Should Pastors Speak Up About the COVID-19 Vaccine?

I can’t imagine as a pastor making a recommendation either way, any more than I’d recommend a political candidate. If the subject of vaccination comes up, it would most likely be mentioned in a message or in conversation. People are free to take it or not take it. For myself, it’s a maybe at this point, although I’ve been vaccinated for flu, shingles, etc. and am not opposed philosophically to vaccinations.

Strikes me that this is, for most pastors, squarely outside their realm of expertise. Plus, if you really wanted to cause mayhem in the church, pastors could teach something that we’ve known pretty well for 9 months—that the key risk factor for premature death from COVID is metabolic syndrome—obesity, heart disease, and diabetes—and thus that the best thing to do to avoid it or mitigate it is to get some exercise, get blood pressure, lipids, and blood sugar under control, and lose a few pounds.

Yeah, that’d go over like a lead balloon. :^)

Regarding the vaccines, my thought is that those who get to take it first are taking a calculated risk that whatever things might not have been detected with FDA testing might be detected with them. Since I’m not working in medical care, I’m not in that lucky (?) group that gets likely immunity with uncertain risks.

My take is that when I’m offered, I probably will take it, as it seems that it’s a nice way of reducing the risk of doing what I had to do last week—call a few elderly people that I’d spoken with at church last week and apologize ‘cause I just got diagnosed with the ‘rona. They weren’t angry at all, thankfully, but I didn’t know that’s how they’d respond going in.