Are Christians to Blame for Low Vaccination Rates?

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

All right, well, welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, and I am here with my co -host,

Bud the Wiser. How you doing, Bud? Greetings, brother. How you doing?

I just noticed your t -shirt matches my cup. Yes. You got the nice striving for eternity t -shirt that says,

God exists, he has spoken. I like that shirt. One of these days,

I desire to get to that level where I get the cup. Oh, well, someone sent it to me, so.

I'm content with the shirt. I'm wearing a shirt I just got, as you can see. Voice of Reason Radio.

Yeah. I got my new Voice of Reason Radio t -shirt. Anyone that wants to get one of those,

I encourage you to reach out to Chris Honholz from Voice of Reason Radio. Very comfortable shirt.

I enjoy it. So I'm grateful for him for letting me purchase one.

Yeah, I didn't get one free or anything. I mean, it's just... No, not even for showing your vaccine card?

Yeah, yeah. You didn't get anything? You know, I thought that, I really thought that, you know, after I gave him the two six -foot elves, you know, to taunt him with Buddy the

Elf, that he would get... Oh, that's right. You know, brother, you've given me so many free gifts, I should give you a free t -shirt, but that didn't happen.

No, he made me pay the full $25. He gave some child a discount, but me, he made pay a full $25.

I was like, you know, this is what good friends do, right? But it was a good time over at Cruciform.

That was a number... The thing I like about Cruciform is it really is a conference like what

Justin Peters wanted to do some years ago, a conference with some pastors that nobody knows but are outstanding preachers, and that's basically what

Cruciform is. Most of the guys, people don't know of, and all of them are outstanding preachers.

And so it's, I usually get there and be like, man, I don't know what I'm doing here. You know, some of these guys are just, they're outstanding.

And it was a little different, though. It was different. The theory was still standing, the 500th anniversary of the

Diet of Worms. And so I expected that like every speaker was going to be talking about Martin Luther.

And I'm like, how do I do something different? Because, you know, when you're at a thing like that and everyone's talking the same topic.

And so I was really like, okay, what am I going to do? I chose what I ended up deciding to do was to deal with...

My title was The Tale of Two Johns. And so I started off with looking at the guy who really influenced

Martin Luther. And that is Jan Hus, John Hus. And John Hus was influenced greatly by John Wycliffe.

But those were not the two Johns. The John I dealt with was John Hus, and then a modern day

John, John MacArthur. And looking at how the both of them, what made them different and stand out and gave them the fortitude to be still standing.

So that message should be coming out shortly on Cruciform on their YouTube channel. And when it is,

I may drop that as an episode here or a bonus episode. So something to look forward to.

So, Bud, we have been seeing some articles recently. And even some video here that we'll play.

That has basically been insinuating that Christians are to blame for the low vaccination rates.

So some of the things we want to cover today is the question, are Christians to blame for low vaccination rates?

Are Christians putting out false information about the vaccine?

And, you know, is there a direct tie between the beliefs in Christianity to vaccinations that support these claims that are being made?

So those are three of the things we're going to want to cover in today's episode. What I'm thinking we start with, because there's a couple articles we want to go through.

And I want to play a, this is from PBS NewsHour.

And this is going to deal with Russell Moore, who is no longer part of the

SBC. I have a feeling, but I could be wrong. I may,

I'm not making a prophecy here. But I have a feeling that in our next episode, we may be addressing something that happens at the

SBC next week. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. Maybe nothing will happen.

And it'll be very boring with them having a historic number of messengers that are going to the convention, mostly conservative messengers this time, who woke up to the wokeness of the

SBC. And maybe, maybe we'll have a conservative president now, like a real conservative president, not, you know, conservative in name only.

Yeah, yeah. You're probably right with that not actually prophetic word there.

But yeah, I think there's a multitude of issues that are going to come out of this. And folks need to be in prayer for what's going on next week, because just by virtue of the platform, the size, the footprint of the

SBC in broader evangelicalism, what happens there will have an impact.

So we need to be praying for truth to prevail and the voices of those guys who stand for truth to prevail.

And yeah, we even need to thank the Lord that those who weren't of us are no longer among us.

And I'm not in the SBC either. Yeah, I mean, it'd be good. We'll probably talk about this next week because I'm sure we'll talk about it.

But I think it would have been good for some of the SBC churches that pulled out over the last year or so or two years to have just waited until this one more and give it one last shot.

I know many pastors are doing that. Their churches are seeing if they'll make a change this year. And if not,

I think the SBC is going to have a large number of people or churches that are going to leave.

Go ahead. No, I was going to say, but at the time this thing you're about to play is actually from April. And so you got

Russell Moore, who was at that time president of the ERLC and was SBC. Yeah, yeah.

I've heard that he will deal with that when we deal with the SBC, why he might have stepped down. So this is almost a seven -minute video that we're going to play and chop up.

And this, like I said, is from the PBS NewsHour. And so we're just going to play this and talk about it.

So let me hit play. It would help if I properly – you couldn't hear that.

So I have to change where that goes. So it's one of the things that would be helpful in the setup.

Who does the producing of this show? Oh, me.

Okay. Let's go back to it playing. Here we go. As of today, more than 66 million

Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and many others are eagerly waiting for their shots. But among white evangelical

Americans, interest in the vaccine isn't as widespread. John Yang speaks with one evangelical leader about why that is and what can be done to change it.

Okay. So right off the bat, just so folks know, you see that when you watch news,

I mean, you want to have some critical thinking. And this, what you end up seeing here is the fact that they make statements.

I want you to look at support. Is there support for statements they make? So that's a statement.

There's not widespread interest in Christians getting the vaccine.

One question to ask here, critically, have they looked at any other group or did they just look at Christians and make a conclusion?

So we'll see. Judy, among religious groups, according to the Pew Research Center, white evangelicals are the least likely to say that they intend to get the

COVID vaccine. In Pew's latest survey conducted in mid -February, 45 % of white evangelicals say they definitely or probably would not get vaccinated.

That compares with 30 % of all Americans and 33 % of black Christians, black Protestants. Okay. So looking at that number with this, you have, they're separating white evangelicals, all

U .S. adults, and black Protestants. Now, why do they do this the way they do it?

They're basically, and I don't know how they're defining evangelicals versus Protestants.

Interesting thing. I saw another study that just said 45 % of evangelicals and 33 % of black

Protestants, which makes it interesting because the black Protestants, wouldn't they be in evangelicals? This poll that they have says white evangelicals versus black

Protestants. But with the 33 % of black Protestants, which make up part of the

Christians, they would be in that Christian camp, what you end up seeing is that they would end up being, lowering that 45 % number.

If they just had Christians, remember, what's the argument? We're doing this so you guys can put some critical thinking to this.

If the 45 % and 33%, if you put those into one group, which is the argument they're making,

Christians, they weren't distinguishing in their argument that white Christians are hesitant.

They said Christians. And so what did they do? They are purposely segregating the numbers so that they can make it look that the most, the highest number is amongst evangelicals.

Now, you don't see what they should do when they say all U .S. adults. They don't do a comparison of white versus black.

You don't have in here Asian evangelicals or any other group. Most, when in the media they talk evangelicals versus Protestants, typically the evangelicals are more specifically those

Christians that are more likely to evangelize. That's really where the term came from. But it is the more typically

Christian groups, those that are of denominations or groups of people that would be following with the belief that you get converted to Christ.

Where Protestants, not so much. Protestants have a much wider grouping typically the way the media will do it.

So my question when I look at this is did they have to include black

Protestants so that you have a larger number of non -evangelicals so that they could lower the black number and make it look like the white evangelicals are the problem.

This is the stuff that when you see someone that puts a survey out, if you can't dig into the numbers and look at the survey results directly, you're looking at a graphic as we look at here and go, well, what does this really mean?

Now, when we're using different language like evangelicals versus Protestants, why are they doing that?

My theory might be that the number of black evangelicals are just as high or higher than white evangelicals.

And therefore, they wanted to widen that to include all of the Protestants. And like I said, in some studies that I saw, this didn't have the word white evangelicals.

It was just evangelicals. Now, if that's the case, well, then the black Protestants would be included in white evangelicals.

Kind of an interesting thing. But this is what we apply critical thinking to these things.

We start to see how the media is creating a narrative. Unfortunately, however, there are some who help to encourage the narrative.

Well, let's find out who. Black Protestants, rather. According to Pew, about 17 % of adult

Americans identify as white evangelicals. Reverend Russell Moore. Okay, so 17%.

Now, here's the thing that you end up having. 17%. Because they just gave the 45 % number, it makes it seem like that's an overwhelming number of society.

And then you realize, oh, it's just 17 % of society. So white evangelicals make up for 17%.

By the way, that is the same percentage, roughly, as blacks in America.

Blacks in America, I think, are 18 % or 19 % right now. So you don't see him asking how many blacks are getting vaccinated.

And is there hesitancy there? Just note, what's the focus? White evangelicals.

All right? And you can see that from the way they do things. So now we get to Mr. Russell Moore. He's a white evangelical.

