Mandatory Vaccination: Stop it Only One Way

 Mandatory / Compulsory Vaccination?

With COVID-19, there is a renewed call for compulsory or mandatory vaccination. Should vaccines be compelled?

I do not believe that the government should force parents to vaccinate their children against their will.  In the Bible, parental authority over children is so vast that parents could even bring rebellious children to trial and, if found guilty of consistent, persistent, and willful rebellion and wickedness, have their children executed (Deuteronomy 21:18-21; note that there is no record of parents actually following through on this with their children, as very, very few parents would want to do it, but it still shows the Biblical position on parental authority in relationship to the State). Similarly, children who cursed their parents or hit their parents would "surely be put to death" (Exodus 21:15-17) if there were multiple witnesses who were willing to testify to the fact (no Biblical indication specifies that the parents were required to testify against their children or, for that matter, that anyone at any time was compelled to testify against anyone else).

When Romans 13 outlines the role of the government, Biblically speaking, it is a "night watchman" sort of system with very limited authority.  The government is to punish evil but is not even supposed to actively do good--that is the realm of individuals and groups in society such as churches--but only to "praise" the good without financial support (Romans 13:3-4).  Biblical government is, in many ways, very libertarian on the spectrum of political ideology (learn more about the role of the government according to God's Word here).  Therefore, based on God's revelation, a strong support for parental authority and a strong view on a very limited role for government leads me to oppose mandatory / compulsory vaccination.  Furthermore, requiring parents who have religious objections to vaccinate is a very dangerous restriction of religious freedom.

Furthermore, in American history compulsory vaccination has led to many other restrictions on civil liberties.  A 1902 mandatory vaccination law passed in Massachusetts in response to a smallpox epidemic was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which concluded that compulsory vaccination was constitutional in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) by a 7 to 2 margin. For the benefit of the collective or group, individual liberty could be repressed.  The precedent set by this decision allowed for the promotion of eugenics; for example, in 1927 the case Buck v. Bell upheld the mandatory sterilization of a person considered "feeble-minded," arguing that “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”  The only precedent cited in case law was Jacobson v. Massachusetts.  The (alleged) collective good from forcibly sterilizing undesirable people overrode the individual liberty not to be--to describe it Biblically--eunuchized.  The expanded state powers that justified compulsory vaccination were used to uphold eugenic sterilization (learn more in the article here).  The power given to the State over parents that is involved in allowing compulsory vaccination also justifies the elimination of many other civil liberties.

Thus, I am against compulsory vaccination, and I believe you should be against it as well.

What is not a reason I oppose compulsory vaccination

I am against mandatory vaccination because of parental rights.  I am not against mandatory vaccination because vaccines do not work, are dangerous, or are ineffective.  Vaccines are safe, are effective, and are a great blessing to mankind in this fallen world that God has allowed scientists to discover utilizing the Biblically-based scientific method. Thanks to vaccines, diseases such as polio, typhoid, smallpox, yellow fever, and rabies no longer kill, cripple, and cause terrible suffering to millions and millions of people.  Anti-vax propaganda simply does not reflect scientific reality in the world God has made. Common ideas, such as the lie that vaccines cause autism, was spread in order to make its author a lot of money.  If you do not vaccinate your children, you are increasing the likelihood that they will die or suffer because you believed scientifically inaccurate propaganda.  You are also not loving your neighbor as yourself, for you are increasing the likelihood that other children or adults will get sick or die.  Furthermore, you endanger the children of responsible parents who vaccinate their children, as their children, when too young to get vaccinated, may still be infected and get sick or die because you have refused to protect your own children from disease.  (Learn more about vaccine safety here.)  You may say that you don't need to vaccinate because others do, and so there is herd immunity--but you had better keep your kids away from the airport, then, and had better not teach them to evangelize in an area that has a lot of immigrants.  You definitely would want to keep them away from the mission field.

In other words, I believe that the government should allow parents to make foolish decisions, because allowing them to make foolish decisions--like not getting vaccinated themselves or having their children vaccinated, which is very foolish--is not as bad as the consequences are of the increased governmental power involved in compulsory vaccination.  In Israel drunkenness was a sin, but it was not illegal.  Failing to help the poor was wicked, but it was not illegal.  God hated divorce, but it was legal.  Failure to love one's neighbor as oneself was a horrible crime, but it was legal.  It should be legal for people to make all kinds of bad, foolish decisions, because increased government power is even worse than the bad, foolish decisions.

