The closest you came to referencing Scripture is that we need to love our neighbor. But condemning Christians for not loving their neighbor because they refuse a vaccine is a rather tenuous application. In Lev 13:46 the man with an infection isolates himself from the camp by going outside the camp for at least 7 days. We don’t see a command for everyone else to glove up. But we see a principle that the one who has a contagious infection needs to isolate himself from the healthy and warn those who approach (Lev 13:45).

Dear David,
I recently read your article, “It’s Time to Stop Rationalizing and Enabling Evangelical Vaccine Rejection”, I am concerned with the following statement castigating fellow Christians:

“But it is increasingly clear that many of the remaining holdouts need their hearts to change before their minds will change. It’s their moral framework that’s broken, and when that framework is broken, reason and virtue have difficulty penetrating a hardened heart.”

David, our moral framework is the Word of God. I appreciated your quote from Martin Luther. But as venerable as he is, his words are not the inspired, infallible, inerrant, and authoritative Word of God. The closest you came to referencing Scripture is that we need to love our neighbor. But condemning Christians for not loving their neighbor because they refuse a vaccine is a rather tenuous application. In Lev 13:46 the man with an infection isolates himself from the camp by going outside the camp for at least 7 days. We don’t see a command for everyone else to glove up. But we see a principle that the one who has a contagious infection needs to isolate himself from the healthy and warn those who approach (Lev 13:45).

Moreover, David, we have the following commandment in our moral framework: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex 20:16). I think it’s time we stop assuming that men have the ability to read the hearts of millions of people we have never met. Your anecdotal evidence is simply that: a minor compilation of anecdotes. They are not evidence of millions of hard-hearted Christians living in disobedience to their calling in Christ. In Acts 1:24 we learn that only the Lord knows the hearts of men. And in Prov 21:2 we read, “Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the Lord weighs the hearts.”

And speaking of weighing the heart, the Westminster Confession of Faith declares that “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to His Word; or beside it, in matters of faith, or worship” (WCF 20.2). And the Westminster Divines based this statement on James 4:12 and Rom 14: 4. No person may bind another’s conscience, not even one with the best of intentions.

Many have tried to replace God’s Moral Law with a man-made morality. The Pharisees were one such group. The Monastics were another. Today we have the Red-Letter Christians and fundamentalist theologies that add and subtract from the Word of God. I would caution you against this course of action. God’s Word is perfect, restoring the soul.

Let us strive for peace and unity among the brethren, David. And let’s leave it to the Spirit of God to lead each Christian as they seek to follow their Lord faithfully.

Al Taglieri is a Ruling Elder (RE) in Providence Presbyterian Church (PCA) in York, Penn.