So he's the guy to go to. Makes sense, yeah. Or is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the

Southern Baptist Convention. Reverend Moore, thanks for joining us. First of all, let's get this out of the way. Have you gotten the vaccine?

Yes, I've had both shots. From what you can tell, this skepticism that the polling is capturing among people who identify as white evangelicals, does this have anything to do with religious beliefs?

No, this doesn't have anything to do with religious beliefs. It's instead... Okay, just stop right there.

Interview over. Okay? Does this have anything to do with religious beliefs?

No. So this isn't a Christian issue. Right? I mean, this has nothing to do with Christianity.

So you really, at this point, need to stop and say, okay, what does this get to? What is the reason that white evangelicals are not willing to get the vaccine?

That's what should be asked at this moment. Okay, now, Russell Moore doesn't do as we did and challenge the assumptions made.

Okay? He's not challenging that at all. He's not sitting there and saying, well, I notice you're focusing on white evangelicals to black

Protestants. He doesn't do that. He's not challenging that at all. He's going to further actually endorse that presumption, and this is the problem with guys like Russell Moore, because he's not working toward encouraging that, which is a conservative

Christian, as we can see from many things he's done within the

Southern Baptist Convention. But what we end up seeing here is you don't see him challenging the narrative.

He's going to reinforce the narrative, but this interview should have been over at that moment.

At this moment, once it was said that this is not related to Christian belief, interview over.

But it's not because he had to promote his wokeness. About the mistrust and distrust that's evident in American society right now.

And plus, I think some of it has to do with the fact that we've been isolated from one another in lots of ways for over a year.

Okay, but I got to ask a question. I'm not sure. Was it only white evangelicals that have been isolated for over a year?

I don't think so. So in those places where such onerous restrictions and mandates were forthcoming from the lesser magistrates.

Yeah, I think it was a. Overall, yeah, widespread. So, I mean, we're going to break this down and look at this.

His first argument is false, right? Because it's not, you can't use that to say, this is why white evangelicals, because this is more than white evangelicals.

This was everyone that was shut down. Let's see what his next arguments are. And much of the way that misinformation and disinformation gets combated is with people in conversation with one another.

Okay, so the way information is combated is from being in relation with one another so that they are able to have these conversations, right?

Has he never heard of social media? I was just thinking, you know, the whole 2020 pandemic year.

How many times did you and I talk? How many times did you and I text each other? How many times did we try and persuade one another about a topic or a podcast?

Wow. We had like zero contact. So there was no information misinformation.

Come on. We did like 50 episodes during the pandemic, which isn't really a pandemic.

So his second argument, right, that we weren't able to talk.

Now, it is interesting because it seems that the left was able to talk.

I mean, they were able to communicate for these protests around the country and burning down all the cities.

That was possible, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, they were able to get thousands of people together.

Did they not? Well, there's a priority. Wokeness and the effects of wokeness are at the top and everything else filters down from that.

And that's what you end up seeing here is the second argument he makes doesn't fit because it wasn't the fact that people somehow couldn't communicate.

However, I think the question for Russell is were both sides of the vaccine discussion allowed to have equal time in the limited ways we had to communicate?

I mean, were there groups of people or companies that were shutting down certain discussion about the vaccines?

The discussion that we now know was right about things with this whole virus, whether it was made in a lab or not.

Now, that was supposedly a conspiracy theory when Trump was in office, and now we find out that, yes,

Dr. Fauci, from his own emails, knew it was created in a lab in Wuhan where he helped fund.

Oops. Is that misinformation? Was Fauci lying in his own emails when he said masks don't help prevent viruses?

And then he said they do when he knew that the immunity we get once you get COVID could last the rest of your life.

Was he just mistaken, lying to himself in his own email? This would be the things to ask when we ask critical questions.

And so who's giving the misinformation then? It's like, will the real

Dr. Fauci stand up? Yeah, yeah. So what you end up with is a case where they're saying that because Christians couldn't meet at church, we didn't have people to correct the false narratives that Christians were believing.

Why was it only Christians? That never gets answered here, but let's see.

That's why lots of us are doing what we can to say vaccination is not only something that's acceptable for Christians.

It's something we ought to thank God that we have the technology for, because it's going to get us back to doing the things that we need to do.

Okay. Boy, it's going to take us a while to get through this. All right. We'll never get through this if we break this apart.

Yeah, we'll do a long show. Yeah. So we can get back to doing the things that we need to do quicker, like spread disinformation.

Yeah. Well, here's the thing, and I'm going to say this throughout. How does the vaccine help us get back to normal?

Well, according to President Biden, the way we get back to normal is by taking the vaccine, because we need to protect ourselves and to protect others.

So logical question, critical thinking here, folks. Let's ask the question, does the vaccine protect us and other people?

I mean, that should be a simple question to ask when we're being told that's why we should get the vaccine. So what we know, according to science, like real science, like people who are getting the vaccine, they're still getting

COVID. So what we see is that the vaccine does not protect us against getting

COVID. Okay. Does it protect us against spreading

COVID? No, they've realized that it won't protect against spread of COVID.

Therefore, the vaccine does not protect you or other people.

What the vaccine does is lessen the symptoms if you get

COVID. That's what they're saying it does. And so, therefore, this isn't designed to protect you or others.

It shouldn't get us back to normal. It's an emotional support vaccine.

It just makes you feel warm and fuzzy that you've accomplished something that should be noble when actually you maybe haven't.

It's something that is a placebo. That's really what the vaccine is. Make people, they've got everyone in fear, they had everyone in fear, and now they think this is the only solution.

Instead of just taking hydroxychloroquine, which now is a good thing again. When Trump said it, that was conspiracy theory, you might as well just drink bleach or whatever it was that Pelosi was trying to say he said.

The reality is that as we look at it, the things we were told were conspiracy theory, that they had absolute proof that this was not made in a lab.

We now know they knew that was wrong when they said it. And then they're saying that we're the ones passing misinformation.

I do like where I pause it though on Russell Moore. He looks like he's drunk or something. I don't know, but that's just where you happen to pause it.

That's the effect of the vaccine. That's what happens to everybody. Let's go on. We reached out to some evangelicals in our viewership to ask them about their attitudes toward the vaccine.

One person we heard from is Billy Bryan. He's 49 years old, a teacher in Memphis, Tennessee. He says he's young and healthy and that in his view, what he sees as the potential risks of the vaccine outweigh the risks of COVID.

Let's take a listen to what he said. My real hesitancy though is I just don't really want to see the government or anybody force people to do something that those people feel like is not in their best interest.

So again, if people are comfortable with it, I think the more the merrier. But it does seem like a logical decision to hold off, at least to me individually at this time.

How typical is that, is what he just had to say? And how do you respond to it? Well, I think we have to make very clear the government isn't forcing people to get the vaccine.

Instead, this is something that's in not only our own best interest, but also in that of our neighbors. Okay, so let's deal with that.

Two things there. The argument he just made with this gentleman said he's right to an extent.

The government is not directly forcing people to get the vaccine. Critical thinking.

Is the government indirectly forcing people to get the vaccine? Well, the government has decided that you can't sue the government over the vaccine.

You can't sue the manufacturers over the vaccine. And now you can't sue businesses that force you to take the vaccine if required.

The other thing that we've seen recently is that Biden has come out and said that the states that have a lower vaccine rate are going to have an extra tax.

As he said it, those that don't vaccinate are going to pay the price.

So the government is indirectly forcing the states and businesses to vaccinate.

Because what you have the government doing is saying that the businesses cannot be sued if there's complications, if they force people to get vaccinated.

But if you as an employee go to work and you're not vaccinated, the company can be sued for you not being vaccinated.

So from a business perspective, which one are they going to do? The only protection they have against lawsuit is to require everybody to be vaccinated.

So essentially, Biden is forcing businesses to act as government. And so he's right in the sense that the government's not directly doing it, but they are indirectly doing it and forcing businesses to act as government.

Now let's deal with his other argument. We have to do this for love of neighbor. And you're going to hear this. This is going to be a thing you're going to hear me say over and over again.

Does this protect you or your neighbor? No. The vaccine does not stop you from getting

COVID nor spreading COVID. Therefore, the argument that we have to get the vaccine because we love our neighbor so that they don't get a virus that we can still get and spread after vaccinated is a wrong argument.

Bud, you sent me an article this morning about the cruise ship, 100 % vaccinated. They had to prove they're vaccinated to get on board.

They now have two cases of COVID that people got while on board. And so the reality is,

I'll give you an idea how the government works. You have all these businesses that are being forced with the vaccinations.

And so you have cruise lines that are saying, well, you can't get on a cruise without being vaccinated. And then what do they end up doing?

You end up getting Florida that says, passes a law. It is illegal to ask for a vaccine passport in the state of Florida.

In fact, if you do, it's $5 ,000 per person that is asked. What does the cruise lines do?

They go, well, we have several ports in Florida. That's where most of the Americans go cruising from.

To go to the Caribbean, that's where they usually go out of. So if they can't go out of Florida without asking for passports, because they're going to get fined $5 ,000, they suddenly change their policy.

Some cruise lines said nowhere, but at least some of them said in Florida, you don't need to be asked for a passport.

