A Layman's Perspective on The NAD PARL Webinar: Vaccine Mandates

This review was sent to us by a member in good standing of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

On Saturday evening, October 9, 2021 a live stream discussion titled “NAD PARL Webinar: Vaccine Mandates” took place on YouTube.

Some members of the North American Division and the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department came to discuss vaccine mandates, specifically in light of the covid-19 vaccine. The participants were:

• Dr. Angeline Brauer, NAD Health Ministries Director

• Attorney Orian Johnson, NAD Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Director

• Bettina Krause, Liberty Magazine Editor

• Pastor Kevin James, Southern Union Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Associate Director

• Dr. Nicholas Miller, Lake Union Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Director

This is a lay-person’s observation upon listening to the recording which is now available in the above mentioned link:

The ‘discussion’ was:

• A brief overview of vaccine mandates in the past, laws and procedures that need to be followed if one were to reach out to PARL for help in writing/submitting religious exemption forms. 

• The historical use of PARL, an attempt to show the church’s stand on vaccines historically.

• Perceived attitudes about the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, concluding with answering some questions submitted from the live-stream audience.

I found the first 31 minutes and the last 30 minutes to be most intriguing. The first part of the discussion was Nicholas Miller addressing vaccine mandates that had occurred in the past.  

The third part was Dr. Angeline Brauer recounting quotes from Review and Herald that were in favor of vaccines and revaccination, specifically for typhoid fever and smallpox.  At 27:54, she said she had spent time looking for quotes that were from 1915 and earlier, as that was the time that Ellen White was still alive.  The implication is that since EGW was vocal on health topics, she ‘would’ have been vocal against the quotes shared in the presentation from Review and Herald had EGW seen anything wrong with them.  This reasoning is faulty as it assumes that White would have read and constantly been aware of what was published in all our publications and expected to respond to them.  

Second, it assumes a kind of infallibility on the part of those who published in Review and Herald in the days of the pioneers, holding them as final authorities.

As I recall, White had plenty to say about the publishing houses, and at one point, attributed the burning down of one of them because it was publishing falsehood.  But if we were to consider the church’s stand on vaccines by looking at publications done in the early 1900’s, we might also consider that which was brought up in a previous Fulcrum7 piece, where a 1910 Signs of the Times article discusses vaccine mandates and says the following,

“We yet believe in proper vaccination, but this is a shame; and yet this action lies right along the same lines of the religious legislation clamored for before every parliament of the people, state and national. The bad' fact is that such things as this of to-day will be forgotten by the people in the rush of to-morrow, while, in the future it, will be used as precedents by the promoter of religious and paternal, legislation."

Some elaboration on “the science” was made by Dr. Brauer.  He elaborated that it’s not just about health choices you make for yourself that will impact your personal health, but that it impacts the community and others as well, from a public health perspective.  I will not get into the science, as a response would become lengthy and technically detailed, but it is fair to point out that COVID-19 is a very different virus. The vaccines in question are based on entirely different technology compared to what is typically thought of as a vaccine in the modern sense and there are no long term studies to evaluate their safety or long term effectiveness—all of which do exist for previous vaccines.

Throughout the discussion some good points were made for those who are choosing to submit a religious exemption form, these are:

1.      Wait to see the religious form that your company or organization you are working for gives out and use that to send to PARL for help in tailoring it to your personal request

2.      It is best to make your religious exemption argument as your personal religious belief and not that of the SDA church or any other church that one might belong to.  This is supported by language in CFR title 29. (This advice has been promoted by other SDA lawyers who have been very vocal about this and are outside of PARL, so this isn’t necessarily news).

3.      Don’t give the vibe that you’re suddenly religious when previously you haven’t been.

 At around 1:07:00 the statement is made that this “pandemic is a painful moment in time and it too shall pass,” and what will be left is how we treated each other during this time.  A call for unity is made, a call for kindness. This is great.  I agree we should not judge each other’s motives, but we can observe people’s statements and actions, and we should, for a tree is known by its fruit.

Dr. Miller and Mr. James both said that they are unaware of anyone losing their jobs as a result of a denied religious exemption application that they have assisted with submitting.  I’m not sure of the numbers they have seen, or if this will change in the future as deadlines for many organizations are towards the end of this year.  I find it hard to believe in their realm of influence that they don’t know of anyone who has gotten fired over this or at least threatened.  By defining it in their own apparently narrow realm, it makes me think how small that realm really is.  Do they not know of what is going on at La Sierra University?  Or SDA schools in Maryland, employees receiving notifications that a religious exemption would be denied?  Or in Australia where employees who are refusing to get vaccinated will be fired?

