GOD TOLD ME NOT GET THE VACCINE!
Maybe the last time “religion” became such a political and emotional issue was over the Vietnam War when people divided over whether or not a person’s religion could qualify them as exempt from fighting. This issue went away when the draft ended. But at the time the difference was passionate and broke up congregations.
As it developed in Europe, religion was unified and aligned with the secular forces which could use the extra force of an argument that God was on their side. Authorities selectively used quotations and cultivated sympathetic authorities. Some draftees were brought up short when they discovered that some churches (Quakers) were considered peace churches and belonging to them (provably) meant that they were indeed peace-believers. But others (Unitarian Universalists) did not necessarily endorse peace but rather stood up for the individual right to make respected decisions. This was much harder to propose and prove
Since then, the issue has continued. This website linked below has helped us out by listing religions, denominations (named sub-sets of Christian), and their formal positions about vaccination. I find it clarifying.
https://www.vumc.org/health-wellness/news-resource-articles/immunizations-and-religion
Now that individualism has become such a strong force, the list is not always useful. Even binary political parties have many subsets, some of them larger and more powerful than their sources— for instance, Progressives. But none seem to have platforms anymore — rather they have emotions, sympathies. Gender counts, particularly when in opposition to the old-fashioned respect for big important schools that have had legendary teachers, all white and male. It’s not a surprise that their accusers name sexual trespass rather than the appalling money crimes.
Major religions well up from within cultures which are often anchored in ecologies. But no one has managed to define anything really gripping that can overwhelm and compel our cacophony of yelling conceits. Materialism still has us by the throat and we’re choking on money — or starving for lack of it. We can hardly think it out logically so resort to images and data.
In fact, we give priority to these derived subsets of life — images and data — and hardly perceive life itself, which is the only real source of culture and religion. But I have confidence that somewhere innocent and unsuspected enough to be safe, something is forming, a set of convictions, that will be the framework of something that might not even be called “religion”, that worn-out half-political concept. I dare not point out what I know.