Everywhere else you do. They're responding to what's in the interest of making money for the business.

The government is making the rules that basically say, okay, we're going to decide how you're going to behave in business.

That's when we have issues is when the government forces businesses.

And why is there the whole mask mandate? There is no such thing as a mask mandate. It's unconstitutional because it violates

HIPAA laws. You cannot have businesses that don't have people without a medical degree requiring people to put on medical devices.

A mask is a medical device. And so to require that becomes a, it's illegal.

Why was it done? Well, because it wasn't the government doing it. It was the government telling businesses to do it. Okay. So let's have a little bit more

Russell Moore. We're halfway through. We have really good scientific data on the vaccines.

And I think some of the hesitancy that we saw in that clip may be overcome just as people start to see their neighbors being vaccinated and to see the fact that this isn't scary.

This is in fact something that's helpful and helpful to protect the people who are the most vulnerable around us. So it's not just about protecting oneself.

Okay. So just listening to that, he admits is basically a placebo. What is the purpose?

His argument, what was the purpose for getting it? Fear. So maybe, maybe the reason that evangelicals are not getting the vaccine is because they're not afraid.

See, now we get to what the real issue is. Why is it that there's not as many evangelicals going out and getting a vaccine?

Because evangelicals are not afraid of the virus because they know that God's in control.

Well, you know, with the statistic that you showed earlier, the 45%, I'm sitting here thinking, my goodness, that is horribly low.

It should have been 85 % for that very reason. You know, we have a hope that others don't.

And you work in all the other issues related to how this came down as, you know, the next bubonic plague.

We're going to have millions of bodies stacked up in the street. And when that didn't come to pass, not denying the legitimacy of the virus, it is a real thing.

But the impact is not at all what the fear mongers promoted.

Correct. Okay. Then the vaccine is kind of a non -question.

You know, and it's interesting that you bring that up, Bud, because as we look at that, when the left talks of evangelicals, it's a broad category.

Right. And Protestants is even broader. But it's broad. That's going to include the

Joel Steen's church type churches. And those would not be people that are going out and evangelizing, right?

Those are not the conservative Christians. And so when you look at this, it's going to include people that by confession would not be

Christian, right? If we looked at confessional documents, they wouldn't be Christian. They wouldn't have a conversion to Christ.

They like to go to motivational speakers on Sunday and feel good about themselves. So here's the thing you end up seeing.

When you have that 45 % number, you have a larger amount of that that wouldn't be what we would typically call evangelical.

But what do people think of with evangelical is not always the Joel Steen types.

It's more guys like you and I that are going out and living our faith. And so they use the language in a way.

It's almost like a fallacy of equivocation. They use the word evangelical two different ways, specifically to the masses to make it seem like these are large numbers of all these different groups.

And yet in the minds of the masses, they're thinking this is more specific to individual types, really conservative

Christians. And so they want everyone to think this is all the conservative Christians.

When they're doing their polling, they're doing this in a wide net. And again, this has nothing to do with loving your neighbor.

He's saying, oh, this is because we want people to see that they've gotten it. And then the vulnerable among us.

If people are vulnerable and they feel that the vaccine is going to help, go get it.

But here's the reality. Many of the people that I know that aren't getting it is because they are vulnerable.

They're vulnerable and they're having issues with heart inflammation, blood clots, things like this.

In fact, the CDC and I sent you this article this morning.

I think you sent it to me first. But I know I think

I had read it online and then put it on Facebook first. It just popped up towards the end of the week last week.

Yeah, whereas the CDC is having an emergency meeting, an emergency meeting.

OK, to deal with the vaccination rates. Why? Cardiac issues, cardiac inflammation, a couple of different conditions there.

But the focus is on the low vaccination rates. And people are and they admitted in this the reason for the emergency meeting.

The reason people aren't getting vaccinated is because of the inflammation and the blood clots.

Because of the side effects. And people are starting to wonder, is it worth taking?

Now, that's a decision people need to make. But here's the thing. You don't hear that being discussed here.

Why? Why could it be that evangelicals are not susceptible with all this that they're saying?

Because we're not people that typically live in fear. And so because we don't have the fear, this whole fake pandemic.

And why do I say a fake pandemic? Because it is a 99 .98 % survival rate.

I just ran the numbers actually in America right now. The number of cases in America, the last seven days is equal to the first seven days that we were recording.

So right now we've gone down to the first week of the pandemic when things were just starting to shut down.

And as we look at the number of cases and the number of deaths, the death rate with this.

And remember, this death rate is exaggerated. A friend of mine whose friend got killed in a motorcycle accident. It was COVID.

So with these numbers, in America, the death rate is 1 .5.

It's kind of interesting because everyone's freaking out over India. India's death rate is 1 .2. But the reality is 1 .5%.

So this is pretty close to influenza levels. They argue it's more contagious.

But how do we know? How do we know it's more contagious than influenza? People always say that. Here's a simple critical thinking.

Simple question to ask. When you get a flu, what do you do, bud? Yeah, usually you quarantine yourself and medicate.

And wow, I stay home in bed and shiver. Yeah, exactly. You stay home. You don't go to work.

But it doesn't get reported anywhere, does it? No, I don't call anybody and tell them. Correct.

So you look at this and say, well, how many people get the flu each year? I have people

I used to work with that literally would have flu after flu after flu all season long.

And they didn't report it anywhere. Yeah, I saw a report a couple weeks ago, which we didn't cite here.

I don't even know where I could find it now. But out of Ohio, where there have been like zero reports of influenza, zero.

Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, because they're all COVID. Exactly, yeah.

And so the thing that you end up seeing is that people only go to have their influenza tracked when they have a bad case and they go to the hospital.

So is it more contagious? I don't think so. I know people that got COVID once, and I know people that have gotten the flu multiple times in a season.

So I just go, okay. We don't even know if it really is more contagious.

But what we do know is that it's not killing people the way that it was supposed, off by a factor of like a thousand.

So the reality is it's not a pandemic. Let's hear more from Russell Moore. And we still got one more article to get to.

So I'm going to have to call an audible. I think that's when people go longer. I don't get all the sports references.

The people we heard from also said, and this is obviously a small sample, but they said that their pastors and their, their churches aren't encouraging them to get the vaccine.

They say it's up to them. It's a personal decision. Do you think pastors and churches should be encouraging it? Okay. Before we get to his answer, notice what in, in, in folks, again, critical thinking, when you listen to people, notice what he says.

He says, although it's a small sampling, he acknowledges that they're making a broad accusation based off of very small sampling.

Why does he do that? Well, that's to protect themselves against lawsuit, right? But the whole thing is evangelical

Christians are to blame for the low vaccination rates. Yeah. And yet he admits. You can create a stereotype when it fits your narrative and support your narrative, because there's definitely an agenda at work here.

Oh, you can, I think you could, you could always find a couple of people that agree with your narrative. Sure. But I think it's important for us as Christians, when we look at something like this, and I'm grateful that you're going through challenging people to think critically about these things is as, as believers, we understand that even behind all of this, there is a spiritual element.

There is an enemy who is the God of this world right now. And what does he want to do? Well, he wants to create division.

So what are we looking at? Oh, the white evangelicals versus the black Protestant. So, you know, we've got to create this dichotomy and, and institute some sort of divisive nature into what presumably is a scientific issue.

So you've got that, but you've also got the whole narrative that we should be living in fear.

Well, you know what? Nowhere do I read in scripture that I'm supposed to be scared by your nightmare.

It's just not something that comes up. Well, maybe you've got an enemy.

When you're responsible for other people's sins, why shouldn't you be afraid for other people's nightmares?

Yeah. Well then moving even further into the wokeness. Yeah. So, so he, so the question he's going to now answer is, should pastors be encouraging this and this becomes, you know, remember as he answers this,

I want to put one thing in your mind. Remember what he said at the beginning, this has nothing to do with religious belief.

The simple thing should be, well, then why should pastors be doing that? Pastors should be focused on religious belief.

But now all of a sudden they want churches to be involved in political things. I always thought they didn't want,

Oh, whatever, whatever happens to separation, church and state. Oh, when it fits their narrative, they want the church to be pushing their agenda.

Why? Because they want the church to divide itself. What does it say in scripture that a kingdom divided amongst itself cannot stand.

They don't want the church to stand. They want the division. Let's hear what Russell Moore says. Well, I think there are a lot of pastors who are, they're doing a vaccination drives in their congregations.

They're they're helping people to understand what can be gained. So for instance, many evangelical churches have vacation

Bible school every summer to say, we'll be able to gather together for vacation, Bible school to do mission trips to do youth community outreach and so forth.

And the minister to the elderly among us who are often the most isolated in assisted living facilities and nursing homes and other places.

We want to get those grandmothers and grandfathers together with their, their grandchildren. And so I think talking about the positive aspects of vaccination is, is the way to go.

Okay. So notice what he said is the answer. The same thing we said earlier about how government gets businesses to, to act as government and force their way.

Yeah. What's he saying? Oh, churches should say, Hey, if you're going to, if you want to do this, then you're going to need to, you know, tell those people,

Hey, you want to be involved in VBS? You need to get vaccinated. You want to, you want to do ministry in the church, get vaccinated.

