• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Politics
  • Lifestyle
cup with red liquid

‘The Blood Of Jesus Is My Vaccine:’ How a Fringe Group of Christians Hijacks Faith In a War Against Science

August 9, 2021
black women group

‘Righteous and Ratchet’ Black Women of Faith Embraced on Jemele Hill’s ‘Sanctified’ Podcast

January 23, 2023
Martin Luther King Jr. Photo

How the Distortion of MLK’s Words Enables More, Not Less, Racial Division Within American Society

January 14, 2023
Shirley Chisholm book

Historian Connects Shirley Chisholm’s Life and Politics in New Biography

January 14, 2023
red apple fruit on four pyle books

Is White Supremacy a Bug or a Feature of Classical Christian Education?

January 14, 2023
bible gun Brazil

God and Guns Often Go Together In US History — This Course Examines Why

January 14, 2023
black news site

Kansas City Police Dismissed a Black News Site’s Reports of Missing Women. Then One Showed Up.

January 14, 2023
text

‘Thank You’ and a Look Back as We Look Forward to the New Year

December 31, 2022
Anthea Butler, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, and Jemar Tisby

Free eBook: Conversations on White Evangelical Racism and Christian Nationalism (Subscribers)

December 10, 2022
will smith in emancipation movie

News With Nicola: Is Will Smith’s Emancipation Movie Based on a True Story?

December 2, 2022
Pastor E. Dewey Smith’s House of Hope Atlanta Sues Over Alleged Black Church Scheme

Pastor E. Dewey Smith’s House of Hope Atlanta Sues Over Alleged Black Church Scheme

November 28, 2022
Bishop Jerome Stokes is seen in this 2020 YouTube screengrab.

Baltimore Pastor Bishop Jerome Stokes Attacked With Hammer During Sunday Service

November 28, 2022
Jonathan Majors stars as Jesse L. Brown in the movie Devotion

‘Devotion’ Movie Celebrates Successes and Sacrifices of Navy’s First Black Fighter Pilot

November 21, 2022
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
  • Login
  • Register
Faithfully Magazine
  • About
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Write for Us
    • Advertise
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Exclusives
  • Q&As
  • Inspiration
  • Subscribe
  • Shop Faithfully
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home Health

‘The Blood Of Jesus Is My Vaccine:’ How a Fringe Group of Christians Hijacks Faith In a War Against Science

by FM Editors
August 9, 2021
Reading Time: 4 mins read
cup with red liquid

)Photo: Jasmin NeUnsplash)

60
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It

By Robyn J. Whitaker, The Conversation

RELATED POSTS

How the Distortion of MLK’s Words Enables More, Not Less, Racial Division Within American Society

Christian Nationalism’s ‘Mission From God’ and the Political Influence of Its Master Salesman

Why We Call Them ‘Church Fathers’ and ‘Desert Mothers’

“The blood of Jesus is my vaccine” read one of the signs at a recent protest against lockdown regulations in Sydney. While our tendency might be to roll our eyes at such ridiculous anti-science views, these sentiments have a long and complicated history in the Christian tradition.

On social media platforms, a small number of Christians are offering a pastiche of biblical symbols to link the idea of Jesus’s blood and protection. In one video, a man claims we know the blood of Jesus will protect Christians in the 21st century from COVID because the blood of the Passover lamb protected the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 12). As an analogy, it is a stretch.

Kolina Koltai, a vaccine misinformation researcher with the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, points out that appealing to people’s beliefs and values in spreading vaccine misinformation is particularly potent. Such views can be extremely hard to combat, because doing so is perceived as an attack on someone’s core beliefs.

While for some, Jesus’s “blood” is spiritually invoked through prayer, other misinformation links the protective power of Jesus more explicitly to taking communion (or the Eucharist). Taking communion daily, such people claim, prevents you from getting sick from COVID.

Communion is a Christian ritual in which token amounts of bread and wine are consumed to recall Jesus’s last meal with his disciples before dying on a cross. While different Christian traditions hold a variety of theological views, at the heart of communion is the idea that bread and wine are ritually shared as a way to spiritually connect, to have “communion,” with Jesus and with one another. The bread symbolizes Jesus’s body and the wine his blood. Drinking communion wine then is drinking the blood that saves, according to these fringe views.

Melbourne Anglican priest Peter French told me that, in the past year, he has had to refuse requests from people who want to buy communion bread and wine from his church in the belief that taking it daily will prevent them from contracting COVID. Anglicans, we should note, do not teach that communion will protect you from sickness and the Archbishop of Canterbury has urged people to be vaccinated.

The association of the Eucharist and healing were around long before COVID. In 2013, Pope Francis addressed exactly this issue in a sermon stating the Eucharist is not a “magic rite,” but a way to encounter Jesus.

Where does this association of communion and healing come from? Nowhere explicitly, yet the Christian tradition has a long association of communion and health metaphors.

In the second century, Bishop Ignatius wrote the Eucharist is the “medicine of immortality” and the “antidote” to death. Ignatius’s “medicine” is one that brings eternal life rather than freedom from physical suffering.