The only way to stop mandatory vaccination

While I believe that the position above is Biblically and practically correct, it is also one that is a loser politically.  If enough people believe anti-vax propaganda and stop vaccinating, it is certain that there will be more outbreaks in the United States of easily preventable diseases, and children will die for no good reason.  Enough angry parents showing pictures of happy babies and healthy children that are now dead or handicapped from diseases because of anti-vaccination lies will create an unstoppable wave of public support for mandatory vaccination.

Without mandatory vaccination, more children will get sick, suffer life-long hurt, and die.  I believe that the less-easy-to-see consequences of mandatory vaccination are worse than this awful and very visible consequence of not mandating vaccines. But is that going to win in a room full of angry parents holding pictures of their now dead children and demanding their congressman support mandatory vaccination?  Nope.  Not a chance.  Vaccines will become compulsory if enough people stop vaccinating.

So how can mandatory vaccination be stopped?  The only way to stop it is by vaccinating voluntarily.  If only a small enough percentage of the population doesn't vaccinate, the people who are putting their children's lives and the lives of other children at risk can fly under the radar, believe their misinformation, and not cause too much damage.  But as their number grows big enough to compromise or eliminate herd immunity, public pressure from the death, disease, and carnage caused by their irresponsible actions will lead to mandatory vaccination.

So do you want to stop mandatory vaccination?  Have your children vaccinated, encourage others to vaccinate, and fight inaccurate and unscientific anti-vaccination propaganda.

There is no other long-term way to stop mandatory vaccination.

-TDR

Satanic Conspiracy, COVID-19, the Church's Response

Satan is real.  What about COVID-19?  We have seen lockdowns.  We have seen trillions in new debt.  We have seen new drugs created by Big Pharma.  Videos saying it is a "Plandemic," something taught by the great scientist Judy Mikovitsc until she was shut down by the communists who control the government, have gone viral.  

Millions of people think masks do not work and can cause CO2 poisoning.  Maybe COVID is something our government is spreading in conjunction with communist China in order to trick people into getting vaccinated--after all, think about the millions of lives impacted by vaccines.  YouTube videos are everywhere.  (Check this two minute one out on how cures for cancer are being suppressed--note that I do not endorse the music):

At work a few months ago I had to do a report because someone identifying himself as "Freekshow" had put graffiti up stating "There is no coronavirus. The government lies to us every day."  

Maybe that is the truth, no?  Is Freekshow right and the CDC wrong?

Churches need to take a stand!  They need to not wear masks!  They need to stop social distancing!  Hand sanitizer and gloves are actually bad for you!  They need to resist the Red Chinese who are taking over our country using COVID!  Forget PubMed--they need to get everyone to watch Plandemic and get medical information from other reliable sources, like videos random people put on the Internet!  It is only the Demoncrats, like Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Mike Pence, who believe in any of this mask wearing stuff!  Baptists, fundamentalists, and evangelicals need to show that they are not gullible enough to believe the CDC and Dr. Fauci when there are videos on YouTube and graffiti artists who show that they are wrong.  RESIST!

Satan is real--he has a purpose here to hurt the church of God and take away our liberties and constitutional rights!

The REAL COVID-19 Conspiracy and Satan

So let's say your church goes this route.  They stop preaching and applying the Bible alone and start preaching on conspiracy theories, giving them the imprimatur of "thus saith the LORD" from the pulpit of the Lord's church.  Maybe you are a church member who is pushing for this to happen and are promoting these theories to others in the congregation.  Maybe you are a church leader who wants to do this.  Here are some things you should consider.

What if the conspiracy theories you are having Christ's church promote violate basic laws of science--for example, what if carbon dioxide molecules are simply far too small to not pass through masks, while viruses and water droplets composed of thousands of H20 molecules together are much larger?

What if the people who you are calling out as communist agents, or as who knows what else, are not actually agents of communism, even if you disagree with their political perspective?  Isn't slander still a sin, even if you are slandering someone who takes a different political position?  Should the pulpit be a place for people to hear the Triune Jehovah's truth, or slander?

What if we are commanded to be “afraid to speak evil of dignities” and not to “despise government” (2 Peter; Jude), so we don't actually get to rail against governmental officials, since Michael the Archangel did not even revile Satan?  What if Romans 13 actually means what it says and those magistrates have authority from God, as even the wicked ruler Nero did?  What if you are guilty of the sin of evil-speaking?  What if when Christ exposed the Pharisees in Matthew 23, every single thing He said was 100% accurate, but your accusations are not?  What if, unintentionally perhaps, you are spreading lies?  Do you remember who the father of lies is (John 8:44)?