You, you want to help the elderly get vaccinated. In fact, I know of someone that their church, they're actually going to go.

They told me this weekend, they need to go find a new church. Why? Because their church just put out a statement that said, if you have not been vaccinated, you're going to be secluded to a different area of the church.

You're not allowed to fellowship with anybody. You must wear a mask and social distance and you're there.

You're going to be limited in what things you could do to serve the church because you're not going to be allowed to fellowship or be around anybody in the church.

You have to be in a separate area from the rest of the church. Segregation. I always thought segregation was supposedly wrong in this country, right?

I believe it's wrong. I guess it's only wrong. If the certain people say, I mean, so all the people that were against the whites in the

South and I, I would be have be against the segregation that occurred in the South, but all those people that are supporting this and then we're against the segregation of the

South. There's a word for that. What is that? What is that? Yeah.

Hypocrite. That's it. Yeah. So I'm against all segregation period, but here's you have a couple that's got a, that has to make the decision.

They haven't been vaccinated. They're not going to get vaccinated. And because of health concerns, basically we are the

Guinea pigs for this vaccination folks. We are the Guinea pigs. We know that I posted on Facebook, something about this, you know, that they're, that they're having to do all the study.

Now they're trying to figure out what this emergency meeting will, because all these heart inflammations, that's because they didn't do the years of research.

They rushed it out. And so that's the issue.

Churches are now being used to push political agenda. This is all about getting vaccinated.

Who makes money? Oh, Dr. Fauci, the major stockholder of Moderna who never had a vaccine out before the

COVID vaccine. And, and we can't take it, ignore the fact that China was working on a vaccine before COVID escaped the lab.

Well, wait a minute. Why would they work on a vaccine? They figure one day it might accidentally get into a wet market where people might eat a bat in a wet market that they, studies seem to say that there were no bats to be eaten, but anyway, it must've escaped somehow.

Or, or could it be that as Dan Bongino says that this is a biological weapon and that was released.

I mean, if we're going to be honest and take a look at China's numbers, according to China's numbers, they haven't had any vaccine cases since like last

April for over a whole year. They haven't had any cases. They had like two weeks and then gone.

What happened there? I mean, either they're lying about their numbers or they somehow magically have a fix for their people.

Hmm. You know, you got to ask the questions. That's what we're doing here. Let's listen to more

Russell, more get the rest of this other than seeking to scold people. Is there, for instance, when you got your vaccine, did you, was there any backlash or any negative reaction from, from, from friends and other pastors?

Not from friends and other pastors. There's always going to be some people online. And I think a lot of this is driven by social media where, where people are going to suggest, oh, well this is a part of some dark conspiracy or this is going to get someone sick.

And we have adequate data on all of that. And that's okay. I got to stop and wait a minute.

He just said, yeah, he just contradicted what he said earlier. Didn't he earlier?

Yeah. It's because we're all secluded. We don't have the information, but we have social media to be able to get this out there.

This folks, this is how you see someone that's got a narrative and not the truth because he just contradicted himself.

He just said that the way that, that there's always people on social media saying these things, but we have overwhelming data that has been posted on social media.

And if you pose an opposing view, it's taken down. Now just think about all those doctors that when

COVID started, they were saying that the shutdown is going to be worse, that wearing masks is going to be worse.

It's going to make it worse. Here's all the science behind it. Here's the science to show that it was from a lab.

Here's the science that shows you'll get immunity if you get it. All that was conspiracy theory.

And now what are we starting to hear? The very things that people's careers were ended over claimed as conspiracy theory.

Now that seems to be true. It's amazing how science changes the way it does, you know?

And so he's going to appeal to the overwhelming science that we have, which science, Russell Moore, the science that has been censored that now is that was conspiracy theory.

And now it's true. Or are you still going to go with the science that keeps that's changing their, their, the argument.

I'll stick with the guys that haven't changed. The guys that are saying that this was something created in a lab that was, that is dealt with, that you can get hydroxychloroquine.

And that's those scientists haven't changed at all. The other ones that said it was so bad and now saying, yeah, now hydroxychloroquine.

Yeah, that's a good thing to do. I mean, there's just so many cliches that have surrounded all of this nonsense.

You know, we're all in this together. The other one though, follow the science. Well, here we're at the point where you better be thinking critically and as a believer, you should be empowered to do that because you don't want to just follow the science because obviously the science shifts.

What you want to do is follow the truth and we can see those are two completely different pursuits.

Yeah. All right. Let's see if we can get through the rest of the Russell Moore here. One of the reasons why one of the things that I did early on was to do a webinar with Francis Collins, a director of the national institutes of health, just going through every conceivable sort of a conspiracy theory and every conceivable sort of fear.

Okay. Notice what he said there, every conceivable conspiracy theory. Remember this was

April that he did this. This was before what we now know the things that are called conspiracy theories actually are right.

So, you know, this is the thing he's saying that all this information is out there, but he's only been listening to one side and he's only promoting one side.

He's promoting the side that's being allowed in the media. He, Oh, we looked at every conspiracy theory except now those conspiracy theories are called science.

Amazing. To counter those things. And so I think there, there are some people who are not anti -vaccine.

They just hear some of the rumbles going on around on social media and they wonder, is this all right? Is this safe? Many of them

I think will eventually come around. Yeah. Now maybe what Russell Moore should do is actually listen to both sides of the science and see, because what you end up seeing is you have the scientists and you have the politicians.

Dr. Fauci is not a doctor in the sense of that we think of where he's seeing patients. He's not a doctor in the sense where he is doing the research.

He is a politician. He is someone who runs a company that works with government that does research.

He doesn't do the research. They do it. So he's getting his information from politicians who used to be doctors, but there's a difference there.

Francis Collins, of course, a Christian himself, a very fervent Christian himself is I take it from what you're saying that a government push to try to reach evangelical

Christians could actually backfire. Well, it could, it gets too heavy handed. I think that the, the emphasis ought to be on what's possible.

If we, if we get vaccinated in large numbers, the way that we actually can get back to, we disagree on so many things in American life right now, and we're at each other's throats on so many things, but there are some things that we actually can agree on.

And part of that is we want to be together again. We want to be able to get as close back to normal as we can. And that's probably especially true for people who are religious communities because we believe we ought to be congregated together.

And so I think emphasizing the positive is the best, the best way to go. The Reverend Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist convention.

Thank you very much. All right. So there we go. We, we have frustrating, but yes.

So, you know, would you end up seeing there at the end is, you know, basically he ended up saying if the government is too heavy handed, if the government's too heavy handed, it could backfire.

That becomes an interesting one because the whole thing you end up seeing is the government is now trying to step into churches.

That's the whole thing of this. Should the government come in and force churches to get vaccinated? Notice they always argue for a separation church and state when it comes to the church influencing the government, which is exactly what the separation church and state was meant for was so that the government wouldn't influence the church, but the church could still influence government.

They've reversed that and said the church can no longer influence government, but government should be able to influence the church.

That's really what this comes down to any comments before we get to the next article, but you want to make about our dear beloved

Russell Moore. Well, those are your words, not mine.

No, I think, you know, you have really, one of the things that is disturbing about evangelical

Christians, even those that are trying to be biblical, you know, discernment is not something that you just sit in the pew and apply to the guy that's preaching at you with regards to the doctrine that he's teaching.

Discernment is a quality of life that we are to exhibit in all things. So if you listen to this and you aren't applying discernment, you're not applying critical thinking.

You're going to be deceived by it. There is a, there is a motive. There is an enemy behind all this that intends for you to be deceived and intends for this kind of data to be divisive all while being couched and slathered with noble and godly language.

You got to look past that. You've got to think through this. So yeah, Russell Moore is just being

Russell Moore. Yeah. And, and what we end up seeing in this is here's, here are people who are sitting there saying they're, they're speaking for evangelicals, they're speaking for Christians, but did you notice he, he ennixes that right from the beginning?

I mean, but it really does make me wonder when I, when I look at a guy like Russell Moore making these arguments, contradicting himself the way he does, it makes me wonder how he could sleep at night, you know, actually, you know, one way he could sleep a little better, bud is if he just would get a, my pillow mattress topper.

I got, I got to tell you, but I, I got this recently. I got a, my pillow mattress topper, and I'm actually looking forward to going to sleep.

I mean that seriously, you know, I don't sleep much. Yeah. I've actually been getting a great sleep.

Even after all the vaccine misinformation you've been spreading, it helps you sleep. Yes. Yes. That's right.

All that information, misinformation I'm spreading, I sleep better on my, my pillow mattress topper, maybe because it's made in America by Americans, you know, but no, it is, it is comfortable.

I got to tell you, son, I was concerned, you know, it wasn't cheap. And I was like, you know, really do.

I had a friend of mine in church. He was like, yeah, I don't know that I'd want to spend, you know, and with the promo code that we have

SFE, I it's, I think it's like 25 % off.

So it's, it's not a cheap, it's like I think $300 and you go, that is a lot of money, but if you want a good sleep and if you're someone that doesn't sleep well, my wife doesn't sleep well.

