JD Hall publishes best COVID vaccine religious exemption

After Joe Biden’s planned vaccine mandate announcement for all federal contractors and all businesses with over 100 employees, the need to focus more on this front has increased. Most religious exemptions have thus far focused on the abortion connection between these COVID vaccines and the fetal cell lines used to either create or test the vaccine.

Admittedly, this is a sufficient conscientious objection to the COVID vaccine. However, it is not my moral objection to the vaccine. I have elsewhere in my life practiced avoidance of medicines that have at some point used these nefarious means to test or develop. Furthermore, there is no biblical arguemnt to suggest that benefitting from the sins of others in current or prior generations is a sin. This is the argument that woke Evangelicals use to guilt white people.

To me, a stronger religious exemption case is more foundational, rejecting the premise of vaccine mandates, evil government overreach, and the Branch Covidian religion. JD Hall’s exmeption template does all of these things.

It makes four primary arguments for the Christian.

THE BIBLE COMMANDS CHRISTIANS TO UPHOLD OUR GOVERNING JURISDICTIONS

This asserts the doctrine of sphere sovereignty, in which Joe Biden willfully violated on September 9th. It contains a proper application of Romans 13.

By resisting President Biden’s orders, we are obeying God. We are submitting to our highest earthly authority (the U.S. Constitution), which is required of us by our highest ultimate authority, the Holy Bible.

MY BODY IS A TEMPLE, AND NEITHER THE GOVERNMENT NOR THE WORKPLACE HAVE JURISDICTIONAL AUTHORITY OVER MY BODY.

In continuing with the theme of jurisdictions, the second argument asserts that the individual has the God-given authority on this matter, not the state or the employee.

WE NEED NO EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST THE EFFICACY OR USEFULNESS OF THE VACCINE; OUR RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE IS SUFFICIENT

This argument makes clear that this is a conscientious objection that the Christian is bound to trust God and not health leaders. This argument makes the document grounded in Biblical theology rather than hyper-charismaticism and “Christian Scientists.”

I do not make an argument in this exemption that God will heal, by providence or divine miraculous healing, all diseases. I am, however, bound by my conscience that requires that I trust an immutable God more so than the ever-changing “science” of
consistently wrong health leaders.

This line in the argument is perfect.

I AM GRAVELY CONCERNED THAT COVID-19 HYSTERIA HAS BECOME A RELIGION

This would be my most pressing concern as it is what is leading to these mandates and lockdowns in the first place.

The religious fervency of COVID-19 hysteria has unsettled me as a Christian. It is of my impression that this health panic has been catastrophized into a health-based religion. Men like Anthony Fauci have been considered as prophets. The CDC and WHO have been considered as sacred as denominations. Politicians have served as  priests interceding between clergy and laity (“experts” and the rest of us). This pseudo-religious system promises to heal. Its devotion to certain mitigation efforts – many now proven false – borderline on superstition. Vaccination has become a sacrament. Religious exemptions from competing religions – like mine – have been mocked, overtly speculated, disrespected, and treated with contempt.

I believe this is the strongest argument as it recognizs that these measures are superstitious and thus an idol. Therefore partaking in idolatry is a violation of the 1st Commandment.