To Be Shot or Not to Be Shot: That is the Question
No one can escape the fact that our nation has been in upheaval ever since the COVID-19 pandemic struck our shores. The upheaval has not only affected the medical sphere, but to an exponentially greater degree, the political sphere. Because of such upheaval, when political leaders advocate for something in the medical realm, citizens are hesitant.
Understandably so.
Right now COVID-19 shots are hot topics. Because of political involvement, the vials of viral warfare are marching up and down the streets of the world’s workplaces, homes, and even churches. The inescapable reality of our day is this: the COVID-19 shot, born in the labs of medical production, raised in the halls of political uncertainty, is now grown and ready to knock on your door, ready to dictate how you should manage the body God has given you.
No, this is not a political diatribe. My main concern is how believers in Jesus Christ are faced with the difficult decision of shot mandates even before the pandemic dust has settled.
I am not a medical professional, and I want to avoid the temptation to behave as one. I am a pastor, and God has called me to lead His flock in the path of Truth, and protect His flock from the dangers of deceit.
So, rather than focusing on the medical implications of the shot, I’d like to write briefly about the moral implications of the shot. Is it morally advantageous to get the shot? Is it unloving to not get the shot? Should the shot be required to those who wish to enter into a church building and worship God? Should churches participate in delivering the shot to the community? As much as we would like to stay out of this topic, and leave it alone, these questions are being answered by some of the most influential leaders in evangelical America.
In an article by a well-known Christian publication a contributor writes,
“Christians have historically advocated for vaccination as an expression of love for neighbors, saying the benefits far outweigh the chance of harm. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Cotton Mather urged his congregation to be inoculated from smallpox before the first vaccination had even been successfully developed.”
Another leader, one in the largest Protestant denominations in America, suggests that a Christian’s love for others is compromised if he refuses the shot:
“The general principle of the common good comes down to benevolence, love, care for others, laying down personal priorities for the service of others. Christians thinking about the issue of the vaccine must weigh this key biblical principle as part of their thinking.”
A pastor of a conservative mega-church down South is holding a clinic in the church to administer the shot to people. Elsewhere, he has suggested that refusing to get the shot is akin to refusing to let the firemen in your house while it burns down.
Hmm.
A leader of one of the most well-respected relief ministries in the world has said,
“For me as a Christian, it’s very easy for me to support the vaccine…because as a Christian, Jesus Christ came to this Earth to save life”
To top it all off, an editor of a wide-spread Christian organization writes,
“Just as states and localities have vaccination requirements for entry to daycares and public schools, we may soon see COVID vaccines required to engage in many areas of community life—perhaps even in churches.”
And rather than commenting on how the idea of a vaccine mandate for a church is terrible, he simply comments how,
“Discussions about such mandates should be rooted in neighbor[ly] love…and wisdom…”
So the issue of the shot is something that Christians cannot avoid. Leaders are voicing their opinions and Christians are backing into corners, wondering, “Will my church recommend, or even require me to get the shot? Am I unloving if I prevent myself from getting poked by a pandemic ‘cure-all’?”
How can we respond to this pressure? What are some considerations from a moral/biblical perspective? Here are five things to consider:
- A believer’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
When a man or woman puts their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, the Bible teaches us that the body becomes a place where the Holy Spirit dwells:
“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” – 1 Corinthians 6:19 (NKJV)
As believers, we are to take care of this “temple” that houses the Holy Spirit. Not only does this mean that we live holy lives by abstaining from moral evils, but also that we make conscientious health decisions. Just as a house needs upkeep to maintain the effectiveness of its shelter, so this body needs “upkeep” to maintain a healthy “shelter” for the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, one cannot deny the fact that injecting a liquid into one’s arm, which writes genetic information in order to cause the body to respond to infectious infiltrations, is a decision affecting the health of the body.
In other words, it is a decision affecting God’s temple.
Regardless of the information discovered pertaining to the short-term effects of people who received various COVID-19 shots, there has not been enough research to determine the long-term effects. Remember, COVID-19 hit the world less than two years ago, not ten.
Therefore, as with any drug or medicine, Christians should be hesitant to partake of something when it is unclear as to how that something will eventually affect their health, and therefore the Holy Spirit’s temple. Unfortunately, we only have time to discover what sort of reactions the body will have to being host to a warp-speed-generated shot. This is a significant consideration.
- Aborted people are used in the development of the shots.
In a chart by the Charlotte Lozier Institute[1], of the eight companies involved in COVID-19 shot production, six included the use of aborted-derived cells during testing, while the other two were simply labeled, “undetermined”. Even further, both AstraZeneca and the Johnson & Johnson use aborted-derived cells for the actual production of their shots.
To the extent that a person feels it okay to participate in indirect evil will require great prayer. Using a product whose creators utilized aborted babies during research and development is dangerously close to participating in an abortion itself. Also, it helps forward the pro-abortion movement – a movement Christians have been trying to erase for decades. Therefore, a Christian must ask the question when being pressured into getting the shot: “Do the ends justify the means?”
- Mandating vaccines to enter a church is unloving.
They tell us that it is unloving to not get the shot. Therefore, a church should mandate it. What? The church is meant to be a place where God’s people can freely gather to worship God and serve each other.