And she is, so keeping my wife happy, happy wife, happy life. Okay. She's getting a good sleep.

She's I'm happy because she's happy. But I'll tell you something. I have been loving that it is so comfortable.

And so, you know, my, my one friend at church was like, you know, I can't see spending that much money on a mattress topper.

You don't even get to feel. So he volunteered to come over with his most grimy clothes, sweaty and lie down on my bed and test it out.

I just said, you know, they have a money back guarantee. But folks, if you want to try out the, my pillow mattress topper, they do have a sale going on.

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If you have not had a, my pillow, my wife and I went down to Indianapolis for the cruciform conference, both of us traveling with our, my pillows.

So our, you know, our, our travel, our luggage is becoming mostly just pillows, sleeping stuff, because we've, it is so hard for us to sleep without it.

But when you get used to that, the, that comfort and you go to a hotel, and it's just not as comfortable,

I can't take my mattress topper. I'm tempted. I was tempted, but I didn't, that would take up the entire suitcase.

That'd be really funny. Just seeing me like take off that, undo the bed at the hotel and put the mattress topper on.

Let's not go there. All right. So, but let, let's get to, and I should give away the number for folks.

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SFE. And maybe sometime on a future show, I'll, I'll describe the topper what makes it so, so cool.

Why I like it so much because I have a description there. So let's, let's do, there is a article from Ed Stetzer.

So this is someone who is from Wheaton college. And so he, he put out an article and the title of it is some evangelical spread falsehoods about COVID vaccines while the world is desperate.

Okay. Just looking at the title. Okay. What you see is you have right off the bat, a poisoning of the well fallacy.

What is a poisoning of the well fallacy? Actually we, we have a, we have a thing for when we talk about logical fallacies.

Let me play that jingle. All right.

So we're going to name that fallacy. It is poisoning the well fallacy poisoning. The well fallacy is when you say something right off the bat that is to basically poison the well of everything you're going to say after it.

So if someone makes an argument, you can, you say something that will basically say, well, everything that's being said is false in this way.

It's a poisoning the well, because what you're trying to do is make the argument that everything is so desperate. So if you disagree, if you are against vaccines, you are trying to cause this, the, the, the pandemic, you're, you want to further the pandemic.

You could stop the pandemic just by getting a vaccine that doesn't stop you from getting it or spreading it.

That's not important. You're contributing to the desperation by not getting the vaccine. And he actually makes the argument there that you can, you, you would be prolonging the pandemic.

So. Directly. So, so, and folks, all the, all the articles that we're talking about will be in the show notes.

You'll have access to them. So as we look at this, you know,

I almost am tempted to read through this whole thing. Well, I know because, you know, when we listened to the thing from Russell Moore, that was

April, this is June the second, this is about 10 days ago from the time this is going to be broadcast.

So, so this is recent, but it is continuing the same narrative that you've already heard with very little twist, but a little more emphasis on some things.

Yeah. And, and so as, as we go through this, I mean, I just, I want you to realize this, there's an agenda behind all this and we have to recognize that.

I mean, look at how it is. It's some evangelicals, not all evangelicals.

So it's just some of the bad ones. Right. But I, I'm just going to read from the article. Maybe we'll read the whole thing in the end.

Well, I was going to say, we, we can kind of run through it. I'll tell you what, why don't you stop and yeah.

Why, why don't you, why don't you read I'm going to, I'll let you read it and then I'll stop you or you stop yourself when we get something we got to talk about.

So go for it. Okay. So again, this is published June the second Ed Stetzer on a recent call with more than a dozen global evangelical leaders.

And after hearing reports from an Indian leader, I mentioned that one of my recent social media posts on vaccine vaccines had provoked a strong and mostly negative reaction.

One of the leaders on the call echoed the view of the group. He couldn't understand the attitude among Christians, neither.

Okay. Let's stop there. Now, is this directly a

Christian thing? No. I mean, we we've already seen that before, but there's, there's nothing there's nothing specific to Christianity.

There's no Bible verse that says thou shalt not take a vaccine. Now here's a simple question just to, to ask are

Jehovah witnesses taking the vaccine? No, Jehovah witnesses will probably have a hundred percent non -vaccination rate because they don't believe in, in doing medicine period.

So if we're going to really look at the group that is, you know, has the highest unvaccinated rate, why don't they look at Jehovah witnesses?

Oh, simple or dirty little secret. They're grouped in the evangelical category.

Yeah, that's right. So when, when they're saying this, they're going to group people like Christian science, like Jehovah witnesses and others who do not take a vaccine based on a religious belief.

And then they come to the conservative evangelicals and say, it's, it's your issue. Those that are really evangelical and say, we'll see, because we've, we've created this broad category of evangelical that we use.

We're going to say, this is your problem. I mean, really, and this is sad to say, say it somewhat rhetorically, they really should be targeting the

Jehovah witnesses because those folks have knocked on my door. And I've never had somebody from the

SBC church down the street and knock on my door. They're out there. They're engaging with people. It's a, it's a problem.

Now they did do, we got some funny letters from Jehovah witnesses during the midst of the alleged pandemic.

Anyway, let me carry on with the article. The idea that some evangelicals are spreading misinformation about the vaccines while the majority of the world is desperate for them.

It's hard to understand yet. We have to understand it to address it. Evangelical Christians need to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem as we all worked in the greatest global crisis of our lifetime.

Okay. There is so much there, but another hour, we were one hour in, we might go for two.

This will be a longer show, but I do want, I mean, some of the repetition here is so that you understand how widespread this is and how easy it is to answer.

So the greatest global crisis of our lifetime, a 99 .98

% survival rate. Just, just keep that in your mind.

And that rate goes up 200 % if you take hydroxychloroquine.

Okay. That's the science folks. You can go do the research if you're allowed to, because now we're like, it's really kind of funny.

Now the same people that were saying this was all conspiracy theory are posting articles from the people that they work to get offline with the conspiracy theory.

Yeah. Cause there's a recent study that shows hydroxychloroquine 200 % improves, you know, if you have

COVID. So, and during, during this supposed pandemic, people couldn't even get hydroxychloroquine for lupus, which

I know people that had been taking hydroxychloroquine for a decade and they can't get it.

Why? Cause Trump said it's good. Therefore it's bad. And here's the real interesting thing.

Their argument on why, cause people are being challenged now. You said this was conspiracy theory. Why are you saying now that it's, it's science?

What was the change? And if folks, if you haven't heard this, the reason for the change is because they're saying, because Trump said it,

I mean, Trump says such outrageous things. You can't believe anything Trump says. So therefore if Trump said it, we just assumed it was conspiracy theory.

What are they saying? Folks? We never checked the science. Okay. So when they said it was science and they had absolute fact on this and believe the science and follow the science.

Now they're saying, well, it's just because Trump said it and everything Trump said was a lie. Turns out

Trump was more accurate than these guys. Trump was right on all this stuff and they were the ones telling the lies, but trust them now.

Take their word for it. Hey, if you attack Fauci, you're attacking science. That's right.

The question is which science, the science he said before, like the science of his emails where he said all these things like masks don't help or the science that when he stood up and said, well,

I had to wear a mask because I needed to, I was a public figure. And you'd be able to see that I'm supportive of this while saying it was science.

So it isn't the greatest crisis of our lifetime. It's, it's a flow back to Ed. And by the way, what we're giving is just science.

We're not, I mean, he's saying it's misinformation. This is the misinformation that's now accepted. Yeah. No, correct.

I mean, and, and realize this is Ed Stetzer, Wheaton college Christianity today, 10 days ago.

All right. Continuing. Well, and in, in MSNBC six days ago, this particular article is all over the place.

It popped up USA today, MSN. I mean, but the reason the date's important is because Fauci emails have already been out.

Yeah. Right. We already know that the misinformation came from Fauci and the others that were pushing this big tech that was pushing this.

So when they talk about the misinformation, it wasn't from the evangelical Christians, it wasn't from the doctors that were canceled.

It is from Fauci and the others who are pushing the pandemic. We know that Andrew, but the fact is your misinformation works for you and my misinformation works for me.

And then how it's supposed to go. That is right. That, that, you know, that is just answers everything.

Doesn't it? All right. Misinformation could prolong the pandemic. Really? All right. Quote, we know that most people of all faiths and of no faith are planning on being vaccinated.

Okay. Stop right there. If they are planning on it, why do we move forward? Yeah. Okay. So let the few, most of them are going to do it.

So let the few not you, you know why they're doing this article? Because only a third of Americans have, and all of a sudden the vaccination rates are dropping.

Yeah. And, and, and you know, Biden has got to get his number that he would get, you know, two thirds vaccinated, you know, in his first year.

The reality is the reason for this is because people are going, are seeing the results of the, us being treated as Guinea pigs and they're going, wait a minute, people are dying from it.

People are having all kinds of health complications and oh, the science is now saying that if you get

COVID you're, you could be immune for life. Well then if I already had COVID, why should I get the vaccine? People are asking that.

It's a good question to ask because you're not, this doesn't prevent you from getting it and it doesn't prevent you from spreading it.

What does the vaccine do? If you think you're in a low risk category of getting, of having serious complications of it, like children, why get it?