The real attitude of the discussion comes out during the Q/A section in the last 30 minutes or so.  I encourage people to start watching from 1:10:35 on.  They point out that once the flu vaccine was mandated around 2015, religious exemptions were being submitted, so this is nothing new.  However, the panel fails to acknowledge the very different procedures and requirements that companies and organizations now have with COVID-19 vaccines versus previous influenza vaccines.  When answering the question, “Can we see these vaccine mandates as a prologue, some kind of “how is going to be” of the Sunday Law?  Or is it too far for comparison?” [yes, that is exactly how it was worded], the answer starts with Mrs. Krause where she says that although it feels like we are entering a dystopian end, feeling isn’t fact and she elaborates on focusing on what the church has to share and assist in guiding our thoughts to the truths of the Bible and mission.  Dr. Miller then adds, and I quote:

“… I work here in the seminary, as you know, and um, I can assure you that there is no seminary professor that I know of that views vaccine mandates as some kind of precursor to Sunday laws, and in fact that I think that most of us here view it in an opposite light, um, that this is a sort of is a kind of pretest, but it is a pretest to show that whether or not we understand the true principles of Sabbath and of religious liberty.  Because we have said as a church, of course, individual conscience as to spiritual matters should be protected but we’ve never been anarchist, we’ve never been opponents to organized government, we’ve never been opponents of  peace and safety in our society and we recognize that there are legitimate bases for our governmental laws and we fear that if we use religious liberty claims, and that’s why we’ve been so constant on  this point, that as a church we’re going to help you write you letter as an individual, but as a church, we need to recognize the legitimate, um, jurisdiction of governmental oversight. It goes back to Martin Luther who says that government has the right to see temporal peace and safety in the health and life of it’s citizens and if we object to the government role of keeping people safe and healthy, then we are going to lose our credibility in trying to stand for Sabbath and Sunday issues. Let me put the logic to you this way, if we assert religious liberty in the face of  (1:18:34) health and safety matters, then when Sunday laws come along, people will say to us when we begin to object, ‘Oh, we know you Adventists, you don’t really care about the peace and safety and health of your community and neighbors, we ignored you when it came to vaccine mandates because clearly hundreds of thousands and millions of people were dying around the world, and this was a necessary step, and now you have an objection to, you know, Sunday laws and wanna preserve your Sabbath keeping, well we are uninterested in your objections because you simply don’t care about, you don’t have sufficient regard for the health and peace of the communities you live in for us to take you seriously.’ So the religious liberty department is trying to retain our credibility by not having religious liberty arguments misused on matters that are not really religious liberty arguments so we don’t lose those arguments for true religious liberty matters.” End quote (at 1:19:36) 

The panel participants appeared to all be in favor of getting the COVID-19 vaccination, and I feel that in order for an objective discussion to have taken place, other participants who are not in favor of it should have been included.  As it was, they appeared to be pro-covid vaccination mandate.  It was very one-sided.

One more thing, it is natural and expected for people within the SDA church to reach out to their religious leaders for help in filling out religious exemption forms.  But it can be very discouraging to hear that their personal beliefs do not qualify as good enough reasons for religious exemptions. There is some cognitive dissonance here because the panelists James, Miller, Johnson and Krause repeatedly state that it should be your personal belief and not a general statement from your church on the form.  I got the vibe that there was a little frustration on their end for people apparently asking for a generalized letter or statement from the SDA church in assisting this.  They state that there shouldn’t be one and that individuals should not include the term SDA in religious exemption forms.  I absolutely agree with that, but with that same logic, it would have been better if the panelists did not come across as being pro-mandate.

I am personally not an ‘anti-vaxxer.’  My children have received various vaccines including MMR, Varicella (chicken pox), etc.  I did not have an opinion on the COVID-19 vaccine when it first came out because I reasoned if one wanted it, great.  If one didn’t want it, that’s their personal own risk.  However, I started to have a problem with it once it was mandated–the use of force is of the enemy.  This is a huge red flag and to see this group of people discussing vaccine mandates without any sense of urgency for the direction it is headed is alarming.

I used to wonder how the whole world, mainly the ‘ethical’ United States of America, would be able to bend its laws and discriminate against people based on their religion as prophecy predicts will happen. The reasoning of ‘to protect society’s health’ and ‘being a menace to the safety of others’ which is coming out toward people who are expressing valid hesitancy to mandatory vaccinations has opened my eyes to how our rights will be trampled upon.  And those who trample upon them will be self-righteous, thinking they are doing the world a favor (John 16:2).  It is hypothetical to state that the NAD and PARL are nobly taking the said position expressed in above quote in an effort to curb resistance to religious exemptions for the Sabbath issue in the future.  Prophecy is clear that we are not going to be given any exemptions in the future with regard to the Sabbath.

In Babylon, Daniel and his friends’ position on their health choice paved the way for them to be respected for their religious choices.  From Babylon’s perspective, it was a health mandate to eat from the king’s table and the chief of the eunuchs was worried that the Hebrews would be inferior if not provided their version of nourishment. But Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah chose to follow their conscience; and as a result, were highly blessed and favored by God and King Nebuchadnezzar. The world heard their testimony to God.

This guilt tripping on the matter of liberty of conscience from religious leaders in our church is very concerning.

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“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16:10).