Summary
- Most religions and religious groups today do not object to medical vaccinations.
- Ten points can help determine whether a religious belief is sincerely held or just recently invented and thus not worthy of recognition.
The statistics for COVID-19 are staggering. The World Health Organization reports that as of January 2022, there have been more than 300 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 (303,169,398 cases as of January 9, 2022) and more than 5.4 million deaths from COVID-19 (5,479,804 deaths as of January 9, 2022). Within just the United States, there have been almost 60 million confirmed cases (59,848,908 as of January 9, 2022) and more than 800,000 deaths (836,603 deaths as of January 9, 2022). Numbers continue to rise each day.
Several vaccines for COVID-19 are available, although they are not distributed fairly around the globe. But as of January 2022, more than 9 billion vaccine doses have been administered globally (9,118,223,397 vaccine doses administered as of January 5, 2022). And within the United States, almost half a billion vaccine doses have been administered (485,275,895 vaccine doses administered as of December 23, 2021).
Most religions and religious groups today do not object to medical vaccinations. To the contrary, most fully support vaccinations. For example, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life has stated that “COVID-19 exists, and the only way to return to normal is to get vaccinated.” Pope Francis himself supports vaccinations against COVID-19, stating that getting jabbed is “an act of love.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops similarly said that “being vaccinated can be an act of charity that serves the common good.” According to research from Vanderbilt University, other Christian denominations that have no theological opposition to vaccines include Amish, Anglican, Baptist, Eastern Orthodox, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mennonites, Mormon, Pentecostal Christians, Quakers, Seventh-day Adventist, and Unitarian-Universalist. Vaccination is widely accepted in countries that are predominantly Buddhist. Hinduism and Islam have no prohibitions against vaccination. Judaism supports vaccinations to protect life and health. And the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’is of the United States urges followers to “adhere scrupulously to public health guidelines that have been established in their state” including “protocols for . . . vaccination.”
The research from Vanderbilt University found theological opposition to vaccination only within the Dutch Reformed Church, Christian Scientists, and a handful of faith-healing denominations (Faith Assembly, Faith Tabernacle, the Church of the First Born, and the Endtime Ministries). But even within these groups there is not universal opposition to being vaccinated. Some members of Dutch Reformed Congregations may decline vaccinations because they interfere with divine providence, but others may accept vaccinations as a gift from God to be used with gratitude. The Church of Christ, Scientist, for its part, teaches that disease can be prevented or cured by focused prayer, but there are no strict rules against vaccination. The founder of the Church, Mary Baker Eddy, stated that “[r]ather than quarrel over vaccination, I recommend, if the law demand, that an individual submit to this process, that he obey the law, and then appeal to the gospel to save him from bad physical results.”
Given that most religions actually support vaccination, when should individuals be allowed to claim religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine mandates? Should an individual be allowed to claim a religious exemption when leaders of that person’s religion support vaccinations as a matter of public health, knowing that the failure to get vaccinated puts that person and many others at risk? What steps should employers, educational institutions, and places of public accommodation be allowed to take when they suspect that a claimed religious belief or practice is not sincerely held but rather is either only recently invented or falsely claimed? And why should individuals who successfully claim a religious exemption to vaccination be allowed to put others at risk in situations not essential, such as watching a movie in a theater or visiting an art gallery or museum? (Although activities such as visiting a museum or watching a movie are important, they aren’t essential.) Does claiming a religious exemption to vaccination allow individuals to object to wearing facial masks or other personal protective equipment, or to escape temperature checks, or to avoid being tested regularly or to show negative test results? Is there a religious right to put the health of others at risk?
State and local governments appear to be particularly ill-suited to adjudicate the sincerity of claims that religious beliefs or practices prohibit compliance with a mandate to be vaccinated against COVID-19. First, objections to vaccine mandates may be seen as political rather than religious. (In the United States and some other countries, the decision to get vaccinated sometimes became a political position rather than a medical decision.) Second, governmental units have no realistic way to measure accurately whether the sincerity of a claimed religious belief justifies an exemption from a generally applicable rule to preserve public health. And third, as we’ve recently seen with medical exemptions in Australia, different levels of government may reach different results when adjudicating the sincerity of a claimed religious exemption.
Religious exemptions from vaccination mandates should be granted only for sincerely held religious beliefs and practices, not for suddenly held beliefs invented merely to avoid vaccination. Each claim for a religious exemption must be evaluated on its individual merit. Some points can help determine whether a religious belief is sincerely held or just recently invented and thus not worthy of recognition.
Asking an individual who claims a religious exemption from a vaccination mandate to support that claim with specific information and supporting affirmations may be seen as burdensome, but it can also be seen as a way to clarify and deepen the religious or spiritual belief. With more than 800,000 persons in our country already dead from COVID-19, there is no room for false or invented religious claims. The vaccinations have been proven effective in diminishing both the incidence and the severity of new illnesses, justifying federal, state, and local governments in requiring them as a nondiscriminatory public health measure.
Americans largely support religious freedom and the recognition of sincerely held religious beliefs. But they do not support suddenly invented and spurious claims. The public interest in public health also means that some additional precautions can be justified even when a claim of religious exemption is found.