Yeah. Continuing quote, however a sizable minority of U S Christians have fallen into misinformation that could indeed prolong the pandemic here in the

United States and around the world. Not every single concern is unwarranted, but many come from misinformation or misunderstanding.

Put simply, it is time for evangelicals to get their facts on the vacs. Okay. So here is what you were said earlier.

Clearly point blank saying that Christians are the cause of prolonging the pandemic, but notice what he has to say.

He says in here, a sizable minority. Yeah. Minority. I'm trying to work through that.

Yeah. So, so this is a minority that is, and what you end up seeing is he's got to say that so that he protects himself.

But the reality is if it's a minority of people, then why the issue?

And is it the evangelicals that have to get their facts on the vacs or maybe it's Ed who needs to get his facts on the vacs because the facts are coming out.

And that's why they're having an emergency meeting this week at the CDC to figure out how to get people vaccinated.

Not now, now here's the thing. Remember, they said this thing was safe. They did all this testing and it is safe and there, people can get the vaccine now that they're finding, you know, a sizable minority of people who are having heart issues and a sizable minority that are getting blood clots.

So Pfizer, and when you have the Pfizer and Moderna, there's a sizable number of minority people who are getting inflamed hearts and causing heart complications.

The Johnson and Johnson when a sizable minority are getting blood clots. Now you don't see them saying these people with a sizable minority of health issues need to just get their facts straight.

Undo your health issue. No, the vaccine caused it because it hadn't been properly researched.

It doesn't have the years and years and years of study. It was rushed. And it was rushed to push up a political issue.

The reality is, is everyone was told the vaccine is the thing that will get us back to work.

Everyone was in a rush to get a vaccine, to probably turn a blind eye to any complications with it, because we got to get it out so people can get back to normal life rather than just giving the facts that this is 99 .98

% recoverable for, you know, it's like almost a hundred percent recoverable for people under 30.

So the reality is, okay, we are, we deal with the older population, but one of the things that's happening is people in the younger, young men are starting to have heart issues.

Younger men are starting to have watching young men and women becoming infertile. So we look at all this and we can't ignore the fact that guys like Bill Gates have been funding all this stuff.

And he's been for years saying we need to reduce the population. Well, guess what? You come up with a vaccine that creates infertility and guess what?

You're going to reduce the number of people on earth. Now here's the irony, bud. You know, if that theories, you know, the conspiracy theory that people have that Bill Gates is behind it all.

And, and you're trying to reduce population and that this is a Chinese bioweapon to reduce population.

You know, it's kind of interesting. It's, it would be the Christians that don't, that fear

God and not man. Don't fear a virus that are not getting it. You'd have all the unbelievers dying out or not having kids and you'd have the believers left.

Hey, you know what? Maybe there is post -millennialism. Maybe right. What do you know, bud? The Lord's going to prevail.

We just have to be patient and faithful. Where's Drew from matter of theology. We, we got

Drew, we got your argument. Give me a call, man. Come on. All right.

In a recent study by the ad council in partnership with the national association of evangelicals, a majority of evangelicals, 57 % were found to have taken or intend to take the vaccine while encouraging this lagged behind the over three quarters, 77 % of non -evangelicals.

Moreover, white evangelicals were twice as likely than evangelicals of color to rule out the vaccine entirely 30 % to 15%.

Okay. Now, now look at that. These numbers again, right? Because here again, the numbers don't seem to be adding up when they keep doing these numbers.

That's the thing I find so interesting. Yeah. So, you know, you're, you're having now the majority of evangelicals, 57%.

Yeah. Okay. So this is the total number and, and out of this three quarters of non -evangelicals.

Hmm. So, so lagging behind is the, the over three quarters of non -evangelicals.

So the non -evangelicals are 77%. It gets confusing. Is that, does that mean that, you know, 77 % are non -evangelicals.

The rest of the country is evangelicals. You believe those numbers? No, that doesn't match what we've already looked at.

30, 33 % to 15. That's kind of interesting. That's white compared to evangelicals of color.

Where the other one was 47 to 33. We are narrowing down the focus here.

Yeah, exactly. And to get the numbers to work for what they want.

Yeah. That's how this game is played. In the face, continuing in the face of growing hesitancy, we evangelicals need to talk and tell the truth to one another.

A great place to start Christian seeking to combat vaccine hesitancy is in the wealth of information testifying to the safety of vaccinations.

Well, that's bud. That is what we're doing here. I mean, we're talking to evangelicals telling the truth to one another about the vaccine and the safety or lack thereof.

Okay. What, what's the safety? Well, what does it do? Does it stop me from getting COVID? No. Does it stop me from spreading

COVID? No. What does it do? It reduces the case if I get COVID and have it not had

COVID before. The reality is I think the reason the numbers are coming down because I believe most

Americans now have had COVID. And so they're immune to it. Yeah.

And the argument is, Oh, in India, they're having widespread COVID over there because now all of a sudden there's a new strain.

Well, the reality is if you actually look at the numbers of COVID over there, actually, you know, I wish I could do this because we're only audio, but if you go and you look at the numbers, they haven't had the bumps like we had, we had two major bumps in America, black lives matter protest.

We had a huge spike then. And then after the election, we had a huge spike then

India didn't have that. They have their huge spike now. So, well, that big spike at grace community church in LA.

Oh, wait, no, that three people. That's right. Three out of 9 ,000. You're right. That's that's a problem.

All right. Continuing. We know that people listen more readily to people like them, even when it is uncomfortable, we need to help overcome this vaccine hesitancy for our own good and for the good of our neighbors.

I'm going to say it again. That's repetitive. I know the repetitive is, is it for my own good?

No, it doesn't prevent me from getting the virus. Is it for the good of my neighbors? No, it doesn't help prevent me from spreading the virus.

You know, this week I, I was there, what 65 of us that got together, had a zoom meeting with John MacArthur and he was just encouraging us to, to stand strong coming right from this still standing conference at, at cruciform.

It was good to hear. And, and what was he doing? Giving some details of, of this supposed pandemic we were having, we're doing exactly what

Ed is asking to be done and saying, how does the church deal with it? And I'll be listening when, when this drops later today from when this drops,

John MacArthur has a sermon that he's going to be doing that for us, but it'll be tomorrow.

But for those listening to this, when it drops, it'll be today. He's got a special sermon. He was telling us about that.

He's going to deal with how do Christians deal with this stuff? How do we prepare for persecution and things like that?

And then they will, they're working on, on creating some resources for pastors to be able to help their congregation disseminate truth from a biblical perspective.

So we, we do have people, we do have evangelicals trying to do this. The, the issue is, and I want people to realize this, there are churches doing exactly what he's saying that we're talking, telling the truth to one another.

The issue for Ed and others is they've been listening to one side and they say that is truth when they haven't seen all the evidence or listened to both sides and realized that no, what you said was true a year ago, you knew was not true.

Therefore we will stick with the people who hadn't had to change their mind, hadn't had to change their arguments because they were saying the same thing because it was true, true, not political truth, but actual science truth.

No, I would just comment that you need, you need to really recognize that this isn't, these guys like Stetzer and Moore, they're not appealing to all this on the basis of Romans 13.

They may argue that, but that's not really it. Because even before this happened, these guys are being motivated by the political alliances that they yield to and that they support.

So you've got this behind whatever narrative you're hearing from them. You need to recognize this.

This is not primarily a matter of faith for them. It's a matter of politics, posturing and power.

So, you know, question everything. There used to be a time that the liberals used to encourage people being, applying critical thinking and applying skepticism to things.

I find it interesting that, you know, ever since they pulled off their coup, they don't want any kind of skepticism.

You know, they've gotten the power they wanted. And now all of a sudden we shouldn't question anything, even when the evidence points otherwise.

Yeah. All right. Continuing with Stetzer, quote, while conspiracy theories grab attention, there are thousands of quality resources available for Christians who want, who honestly want answers to tough questions.

These resources are not likely to convince true conspiracy believers, but it might help the unsure and uncertain to believe their doctor and maybe their pastor.

Okay. So here's the interesting thing. What has been the argument is that we follow the science, that we got to get our information from scientists, from doctors.

Who does he want to push the agenda? Pastors. Yeah. Interesting. When it's convenient for the argument, pastors should be making the argument.

You should be trusting your pastor should be telling the truth. So people will trust in that. This paragraph you just read is so packed with ways of trying to understand how media tries to influence your thoughts.

And that's why this one would be good to kind of break up. First off, he talks conspiracy theories. So what do you immediately do?

If you're not believing enough, it's good to take a vaccine. You're immediately thinking, well, I'd be a conspiracy theorist.

I'm a wacko. I'm a Looney Tunes guy. He's saying that there's good resources. However, there's a lot of resources that were taken off.

This will probably, if we put this up on YouTube, it'll probably be taken down. I have a friend of mine who had someone on his show talking about vaccines removed.

We have a YouTube video that was removed by Dr. Tenpenny because she spoke against the vaccines.

It was removed by YouTube or Google because it was spreading disinformation.

So the reality is they've decided what is disinformation and not doctors, tech companies.

