On vaccination (and abortion)

There is a debate that rages among Christians today, one which has risen to the surface far more prominently in recent times given the age of such openness and accessibility to information. This debate has increased in intensity given the laws that are being passed and proposed in certain countries such as the US, where some states are now making it a legal requirement for children to be vaccinated against certain diseases, especially if they are to be part of a public schooling system.

This debate has focused of late on some particular components of vaccines that are apparently present. It has turned this from an already sensitive debate into a fiercely emotional one. In particular, the components listed as potentially being in trace amounts within vaccine formulations suggest material from cells derived from aborted baby foetuses. Given this recent revelation (although in truth it is not very recent at all and one must understand what truly is present in a vaccine versus what has been used in the production of the vaccine), it is quite unsurprising that this has turned into a hotly debated topic among Christians. It has also become even more prominent with the recent video releases of Planned Parenthood, where indescribable things are spoken of in the most casual and open way, which is truly shocking for us to view.

Let me first start out by saying that I wish to approach this topic in quite a different way than virtually all the articles I have read on the matter. I am quite ashamed as a fellow Christian at the manner of judgemental writing and relaying of one’s opinion or interpretation of God’s Word I have read on this subject. It is hard to find a balanced article on this and furthermore it is harder yet to find an article written with much love and lack of judgement being portrayed. I say this for both sides of the argument. One side appears to write very much of abortion is murder and wrong (I do not disagree here) and therefore anyone who uses products associated with this is supporting such murder and should repent. On the other side I see responders claiming to be Christian go down the route of ad hominem attacks and talking down against those who disagree as unintelligent and brainwashed. Are either of those approaches what Christ would have us do or say? Are we showing love for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ when we cry down judgement on others in such a manner? How do we portray Christ and His Church to the world when we bicker among ourselves with such a worldly attitude, dressed up in doctrine?

So let me start off by addressing this issue in a slightly different manner – one which I feel is Biblical. Let us remind ourselves of some important passages to consider in this context, firstly Romans 14 (ESV):

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. ² One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. ³ Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. ⁴ Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

⁵ One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶ The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. ⁸ For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

¹⁰ Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; ¹¹ for it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
    and every tongue shall confess to God.”

¹² So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

¹³ Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. ¹⁴ I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. ¹⁵ For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. ¹⁶ So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. ¹⁷ For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸ Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. ¹⁹ So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

²⁰ Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. ²¹ It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. ²² The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. ²³ But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

Much could be said about this passage, but I think verse 4 is a great summation of what we can take away if we were to take just a single point – who are we to pass judgement on each other, the ones that Christ has already accepted? Now, this does not negate sin nor permit it. However it does mean that we should be very careful, especially in the age of anyone being able to preach their opinion to the multitudes (through blogging, the internet, social media, etc) that what we say and openly do does not cause others to stumble. On one side we may have someone who preaches condemnation on another who chooses to perhaps vaccinate their child in faith that they are doing the right thing. On the other side, we have those who may proudly and boldly state very openly how they vaccinate their children and almost claim they are a better person for doing it. Are not both attitudes towards this wrong? Are we not losing the focus on what we should be opposing and actually by claiming to be fighting the enemy’s work we are in fact doing it by being divisive and causing each other to stumble rather than seeking to edify and build each other up? 

I think it is also interesting that the context of Romans 14 is immediately following a chapter that in detail discusses submitting to the governing authorities. Putting aside the vaccination issue much of the content I see being discussed or shared on social media is very rebellious towards our governments we have today. The truth of the matter is that we cannot imagine what it was like to be under a truly oppressive government. The government that Paul and his audience experienced in their day was utterly oppressive towards people and in particular, Christians. I would encourage anyone to study further the government that the early Christians had to endure, and how many liberties and support we truly have today under our western governments. Yet Paul quite plainly says we should submit to their authority. We do not live under the Anti-Christ’s reign – who is asking us to worship them and denounce the true and living God? Yet consistently people are encouraging rebellion against the God-ordained government of today (acting as though it is the Beast of the end times, demanding we worship him or take his mark), like we have some right to question God’s plan for who He has allowed to come into power. I encourage us all as Christians to focus on a Romans 13 view of government, and it would help us to do so in light of what the Romans at Paul’s time had to deal with in terms of their government.