What if you destroy Christian liberty by binding the consciences of the saints to conspiratorial beliefs and practices for which you have no authority from the great Head of the Church?  What if He whose eyes are like a flame of fire, whose feet are like burning brass, who took a whip and drove out people from His Father's House who were perverting His truth, and who killed people in Corinth for unworthy practices (1 Corinthians 11) does not like it when you tell His espoused bride (Ephesians 5) something other than what He, her great Husband, commands?

What if you are now feeding God's sheep junk food instead of giving the hungry children of God the milk and meat of the Word?  What did Jehovah do to the shepherds who would not "feed the flock" (Ezekiel 34:3; 1 Peter 5)?

What if, after you stand against masks and against social distancing, COVID spreads through your church like wildfire?  What if some of God's saints die because you failed to practice sound reasoning--which is commanded in Scripture (Isaiah 1:18) and is part of the greatest commandment, to love God with all your mind as well as your affections (Mark 12:30)?  What if you are an awful testimony to your community as your church becomes known as the place, not where God's truth is spread, but where disease is spread?  What if your church spreads COVID to people in the community who then die and go to hell?

What if your church leads to many church members losing thousands of dollars since they can't go to work because you exposed them to COVID?  What if your church temporarily shuts down community businesses by infecting them with COVID?  Do you think those people will listen to your church when it proclaims the gospel?

What if people leave a strong independent Baptist church for a weak or false "church" because the strong church is such a rotten testimony through getting side-tracked with conspiracy theories?  What if you are no longer able to effectively fulfill the Great Commission because people who are not conspiracy theory addicts think your church is full of disease-spreading nut cases?  You bear no sin if people are turned off because of Biblical truth, but what if you do bear sin if they are turned off because you are promoting conspiracy theories?

What if people follow your COVID conspiracy theories and get into other conspiracies, with the result that they die of forms of cancer that are actually easily treatable because they opt for New Age or other unconventional "medicine" instead of treatments that actually work?

What if people are not willing to believe actual Biblical truth you preach to them because of the conspiratorial lies you were mixing in with God's truth?

What if preaching conspiracy theories actually helps destroy religious liberty and weaken constitutional freedoms?  What if by going nuts you provide a great argument for secular rulers keeping churches closed?  What if by rejecting masks or other CDC guidelines you distract from real and wicked violations of religious liberty, such as Nevada guidelines that favor casinos and discriminate against churches or the unrighteous restrictions on churches in California?  What if by making conspiratorial nonsense a hill to die on, you strengthen the hand of Satan and those in government who actually do despise Christ, His churches, and His people, and make it harder for Christians to really take a stand over what actually does matter?

What if the real conspiracy of Satan is not found in the misinformation in Plandemic and other online videos, but Satan's real goal is to get you to believe unscientific lies online, stop preaching the Bible, commit the sins of slander and evil-speaking, contribute to the death or sickness of some of the saints and some in the world, destroy your testimony, hinder the Great Commission, and contribute to the destruction of religious liberty by being a nut-case?

What if you may have good intentions, but there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is still spiritual death and destruction (Proverbs 14:12)?

Please carefully apply Biblical principles, employ logic--the way God thinks--use reason--as He commands His people to do--cry mightily to God for understanding, and put feet to those prayers by doing careful research, before you promote conspiracy theories to fellow saints in the Lord's church, and especially consider the above, if you are a church leader, before you bring any conspiracy theories into the sacred pulpit of the Lord's NT temple.  Maybe you should even evaluate whether the time you spend watching YouTube videos on this stuff would be better employed studying Scripture or even reading a textbook on biology to make sure you understand basic scientific facts.

Be careful you are not advancing Satan's cause when you think you are opposing it by proclaiming conspiracy theories.

By the way, if you think I must have been paid off by Big Pharma to write this, please make sure that they have my correct address--the checks haven't been coming, and I have been waiting and waiting and waiting.

If you feel personally offended by this post, or if you think that the proper response to it is to ignore its arguments and attack is author, I would suggest that you meditate upon Isaiah 1:18 and, instead of judging based on feelings, think dispassionately about whether your response is logical or rational.

-TDR