They've decided what you can and cannot see. So when he says that there's resources out there, well, there are resources.

But once we have censorship, we can't get to all the resources anymore. They're being taken down.

Now, where do you find them? Go over to Rumble and Odyssey. That's where our videos are starting to go to Odyssey, where it's setups because we know

YouTube's going to take all this down. So that's what we've done is we have a backup. And one day we'll just switch everything over there.

Well, he continues kind of on that same thought regarding the pastor's influence. Quote, beyond trusting medical expertise, evangelicals need to hear that vaccine hesitancy runs contrary, not only to the consensus of medical professionals, but also among their movement's leaders.

Even leaders who traditionally have at times had public disagreements with one another have united around the importance of vaccinations.

Okay, wait, wait, we're just a movement? Yeah, well, you know. I didn't know that.

So we're just like Black Lives Matter. Let's go down and protest. See, this is what tells me

Ed doesn't know what Christianity is. Ed does not know the gospel.

Yeah. Even leaders who traditionally at times had public disagreements with one another have united around the importance of vaccinations.

In a high -profile example, Franklin Graham pointed to the parable of the Good Samaritan as evidence that he believed

Christ would get the vaccine. Going further, Graham reflected on the suffering caused by the pandemic he had witnessed firsthand before imploring

Christians to talk with their doctors and get vaccinated. Similar statements have poured out.

Let me just mention something real quick with this. The reason he doesn't actually lay out Franklin Graham's argument is because we would then take it apart.

Yeah. And even real evangelical Christians would go, oh, wait, you're twisting that.

But continue. Yes. Similar statements have poured out from other evangelicals, including

Robert Jeffress, National Association of Evangelical Chairman John Jenkins, and Southern Baptist President J .D.

Greer. The unified voice of church leaders is calling for Christians to trust their doctors.

Hey, wait. How many of those three went woke? I was about to say,

I don't trust these guys with doctrine. You think I'm going to listen to them on medicine? Yeah. If you can't get right your area of expertise, why are we going to trust you in an area that's not your expertise?

Exactly. I mean, by virtue of having a platform, you do not get to become an expert. But that's what happens.

It's such a celebrity -driven, platform -driven kind of thing. But no. If you're a

Christian, you read that, you better reject it. That's ridiculous. At the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, we have partnered with the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to answer commonly asked questions about the vaccines, talk to three globally known vaccine experts who are also evangelical

Christians, and have encouraged pastors to lead and encourage their congregations to get vaccinated.

Most recently, This is on the notice. Okay. Look at the article.

He mentions Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffries, J .D.

Greer, John Jenkins. Who does he not mention? The three

Christians that happen to be experts in the field. Right? He doesn't mention them.

Who are those three people? Are they people that we can actually check their credentials? No, because he didn't provide their names.

Nameless experts are typically not experts. But you're going to partner with the

Center for Disease Control? I mean, this would be like a Jewish synagogue in Berlin partnering with the

Reichstag Ministry of Propaganda. I mean, come on.

Well, well, well, that has happened. His name was George Soros. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Let's go down to love in the time of coronavirus.

Nearly every denomination agrees that loving your neighbor lies at the heart of the Christian faith. Okay. We've dealt with this argument before, right?

And again, this isn't a love your neighbor issue. Because if I get the vaccine, I do not prevent the spread of the virus.

I don't know. I've said this a half a dozen times already. Why? Because these two points, folks, if you just get these two points, you destroy every argument for the vaccine.

Every argument for the vaccine is protect yourself and protect others. Love your neighbor. But the vaccine does not protect you from getting

COVID, and it does not prevent you from spreading COVID. All it does is lessen the symptoms if you get it.

Well, now you have the question, is the risk of taking this, which with unknown circumstance, we don't know what it's going to do to people.

And we're seeing large cases of people where it has it having a bad influence on them, bad effect. Am I willing to just run the risk of getting

COVID and, and hoping for a mild case and being done with it? Folks, what do we do?

But what do we do when we have kids and one kid gets chicken pox? Did you, as a kid, did you, you have a brother or sister that got chicken pox?

No, I was a, I was a solo. You're a solo. So, okay. But I know people with kids that have had, and they have chicken pox parties.

Yeah, exactly. My mother made me hang out with my brother. Once he got chicken pox, we all had to be with him because if you get chicken pox, when you're younger, you get the immune to immune to it.

And you don't have to worry about it when you get older, getting shingles. And so my mother wanted us all to be around my brother.

So we'd all get it. I got a minor case done. And that's the whole thing with it is you want to get it where you don't have, you know, hope for a minor case and you're done and you don't get it.

So people are saying, maybe we should do that with COVID. Just get it, be done with it and move on.

Now, if the vaccine doesn't prevent you from getting it or spreading it, you have to make the decision individually.

Is the risk worth it? In other words, taking a vaccine that we haven't fully vetted. Is that worth getting

COVID with the majority of people going, Hey, I'm in an age bracket and a bracket where I don't have other issues.

We're getting COVID. I'll get over it in a week or two and be done. He continues quoting the

Protestant reformer, Martin Luther said at best arguing that quote, a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor.

Otherwise he is not a Christian. Okay. What he's doing there is saying that if you don't get the vaccination, you're not a

Christian. Yeah. Denying ourselves. I want people to see that subtlety. That's the whole thing. I want people to start looking at this stuff with critical thinking and logically.

Yeah. I mean, this is, this is so nuanced and it requires discernment, but you do have to be able to think critically through these kinds of things.

Cause he's just torching. This is just terrible. Denying ourselves is woven through the fabric of the

Christian faith. It is the persistent and unyielding calling to love one and one and love others.

Even at our least as determined, I think he means detriment. Despite this importance, discerning how to love your neighbor can be more difficult than it appears.

Indeed. This has been one of the defining challenges for Christians during COVID -19 pastors and church leaders have struggled at times, even been at odds with one another over this question.

Now this is a wonderful text in his letter to the

Galatians. The apostle Paul details at length, how faith in Christ frees us from sin, guilt, and shame.

Yet he cautions his readers that even in this freedom, the calling on Christians is not to use their freedom as an opportunity for doing wrong quote, but through love, serve one another

Galatians five 13 cutting through the webs of misinformation and politicization vaccines are a clear opportunity for Christians to live this calling out.

We have a safe medical option recommended by experts and supported by religious leaders that will contribute to the holistic health of our community.

In essence, we have an opportunity to serve one another. We can protect ourselves and love our neighbors.

Let's get the medical, practical, and theological facts about the VAX and let's lead in the fight against misinformation.

Yeah. All right. So cutting through the webs of misinformation of politicalization, well, wait a minute, you're supporting the side that is politicizing this, right?

And see this, this whole article is politicizing. And so right off the bat, he cuts himself out, right?

The reality is, is that when you have people that are, because he says vaccines are clear opportunity for Christians to live out the call and calling a what loving your neighbor for doing something that doesn't actually love your neighbor.

Oh, I love my neighbor by helping them, overcome their fear. Well then I don't need to get the VAX. I just need to walk around without a mask.

So they think I'm vaxxed because it's all about their fear, right? Isn't that what it would be? It's just their fears.

Yeah. We have a safe medical option. How do we know we have a safe medical option when any, any science that contradicts what's being politicized is evaporated from the big tech.

Yeah. You're not allowed. Well, I mean a safe medical option, uh, the emergency meeting next week at the

CDC for the side effects that they're now getting reported to them. Hmm. Yeah. Safety.

See, see now here's the thing. They talk about the minority of, of Christians, not willing to get the vaccine.

They don't talk about the minority of people that are having health issues or dying from the vaccine.

Yeah. And so maybe the reason that people aren't getting the vaccine is they don't see the medical benefit to it since it doesn't protect them or others.

And this is the thing they're not looking at. Okay. And recommended by experts who cares?

Uh, Christian experts. Yeah. If you ask enough people, you'll find somebody that'll tell you what you want to hear.

Exactly. And the reality is when you, when big tech is censoring, anyone that disagrees with their propaganda, yes, you're going to find people that recommend it because the only voice out there, all other voices are being silenced.

Therefore you only have one option and that's the, that's the reality of what ends up happening.

Uh, you know, we'll contribute to the holistic health of our community. Well, what's the evidence for that?

Don't have it. Um, I do think it's, and you were chuckling, let's get our medical practical and theological facts about the facts.

Help me understand what is the theological fact here? Because the only one he used is love thy neighbor, which the

VAX doesn't do. Well, I'm sorry, Andrew, Martin Luther, the reformer said, you don't do this kind of thing.

You're not a Christian. Um, obviously it's theological. Yeah. Except Martin Luther, wasn't talking about the vaccine.

So no, it was Paul. Yeah. Yeah. And so here you have another type of fallacy, right?

Because they're, they're taking something and applying it to another thing that has nothing to do with each other.

Uh, so this is what would be called a category or boy, you know, we've gotten a lot of logical fallacies here.

And when someone makes arguments based on fallacies, when people make illogical arguments, those arguments are not true.

So all we're doing here are Christians to blame for the vaccine. Well, the people who've arguing, who are putting these articles out and argue have all made it clear.

