My employer falls under President Biden’s blasphemous and tyrannical executive order, and they’ve told me that they will be enforcing it. Lovely. They have, however, allowed me to request religious exemption. They say they will need to evaluate it before they grant it. How gracious of them to allow me to ask their permission to obey God rather than men. If it pleases the King, may I not inject my body with a substance that might do it harm? Here is what I wrote them. We’ll see if this flies:
I object to all mandates which require me to disobey the law of God. The 6th commandment states “you shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13).
Question 135 of the Westminster Larger Catechism asks “What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?” In the answer, it states, “The duties required in the sixth commandment are all … lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes … and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defense thereof against violence … and protecting and defending the innocent.”
Question 136 asks “What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment?”. The answer is “The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment are, all taking away the life of ourselves, or of others, except in case of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defense… striking, wounding, and whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any”
The COVID-19 vaccine violates the 6th commandment in a number of ways.
First, because the COVID vaccine was produced using aborted fetal cells, taking the vaccine would constitute participation in murder.
As if that alone weren’t enough, there is a second reason, which is a little more complicated. The duties and prohibitions of the 6th commandment imply the concept of bodily autonomy. My body belongs to God. It is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). God has entrusted me to steward this body for his glory. I am to present it to him as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2). I am to care for it by not doing anything harmful to it.
There are several factors that lead me to conclude that taking this vaccine would not be wise, God-honoring stewardship of my body. These include the fact that the long-term side-effects of the new mRNA technology cannot be known at this time and the fact that a high portion of the medical community has refused the vaccine. First, there is the fact that the vaccine was produced in record time with limited testing and uses technologies that have never been used before (mRNA). The long-term side effects of this cannot be known right now and it seems very risky to take the vaccine without knowing what those might be. Second is the fact that such a significant portion of the medical community has remained unvaccinated that President Biden felt it necessary to put them under the mandate. If this vaccine were truly as safe and effective as the so-called experts tell us, then why aren’t the doctors and nurses – who are on the front lines of fighting COVID – all getting the vaccine? That tells me that there’s something wrong with the vaccine and that I should probably avoid it, at least for now.
Given the uncertain safety of the vaccine and the fact that COVID-19 is only a serious disease for people with certain risk factors, the potential risks outweigh the benefits for me personally, which is a determination I alone am in the position to make and I alone have the duty to my God to act upon. It may be that at some point in the future the risk/reward calculus for this vaccine may cross over and I may become convinced that wise, God-honoring stewardship would be to get the vaccine. However, mandating that I get it now forces me to act before that time comes and prevents me from making a decision based on sound judgment.
Moreover, Jesus taught that anger violates the 6th commandment prohibition against murder (Matt 5:21-26). Thus it can clearly be understood that any form of violence or invasion of the bodily autonomy of a person is a violation of the 6th commandment even if it falls short of killing the person. The sinful anger displayed by President Biden when he declared that his patience is wearing thin has led him to issue a decree which violates the bodily autonomy of all who fall under its mandate. In doing so, he is committing an act of aggression not just against me, but against my neighbors, the innocent people of this nation, and not just against them, but against God.
As WLC 135-136 teaches, I have a duty to preserve my life and protect myself and the innocent from harm. This includes resisting attempts by authoritarian governments to forcibly inject me with something they claim is a vaccine that is supposedly good for me. Not only will this mandate potentially harm me directly, but it will open a door for further violation of the bodily autonomy of not just myself but of my family and all of my neighbors.
Jesus said that all of God’s Law hangs on two commandments. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Love for my neighbor compels me to resist this mandate in order to prevent the advent of authoritarian government micromanagement of everyone’s health, a social credit score system, the rise of some other new form of fascism, or even the mark of the beast. All of these are potential risks that lie behind this vaccine mandate. All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
This is not the America that was founded on Biblical principles. I must honor my God by calling our nation to repent. Submit to his law and to the God-honoring principles laid forth in our founding documents, chief amount them being the US Constitution which provides no authorization for the president to mandate such a thing and implicitly forbids it in the 4th and 5th Amendments. My body is the property of my God and myself, not the US government. I am a slave of Jesus Christ, not the United States.
To further the issue, the only arguments I can think of at this point in favor of taking the vaccine rely on fallacious reasoning (which I must not trust lest I break the 9th commandment), idolatrous desires (which I must not pursue lest I violate the 1st and 2nd commandment), or authoritarian mandates by a government that is operating outside the scope of authority given to it by God and in violation of God’s law (the 6th commandment), and I must obey God rather than men.
I am not opposed to all vaccines, only ones which violate the law of God, which the mandate to take the COVID vaccine certainly does.
(and I didn’t even say anything about the fact that the vaccine is “free” in violation of the 8th Commandment)
Truth & Liberty 