Moving back to vaccination, what would be nice to see more of in this debate is less attack, less judgement and more love. Yes we must oppose that which is truly black and white sin – and abortion is such an issue. The Bible is clear that abortion is wrong. In Exodus 21:22-23 it talks about how if one were to harm a pregnant woman and she were to give birth without harm (i.e. premature birth and the baby were to live) then the one responsible shall be fined according to the husband. However, if there is harm (the baby dies), this is considered taking a life and the one responsible shall have his life demanded on him. As it states there in God’s Word: “a life for a life”. This is clear evidence that God considers an unborn child to be a life. Thus humans willingly removing and terminating the life of an unborn child are taking human life and this is murder, in God’s eyes. How tragic that our society has deemed this murder to be little more than having an unwanted bodily growth removed! How we should be on our knees repenting that our society treats such children in this way. We have silently allowed for the murder of millions of children each year whilst we launch indignant attacks on those who shoot animals (not made in the image of God) for fun, for which the occurrence of such activities pales into insignificance when compared with the number of abortions that occur seemingly without a second thought. Clearly, abortion is wrong and we should continue to peacefully speak up against this practice as Christians and demonstrate God’s value for life. We must not ignore this issue and pretend that it is not real.

However, we must get our facts correct on the other side of the argument. We cannot go around equating the use of material from aborted foetuses with the actual abortion event itself. Let us phrase this another way to see if we can understand by analogy rather than emotive (and potentially unfactual). Let us say a 6-year old child was shot in the head by someone in cold blood. It was intentional – it was murder. Now let us say the parents  of this child gave permission for this 6-year old’s heart to be used in an organ transplant for another 6-year old child who desperately needed this organ to live as they had serious heart failure. I wonder how many people would oppose this procedure? I do not know of anyone, Christian or not, who would say that this is wrong (although a small minority of course may object). However, if that 6-year old was shot for the purpose of harvesting their heart for this other child who needed it, I think all would object and clearly say that is wrong. I would even go as far as to say I think that most Christian parents would not want their child to receive such a heart donation if their child needed it but they knew someone murdered the other child specifically for that need. It is clearly immoral.

This is the simple crux of the matter. Firstly we must establish the motive for the murder before we can understand the morality of its use. The documented facts about the use of aborted material in the western world where modern medicine and research largely operates makes it clear that there can be no abortions performed for the sake of obtaining tissue from that child, and secondly that there can be no incentive offered to those choosing to have the abortion if they choose to donate the dead foetus/aborted baby to medical research. Now, if this is being violated then that must stop, that is clearly wrong and criminal and any material used from such a case should be clearly stopped working on at all and retracted from use. Such behaviour should be punishable as a criminal offence due to law violation. The point however, is that the use of the material does not justify the event itself. Just like the use of an organ from a murdered human being (murdered for a reason unrelated to the use of the organ) does not mean that we are saying that murder was OK or right because some good came out of it, rather it was a wrong and horrific event – full stop. However, out of that evil some good did come, but the act was still murder, was still wrong and evil and it would have been better to not have happened and no organ been available for use.

So this is where we need to get our facts correct and straight. Abortions do not happen for the sake of medical research. This is our starting point. Let us be factual about that. How is it different to culturing cells obtained from an aborted foetus to culturing cells obtained from someone murdered? So to equate someone who chooses to use a product where aborted material (clonal cells) grown in a lab for years and years (obtained from a foetus that had already been chosen to be aborted regardless of the use of the cells from that poor foetus for research) is used in the process of developing a drug as one who supports abortion/murder is factually incorrect and quite frankly unfair. From a Christian perspective, it is judgemental and I sincerely believe that Romans 14 and related passages apply here, for both sides of the argument. But we must get our facts correct in order to have any rational discussion about this.

There are many further facts that must be corrected in these discussions, such as facts about what materials are present in vaccines, what they do or do not do, the misinterpretation and taking out of context of verses to support abstinence from vaccinations as well as those taken out of context to support vaccination use. But I think this article is not the place to go into that detail right now. I think we must stop ourselves in these discussions once we have our main facts corrected and ask ourselves if we are being loving or judgemental, and recognise the dangers of causing another brother to stumble or sin, or judging one whom Christ has accepted in their faith as God’s Word lays out. What we must be clear on however is that regardless of your belief or conviction of whether vaccination is right or wrong as a Christian, it is wrong to equate vaccinating with support of abortion. It certainly is not that.

I support my brothers’ and sisters’ rights to choose whether they vaccinate their children or not. I have my own beliefs and views, but I support the right to choose which view I subscribe to because I believe that this is not a clear black and white issue of sin and not sin when we boil it down to vaccinating of not. I refuse to condemn anyone to do or not to do that to themselves or others. And nothing I have read (and I have read a lot of these articles) is convincing of showing me it is black and white, Biblically. I do not believe that there is factual evidence to say that a Christian is right or wrong if they do or do not vaccinate. However most of all from this whole issue, I would hope that people would judge each other less, love each other more, and show Godly love to those who have chosen to abort, whilst standing up and saying that we must repent for making this such a non-issue that it is in western society. But it must be done in love, all of it. Sadly, I see very little of that attitude around at the moment.