This is not a religious issue. So are they to blame? The answer would be no

Christians are not to be blamed for low vaccination rates. Okay. The other question that we were asked, are

Christians spreading false information about COVID vaccines? I would say, no, it's the politicians who have an agenda that have been doing that.

We know that because the things they said were conspiracy theories, they're now saying is science. And their reason that they couldn't believe it before was because Trump, everything

Trump, bad man, bad man. Yeah. It's so, I'm so glad that we don't have, you know, someone that is mean online, you know, cause, cause the world is so much a better place with without bad tweets.

Right. We, we, you know, I mean, we're, we're doing, I mean, the economy's crashing, you know, people are in fear.

People are going, you know, losing jobs all because bad man, orange. No, actually.

You got plenty of people. You got plenty of people out there spreading a narrative. You got plenty of people like Ed Stetzer, Russell Moore, who you must first recognize as political liberal agents.

I mean, they're operatives for this whole narrative. So they got a motive. They got a vested ideological motive to continue pushing this.

It is not contrary. In fact, it is commanded. You know, we think with a man with the mind of Christ, we are critical thinkers.

Our faith is based on propositional truth and we follow truth.

So yeah, you need to question these things. This, this is, this is horrendous, but this is what you're seeing increasingly as a

Christian quote, Christian narrative that you need to be doing these things.

You don't love your neighbor. Well, you know, there is a risk. Second great commandment usurping the first great commandment.

Don't get that out of order. Difficult thing in your sanctification, certainly difficult when you come to face issues like this.

Yeah. And so folks, the last question we said, we were going to set out to do, is there a direct relationship between Christianity and the vaccination to support the claims?

The answer again, I think would be no, they've made the clear this isn't religious. This, so this is something that is where they're trying to get politics into the church.

They're trying to get the church to do what the government can't do on its own. The government, it'd be illegal for the government to force people to get vaccinations.

So they're trying to get others to do it. The reality is the others would technically be breaking the law in some of these areas by requiring such things because they're not licensed medical.

I, when I was out in Ohio, got to, to meet with two brothers who have a shop and they were being sued and they're going to be fined by the state because they were told they have to, they must require their employees to wear a face mask.

Brilliant brothers. And so what they did, they went and did the research and they basically challenged and said, we cannot require a face mask for our employees because a face mask is a medical device and we are not medical technicians.

And the law prevents people who are not medical technicians from requiring medical devices.

They refused because they're not technician, medical technicians. And so they actually were able to continue business.

Most businesses haven't thought about saying, Oh, let me look at this a different way. Most just concede instead of pushing back and saying, you, we don't, we can't legally do this.

You're requiring us to do something that would be breaking the law as, as Christians. They, they felt they were standing on Romans 13.

The law prevents them from doing it. How many people would say, well, Christian businesses should just cave because it's a mandate.

There is no mandate. The mandates it's actually, there is no emergency health act.

Yeah, it's actually, they have tried it. They tried it first under Abraham Lincoln and it has been shot down every time.

This is just, this is just, this is what happens when you spread false narratives everywhere and have people believe there's an emergencies act and people just cave to this instead of challenging it.

So the thing for, for Ed Stetzler and Russell Moore is did you look at what the law says?

I mean, you want to do this theologically Romans 13, he says you obey the law. Well, the law would say you can't ask someone if they've been vaccinated, unless you're a medical technician, you know, in the medical field, it's illegal.

There's HIPAA laws. So if you want to follow the law, follow the law, the law of the land, not some medical emergency or emergency procedures that don't exist.

That's not law. So what we're doing, Ed, Russell, we're following Romans 13 and we're also using good logic.

And so we're looking at that. There's nothing in the scripture. It's going to say, take a vaccine or not take a vaccine, but the arguments that are made are false arguments.

And when you see false arguments, you have to go, okay, am I going to follow an argument that's knowingly false or look at what's true?

I'm going to say that, you know what people need to evaluate the real science here and make a decision that has nothing to do with being

Christian or not. I'm not saying, Hey, Christian, don't take the vaccine. I'm saying every human being don't take the vaccine.

I'm saying everyone should take a look at this and make a decision on their own though. And if people don't want to take the vaccine, fine, that's their decision.

They get COVID. Here's the reality. If the vaccine really did what people are saying, if, but if you took the vaccine and I didn't take the vaccine, then you shouldn't care that I didn't take it because you're protected.

Precisely. But the only reason to say, I have to take the vaccine when you took the vaccine is because you're not protected and you want to reduce the chance of other people getting it somehow, or really reduce the chance of the hospitals being overrun.

And we're seeing in the whole world, the numbers are coming down. So I think we have herd immunity.

And so we need to follow good science, but to answer the question, are Christians to blame for the low vaccination rates?

No, I do not believe so. Now, if you want, if people wanted to get, you know, a theological answer to things like this and do more research, what

I would suggest they do, bud is I would suggest they go and get Bible Logos Bible software, because with Bible Logos Bible software, you can pull up lots of books and do all the study to see what the scriptures actually say about different topics.

Now, if you're new to Logos Bible software, or you want to upgrade to Logos nine, I would suggest you use our link.

It's driving fraternity so that, well, you get five free books on us, but who doesn't like free books?

I don't know anybody. Okay. Especially a Jewish person. I love that four letter word,

F R E E, free. So if you want to do that, we have a link to a shorter link because they gave us a really long link, but the shorter link to go is just go to bit dot

L Y B I T dot L Y slash S F E Logos. That's S F E L O G O S.

So we'll have that in the show notes as well. So just click on that to get by Logos Bible software and you can upgrade to Logos nine.

They're still, they are still running the sale for 15 % off that is ending soon. So you want to get that really, really quick.

So this was a little bit longer than we typically do try to pack a lot in, but I think it was necessary for us to give some of the critical thinking that's required in this issue.

Why do I think it's such an issue? Because Christians are being targeted for a reason. I have said this countless times.

I've been saying this for years. I just went to speak at a church in Ohio and a guy comes up to me and says, four or five years ago, you said that there'd be a

Holocaust with Christians coming. You still believe that? My response, do you read the news? There is a reason they're targeting

Christians with this. The, the, the left got into power by pushing an agenda that Christians are bad and all about LGBT.

And what we end up seeing is what they get in power with. They stay in power with. And what we have right now is they're going to continue to target

Christians, even if it doesn't make logical sense. And you will have those Christians that just want to get along with the world.

They don't want to stand up for Christ. They want to stand with the world like Russell Moore, like Ed Stetzer, who are going to stand up and support the very people that are looking to have, they have their target right on you,

Christian. They're looking to make all Christians look like lunatics in the culture.

Why? So that when they come after Christians, people, and they're, it's already happening.

People will be like, well, they're Christian. I mean, they're just crazy. They're loony tunes. They're conspiracy theorists.

That's going to be the answer. And so if we don't stand up and say, truth is truth, this has nothing to do with vaccine.

This is about what's true. They're making illogical arguments to attack Christians.

That's why we did this. I think part of what you said is very important for Christians to realize that the first serious wave of hostility, which would be a prelude to persecution, it is not going to come from Congress.

It is not going to come from the white house. It is going to come from people within the church.

That's where the hostility is going to come. You see it right now. Now with this specific narrative of vaccines, but there is this division.

Well, you're not a true Christian. You are a true Christian. The persecution starts just like judgment at the house of the

Lord. Well, the Lord is doing this and we know that he will prevail, but we've got to understand gullibility is not a fruit of the spirit.

We're to be noble Bereans and examine everything in the light of truth, in the light of scripture. You don't see these guys pointing you there.

Correct. Yeah, they're pointing to culture. So what's this really about? And I would rather stand with a guy like John MacArthur who's giving a scripture.

And so I'll encourage you. I haven't heard it yet, but when the message that John MacArthur is going to put out today, go listen to that.

It'll be June 13th. We'll be at 2021 is the message from Grace Community Church.

So let's go listen and see how scripture applies to these things. So that's all that I have for us tonight, tomorrow or next week.

I'm sure we're going to talk about SBC, some minor things that may go on this week.

I'm sure. You want to do some predictions? What do you predict is going to happen at the

SBC convention? Oh my goodness. I mean, you need to narrow it down to the multitude of different issues that they are dealing with.

Okay. Proposition nine. Let's just deal with that. Will they overturn? Resolution nine. Now I think you're going to see an attempt to slather that with some walk back, but I don't think you're going to see it revoked.

I'm hopeful. You got 16 ,000 people coming to this thing. There's only like four times in history.

They had more than 10. Yeah. I'm hoping that they're coming armed with truth and ready to contend for the faith.

Cause if you don't see that, then there's no hope. Okay. So who's going to be president? I'm hopeful that Mike Stone.

Yeah. I'm hopeful that Mike Stone, my prediction is Elmolar. Yeah. I kind of think that the power structure of the good old boy network is going to, is going to usher him.

Well, people think that he's conservative. Well, he's adept. He's an adept political animal.

Oh yeah. So it would not be surprising, but yeah, that is likely to happen.

One of those two guys. I don't, I don't see the other two garnering more than a few votes.

Yeah. So we'll see who's right next week, but as for this week, bud, yes, sir.