Faith leaders says vaccinations needed

They hope to fix past distrust, say the shots should be received froma moral standpoint

Local faith leaders are ramping up advocacy for COVID-19 vaccines, hoping they can influence congregants who are particularly vulnerable to the disease or suspicious of the vaccines meant to combat it.

“Skepticism about getting vaccinated is of deep concern to me,” said the Rev. Scott Jones, bishop of the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. “And every leader with any credibility in any part of our community needs to use his or her voice and platform to encourage everyone to get vaccinated.”

But it may not be an easy sell. ANovember survey by PewResearch showed half ofwhite evangelicals and 59 percent of Black Protestants said they definitely or probablywould not get a vaccine. Roughly one-third of Catholics and white nonevangelicals said the same.

And in Black and Hispanic communities, many are old enough to remember instances in which minorities were targeted and abused under the guise of medical treatment.

By putting faces of faith with pro-vaccine messages, leaders hope to repair distrust that still lingers from things such as the Tuskegee Study, a 40-year experiment that began in 1932 and in which Blackmen in Alabama with syphilis were given placebos instead of treatment or experimented on in other ways without their consent.

“We trust people, we trust our doctors and we trust our clergy,” said the Rev. Luis Martinez, pastor of Cypress Trails Methodist Church.

Leaders, he said, “need to be those who encourage the greater community by providing information and providing the assurances we already have with our clergy, our doctors and our community representatives.”

Others argue for vaccines on moral grounds.

“You have to be considerate of

others,” Lawrence Scott, pastor of Harvest Point Fellowship Church in Pearland, said he often tells members. “Andwe, as Christians, have a responsibility to be stewards.”

Scott said there’s a diverse range of opinions among members of his predominantly Black church and that most concerns he’s heard have been reasonable and relatively easy to resolve.

He has, however, said he’s seen a few online posts from members sharing misinformation or outright conspiracy theories.

It’s been a problem for many churches over the past year, as houses ofworship remained shuttered and congregantswere stuck at home, where they are more likely to be exposed to conspiracy theories via the internet.

But it’s not just a Christian problem: When the pandemic began, some local Muslims theorized that it was propaganda invented by other governments.

“Many questioned the legitimacy of this disease,” said Dr. Basem Hamid, who also helps issue guidance on faith questions as part of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston’s fatwa council.

Last month, the council issued a fatwa stating that vaccines are in linewith Islamic principles to preserve and protect human life and that neither the Pfizer norModerna vaccines were produced with stem cell research.

Catholic leaders have also weighed in on the concerns about stem cell research that they said offered an “inaccurate presentation of Catholic moral doctrine.” In a statement last month, Daniel DiNardo, cardinal for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, wrote that there was a minor “connection” between both vaccines and abortion because they used tainted cell lines during lab tests but that it “should not be the basis for refusing to receive the vaccine.”

DiNardo wrote that a third vaccine, AstraZeneca’s, was “morally concerning” because of its use of stem cell research.

“However,” he continued, “according to Catholic moral teaching, it is also acceptable to receive it for the sake of our own health and the health of others if it is the only vaccine available in a given place.”

Elaine Howard Ecklund, director of of Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program, has written two books on the relationship between communities of faith and scientists.

“Religious people generally trust science, but they are concerned about scientists and institutional science,” she said.

She said COVID-19 presents a unique opportunity to bridge that gap by elevating the voices of scientists who are also people of faith.

“When scientists are part of churches, they kind of leave their science identity at the door,” she said. “And that’s unfortunate in usual times, but, perhaps, dangerous right now.”

She also argued for getting vaccinated onmoral grounds, noting the disproportionate rates of infection and death among communities of color.

“This is really a matter of justice,” she said.