“…My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations…” – Mark 11:17 (NKJV)
Not only that, but the church’s doors have historically been open for people to come who are searching, hurting, and in need of Good News because of the bad world our sin has created. The cross of Jesus Christ is an example of how God’s people should be willing to sacrifice their own well-being for the sake of others. To cut off people from coming in because they don’t want to get a shot for a virus that has a massively low death rate seems to be anti-Christian in nature.
History shows how the church has been the entity to help those who are sick, risking their own lives to help others. The idea of shutting the doors of the church on those who choose not to get a COVID shot makes me shudder.
May it never be.
- Getting the shot does not equate to loving your neighbor.
Many Christian leaders who advocate the COVID-19 shot are comfortable doing so because, according to their reasoning, it is the loving thing to do. But is that necessarily the truth? Is it loving to your unborn child for you to get a COVID-19 shot when side effects include miscarriages? Is it loving to pressure an elderly person with a risk of stroke to get a COVID-19 shot when side effects include an increase of blood clots?
Besides, getting the shot does not stop the spread of COVID-19. People who get the shot can still carry COVID-19. In July, the city of Provincetown in Cape Cod, MA reported 469 cases of COVID-19. Of those cases, 74% were of vaccinated individuals. Moreover, vaccinated people are just as able to spread the virus as unvaccinated.[2]
If me getting the shot doesn’t keep you from getting the virus, then how is it unloving to not get the shot? This argument is intensified when you consider the effectiveness of natural immunity.
I know myself. God has given me a strong immune system (so far), and this is not because of any special health choices on my part. I rarely get any cold or flu. If I do, it is usually short-lived. God may choose to change that.
So, I want to logically reason this out. If you take a person’s strong immune system, plus the fact that he doesn’t have pre-existing conditions, plus the fact that he is in a low-risk age group for an already low-numbered death rate, wouldn’t you get a justifiable reason he chooses to abstain from getting a risky, genetic-code-generating, new-on-the-market shot?
The more unloving thing to do is to pit people against one another based on whether or not they have received the shot, and threaten people’s livelihood on shot statuses. As you probably have heard,
“No jab, no job.”
“No shot, no shop.”
“Shoot, or get the boot.”
Is it really necessary for Christians to help set up an atmosphere provoking the conditions for a future “beast”ly system?
- The pro-shot comments made by Christian leaders assume that the shot is valid and healthy.
The above quotations from Christian leaders have one thing in common: They are all assuming that the shot is valid and healthy. The presupposition is that all the claims made by public health officials are valid and trustworthy. The reasoning goes like this: “If the public officials say it’s a healthy shot, then it’s a healthy shot. If it’s a healthy shot, then we should all get it because we want to love our neighbors and stop COVID from killing people. If you don’t get the shot, you don’t care about your neighbors and you want people to die.”
It is all based on the presupposition that what the public officials say about the shot is trustworthy. What amazes me is that many of these church leaders already admit and confess that there is a web of deceit in our country, particularly in our government.
Common sense perceives that many public health officials are working with government leaders to promote deceit and fundamentally change our country. Be it money, power, global control agendas, or all of the above, everyone can see that there is a web of deceit.
In fact, a spider web is a good way to illustrate this. If a fly is headed straight for a spider web, it doesn’t matter whether it lands on the very outside strand, or bullseye in the middle – the fly will get trapped. The same is true with a web of deceit, namely, it doesn’t matter if it’s the plain, out-there-in-the-open nonsense we see and hear clearly; or the obscure, hard-to-determine agendas behind globalist doors – the fly will get trapped.
We should not assume that all health officials are right, especially if certain ones have a track-record for being deceitful. We should not assume that numerous doctors, medical professionals, and top pro-vaccine scientists are wrong, because they are speaking out against the COVID-19 shot. And we shouldn’t assume that there are no long-term side effects from taking the shot, yet to be discovered, because of the rushed testing period of these shots.
The conclusion of the matter.
Should I get the shot? Should you?
You are free to decide for yourself, and I am free to decide for myself… at least for now. But for believers, many church leaders are saying, “Love your neighbor by getting the shot.”
It is far more complicated than that.
I’ve laid out some points to consider that make the morality of the shot more difficult than many leaders are asserting. Based on the fact that a Christian is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the shot’s long-term side-effects are unproven; based on the fact that the shot utilized aborted baby parts in its development; based on the fact that the shot does not necessarily prevent the spread of the virus; and based on the fact that the shot is potentially a tool in the hand of the government’s web of deceit, the prevalent guilt-trip-pressure placed upon believers needs to be retracted and replaced with a better approach.
Namely, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
The example was given of Cotton Mather who supported inoculation for the smallpox. Well, I wonder if anyone remembers the example of Jonathan Edwards. He was one of the catalysts of the first Great Awakening in America. He also supported the smallpox inoculation. At age 54, he attempted to prove to his followers the effectiveness of such a treatment, and received the inoculation.
He died as a result.
Brethren, there is more to the debate than often meets the eye, and I call upon all Christians to heed the words of Solomon the wise:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones.” – Proverbs 3:5-8 (NKJV underline mine)
For His Church,
– Pastor Alex
[1] https://s27589.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/06.02.21-warp-speed-vaccines-June.pdf
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/vaccinated-people-can-carry-covid-19-virus-cdcs-report-shows-heres-what-we-know/ar-AAMLr2c