” he said, referring to the studies. “But when it’s time for you to die, our bounds are clearly set. You can wear a mask, but masks can’t help you when your day is up. You can take a covid shot and be responsible, but that’s not what’s keeping you here.”
Turner said God was in control of how long people live.
“If you truly believe that God cares for you, you understand that we are scripturally predestined for so many years, and you can’t do anything to change that and stay here longer,” he said.
Turner, who is 70 and in a high-risk age bracket for covid, said his daughter encouraged him and his wife to get vaccinated. He took the advice and got the vaccine, he said. But had his daughter not persisted, Turner said he would not have.
“I believe in God, not the shot,” he said. “But I went ahead and got the shot.”
Turner said people “can’t be foolish and stand on train tracks and believe that God will stop the train before it hits you. But the shot’s not going to help you. If you die of covid, you can blame covid, but that was just your day.”
The “bottom line,” Turner said, is that his faith trumps a vaccine.
“I believe in God,” he said, “and I believe that God can take care of me. I also believe in life after death, and I also believe in the scripture that says there’s a better place on the other side of this.”
THE REV. MATT MOSLER
One pastor shied away almost entirely from the topic. Matt Mosler, pastor at New Life Church in Pine Bluff, who is usually eager to engage the media on a variety of topics, said he was uncomfortable talking about the vaccine. He said it was unfortunate that covid, vaccines and masks had become political “hot potatoes” but that that had not been the case at his church.
Mosler said he has “made it clear” that he had had covid and been vaccinated but that he doesn’t push in either direction from the pulpit.
“We’re trying to be careful,” Mosler said. “It’s not something that has been contentious here in our church.”