In the third century, Bishop Cyprian claimed the blood of Jesus has pharmacological benefits, being “health-giving” and superior to the benefits of ordinary wine. The medicinal effects of wine were widely known in antiquity, often being a safer drink than water. But here we have Christians claiming something more for the wine that represents Jesus’s blood, even if their claim is still primarily a spiritual one.

Andrew McGowan, professor at Yale Divinity School, has written extensively on the history of the Eucharist. He says:

The Eucharist is always an enacted sign of the love and regard for community shown by Jesus, not a talisman for personal gain or benefit.

In this sense, it is only like the vaccine in that it exists for the good of the whole community, not ourselves as individuals.

McGowan notes there are more early Christians stories indicating that wrongly taking the Eucharist could do you harm than there are ones suggesting communion will bring healing. In several post-biblical apocryphal sources, bread and wine are shared after a healing miracle as a means of thanksgiving and confirming faith, but it does not bring physical healing.

Similarly today, communion is regularly administered to the sick or dying. It serves as a reminder of Jesus’s salvific action to people of faith, not as a magic pill or healing potion.

Indeed, traditional Christian churches usually anoint the sick with oil for healing or have other prayers for healing that do not involve communion. However, one can see how superstitious ideas developed linking recovery from illness to the body and blood of Jesus. To do so is to conflate spiritual well-being and physical health. While spiritual health can correlate with other forms of health (mental, physical), it is not the same thing.

The vast majority of religious leaders are urging people to be vaccinated. No serious Christian teaches that taking communion will magically protect a person against illness.

Yet, the line between taking the Eucharist (the blood of Jesus) for spiritual wholeness and taking it as a magical potion that will protect one physically remains thin enough to be abused by irresponsible people touting conspiracy theories.

To do so is preying on the vulnerable, a most anti-Christian activity in the guise of religion.The Conversation

Editor’s note: This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.


Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College


Help Keep Christian Media Diverse

In addition to partnering with advertisers, maintaining a subscription program, and exploring paid live events, we rely on the generosity of readers who see value in our work and in our mission. We invite you to join us, and keep walking with us, in our mission. Every amount, big or small, empowers us to stay the course. Here are a few ways you can join us:
  • Give via PayPal
  • Place an Ad
We are grateful for your support. Thank you!

Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report
60
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It
Tags: CommunionCOVID-19EurcharistOpinion & Analysis
FM Editors

FM Editors

Faithfully Magazine is a fresh, bold and exciting news and culture publication that covers issues, conversations and events impacting Christian communities of color.

Related Posts

Martin Luther King Jr. Photo

How the Distortion of MLK’s Words Enables More, Not Less, Racial Division Within American Society

by FM Editors
January 14, 2023
0

...

A Person Holding a Bible and a Flag of the United States

Christian Nationalism’s ‘Mission From God’ and the Political Influence of Its Master Salesman

by FM Editors
November 4, 2022
0

...

relief sculpture

Why We Call Them ‘Church Fathers’ and ‘Desert Mothers’

by FM Editors
September 22, 2022
0

...

President Donald Trump stands outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC

The Republican Party Has Embraced Right-Wing Extremism

by FM Editors
September 14, 2022
0

...

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Jesus and John the Baptist

Are Jesus and John the Baptist Cousins or Related in Anyway?

June 2, 2019
paige and christopher hilken family

Paige Hilken, Wife of North Coast Church Pastor Christopher Hilken, Dies by Suicide

August 2, 2021
stream movies laptop

Free Christian Movies: How and Where to Watch Free Christian Movies Online

March 15, 2021
White Christian Dean and Faculty Pose as Gangsters in Controversial Photo

White Christian Dean and Faculty Pose as Gangsters in Controversial Photo

16
study on evangelical churches finds some apply race tests on people of color seeking to belong

White Evangelical Churches Use ‘Race Tests’ on People of Color, Study Claims

3
depression

Why African Christians Should Rethink Depression

3
black women group

‘Righteous and Ratchet’ Black Women of Faith Embraced on Jemele Hill’s ‘Sanctified’ Podcast

January 23, 2023
Martin Luther King Jr. Photo

How the Distortion of MLK’s Words Enables More, Not Less, Racial Division Within American Society

January 14, 2023
Shirley Chisholm book

Historian Connects Shirley Chisholm’s Life and Politics in New Biography

January 14, 2023

Get the Newsletter

Loading

Listen to Exclusive Q&As on Faithfully Podcast

Faithfully Podcast · Faithfully Podcast Select
Advertisement
Advertisement
Mosaic Coffee
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Do Good. Obey God. Stay Woke.

Copyright © 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC. This website participates in affiliate programs.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Write for Us
    • Advertise
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Exclusives
  • Q&As
  • Inspiration
  • Subscribe
  • Shop Faithfully

Copyright © 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC. This website participates in affiliate programs.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Share via

Share This Post

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Copy Link
  • Tumblr
  • Digg
  • Flipboard
  • SMS

Add New Playlist

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

Send this to a friend