Modesto megachurch joins effort exploiting religion to get around COVID-19 vaccines
By offering documents to help people get around their employers’ COVID-19 vaccine mandates, The House Modesto on Sunday must have known it would be compared to nutty churches beating them to the punch.
In his announcement offering untested religious exemptions to shots, The House senior associate pastor Mike Trenton acknowledged that “some churches in Northern California have already done this in the past week.”
That’s a curious approach, because the one getting the most attention is Rocklin’s Destiny Church. Its defiant pastor was ridiculed for holding superspreader services earlier in the pandemic, when most other churches followed public health orders and closed.
Destiny Pastor Greg Fairrington also has drawn headlines for homophobia and fear-mongering. And his recent, blatant disregard for separation between church and state — preaching recall politics from the pulpit — is appalling.
Churches entering this political fray over vaccines will only increase pressure on the poor souls who ultimately will decide which exemptions are legit and which aren’t.
I’m well aware that some people will do most anything to avoid getting the jab. On a personal level, I feel sorry for the families of some whose jobs are on the line because of their own stubbornness.
But I feel way, way more sorry for those who have suffered and even died from this preventable disease, and their loved ones. Because it just doesn’t have to be like this.
This morning I was on the phone with a man who said, “I believe we’re seeing the birth of medical tyranny.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I see collusion between the government and corporations to impose their will against humanity under the guise of health care,” he said. His employer is requiring him to get vaccinated, he doesn’t want to and he wanted me to use The Modesto Bee’s opinion page as a bully pulpit to defend him.
I said, “But anyone who reads our opinion page would know that we think the vaccines help humanity. The evidence shows that people who don’t get them are the ones who are mostly sick and dying, and those who get them aren’t.”
“You go ahead and drink the Kool-Aid,” he said angrily, and he hung up.
Virtually everything he said came straight from anti-vaxx disinformation talking points at the fingertips of anyone with the internet.
I’m convinced that I had zero chance of convincing him of anything. And he had zero chance of converting me.
We’re entrenched.
People have chosen sides, and they’re not budging.
Oh, a few here and there might be touched by countless stories of COVID victims, all sick and some dying, who rue the day they decided not to get the shots.
I hope some listened when Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen, a retired nurse, recently circulated two videos appealing to people to do the unselfish thing and bare their arms. Even former President Donald Trump, for Pete’s sake, in an Alabama rally on Saturday advocated for the vaccines — developed under his administration — and got booed by his own supporters.
The usually vast middle ground in any other political question seems awfully small for this one.
But people seeking such exemptions should examine their consciences. Is their grievance truly religious in nature? Or is it more political?
Did these same people seek exemptions from polio, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B and chickenpox vaccines required to enter their children in kindergarten? If they made an effort — even though personal belief exemptions aren’t allowed in California — I say that’s a good indication they are sincere in their belief and not merely jumping on a political bandwagon.
Otherwise, they might just be trying to game the system. And in the process, selfishly endangering the rest of us.
