Government used 'love your neighbor' theology, financial pressure to coerce religious leaders on vaccines

Eliyahu Tulshinski

January 15, 2024

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Churches were empty in much of 2020 when politically appointed public health officials enacted stay-at-home orders with violators of the orders facing jail.

The empty pews meant financial difficulties for pastors as email requests for donations did not match the success of in-person pleas.

Essential?

While houses of worship were forced to “close for business” liquor stores were somehow considered essential businesses, exempt from the stay-at-home edict, baffling many people at the time.

Not essential?

As a result of this apparent attack on freedom of religion, lawsuits were filed claiming that pastors and congregants were intentionally denigrated.

Taking money and giving it back, for a price

While Christian Americans have long reported instances of governmental bias against them, researchers at America Out Loud News have revealed a potentially additional motive for shutting down houses of worship. Much like hospitals that were denied profitable elective surgeries during the shutdown, religious congregations were put in a financially vulnerable position that made it difficult to turn down COVID-related financial incentives.

In the case of hospital administrators, the pressure was to declare COVID as the cause of death, even in late-stage cancer and heart disease patients, to receive bonus payments that would enable the hospitals to meet payroll.

For pastors, the financial incentives meant COVID relief grants that may have been denied had they spoken against the government's COVID policy. Religious groups wound up receiving some $7 billion ”through forgiven Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans under the CARES Act." More than 400 ministries and churches “each received at least $1 million in COVID-19 aid.” Christian health centers even agreed to conduct COVID tests and administer vaccines door to door to prevent layoffs.

Between March 2020 and December 2021, LCHC [Chicago-based Lawndale Christian Health Center] conducted 41,000 COVID-19 tests. Their staff set up vaccine clinics on the west side of Chicago, and also went door to door with the vaccine.

Though the organization works in health care and remained busy through the pandemic, Brooks said that without the extra PPP support, they would have had to lay off staff who worked on ancillary ministries that were shut down—like a café that the organization runs. Instead, LCHC redirected those people to other roles and new projects.

LCHC wound up receiving over $5 million in forgiven loans.

Forget the money, be holy

Obstetrician Jim Thorp and his wife, Maggie Thorp, a commercial litigation attorney, studying COVID policy for America Out Loud News, have come to the conclusion that, as much a role as money has played in influencing the public statements of America's religious leaders, there was a different (positive) incentive instituted by the government that played an even larger role than financial pressure.

In our opinion, however, it wasn’t financial incentives that ultimately convinced faith leaders to push the COVID-19 vaccines on their members. Instead, it was a strategy that baselessly appealed to faith leaders’ deeply held moral and religious beliefs – targeting their virtues instead of their vices – and which shamelessly relied on religious doctrine and a pro-vaccine “theological” interpretation to support pushing the shots. [Emphasis added].

The Thorps gave examples of government officials addressing religious leaders to persuade them that the COVID vaccines were a heavenly gift while naysayers were conspiracy theorists.

For example, at a May 2021 national summit for faith leaders, NIH Director Francis Collins – referred to as “Reverend-Doctor” – would address hundreds of faith leaders across the nation, claiming that the COVID-19 vaccines were God’s literal “answer to prayer” and urging faith leaders to believe that pushing the shots was a “love your neighbor moment.” In what was a sermon-like address tailored to appeal to these faith leaders, Collins admonished them not to believe “conspiracy theories” about “possible side effects” – which Collins falsely said were untrue. [Emphases added].

Department of Religion?

That example was not an informal appearance by a public health official. The government actually created a Faiths4Vaccines agency under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS):

Meet Faiths4Vaccines – a founding member of the HHS COVID-19 Community Corps. On its website, Faiths4Vaccines describes itself as a “multi-faith group of local and national religious leaders” seeking “to increase opportunities for faith-based institutions, particularly houses of worship, to engage and support the United States government in its efforts to increase vaccination rates” and combat “vaccine hesitancy.” Faiths4Vaccines’ top shared goal is shocking – it strives to “Demonstrate religious communities’ trust in the vaccine.”

According to a peer-reviewed study that assessed the impact of faith organizations on COVID-19 vaccination uptake, Faiths4Vaccines includes over 1000 faith leaders across the U.S.

The Faiths4Vaccines National Summit, which took place on May 26, 2021, was the largest religious summit of its kind to be held in the U.S. The summit included some 800 registered faith leaders, and also included public health and U.S. government officials. Its purpose? To increase COVID-19 vaccination uptake, reduce vaccine hesitancy, and foster utilizing “houses of worship” as vaccination sites.” [Emphases added].

The Thorps provided some quotes from NIH Director Francis Collins discussing vaccines and spirituality with religious leaders at the summit:

But mostly I wanted to just say as somebody who’s been in the middle of this effort to develop these vaccines over the last 16 months, that I really would want you to be able to say to all of the people in your various flocks that these vaccines were developed with incredible care and scrupulous attention to safety and efficacy, yes, they were done quicker than has ever been possible. But that wasn’t by cutting corners. That was basically by figuring out how to utilize this new technology called messenger RNA to make some of the steps go a lot faster than they could have . . .

And so we now have something that I very literally would call an answer to prayer. We have 3 vaccines … Yeah, I was praying about this. Back in August or September as the trials were getting underway. Oh, if I just pray, well, we’ll be end up with something that’s at least 60% or maybe 70% effective, and then it turns out to be 95%. [Emphases added].

See our previous COVID coverage: