ADVERTISEMENT
Faithfully Magazine
  • News
    • All
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • World
    R Kelly

    R. Kelly Has Been Convicted of Sex Crimes Against Black Women. Why Did It Take Nearly 30 Years?

    Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Uvalde after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at nearby Robb Elementary School.

    Texas Agencies Resist Releasing Public Records on Uvalde School Shooting

    juneteenth on a flag

    Juneteenth Is a Federal Holiday: Here’s What You Need to Know

    Salvador Ramos, identified as the gunman who killed 19 students and teachers Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas May 24, 2022

    ‘It’s Time to Die,’ Uvalde Shooter Salvador Ramos Told Schoolchildren Before Opening Fire

  • Clippings
    Harry Knoesen

    Pastor Plotted to Kill Thousands of Black People, Overthrow South African Government

    The tabernacle, which is pure 18-karat gold, dates back to the 1890s, according to the Diocese of Brooklyn

    19th-Century Tabernacle Worth $2M Stolen From Church in ‘Brazen Crime of Disrespect and Hate’

    Fermin Rangel-Ramos

    Pastor Kicked Out of Church After 11 Accuse Him of Abuse to Serve At Least One Year in Prison

    rapper M.I.A.

    Rapper M.I.A. Says She’s a Born-Again Christian After Seeing ‘Vision of Jesus Christ’

  • Features
    R Kelly

    R. Kelly Has Been Convicted of Sex Crimes Against Black Women. Why Did It Take Nearly 30 Years?

    Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Uvalde after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at nearby Robb Elementary School.

    Texas Agencies Resist Releasing Public Records on Uvalde School Shooting

    Celia Lewis ProPublica

    White Anti-CRT Parents Got a Black Educator Fired, Then Chased Her to Her Next Job

    Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York

    Overtly White Supremacist Ideology Is Being Sanitized and Mainstreamed

  • Inspiration
    • All
    • Bible
    • First-Person Essay
    • Poetry
    Everything Everywhere All At Once. (A24 Films)

    ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ & the Absurdity of Love as Resistance

    God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God's Unexpected Coming

    The Gospels Give Birth to Poetry (‘God Speaks Through Wombs’ Excerpt)

    two women talk

    100 Proverbs That Teach Us How to Speak, Listen, and Respectfully Disagree

    Rapper J Cole and a hanging tree

    J. Cole’s ‘Javari,’ the Cross, and the Lynching Tree

  • Members
  • About Us
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Write for Us
    • Advertise With Us
SUBSCRIBE
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • All
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • World
    R Kelly

    R. Kelly Has Been Convicted of Sex Crimes Against Black Women. Why Did It Take Nearly 30 Years?

    Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Uvalde after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at nearby Robb Elementary School.

    Texas Agencies Resist Releasing Public Records on Uvalde School Shooting

    juneteenth on a flag

    Juneteenth Is a Federal Holiday: Here’s What You Need to Know

    Salvador Ramos, identified as the gunman who killed 19 students and teachers Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas May 24, 2022

    ‘It’s Time to Die,’ Uvalde Shooter Salvador Ramos Told Schoolchildren Before Opening Fire

  • Clippings
    Harry Knoesen

    Pastor Plotted to Kill Thousands of Black People, Overthrow South African Government

    The tabernacle, which is pure 18-karat gold, dates back to the 1890s, according to the Diocese of Brooklyn

    19th-Century Tabernacle Worth $2M Stolen From Church in ‘Brazen Crime of Disrespect and Hate’

    Fermin Rangel-Ramos

    Pastor Kicked Out of Church After 11 Accuse Him of Abuse to Serve At Least One Year in Prison

    rapper M.I.A.

    Rapper M.I.A. Says She’s a Born-Again Christian After Seeing ‘Vision of Jesus Christ’

  • Features
    R Kelly

    R. Kelly Has Been Convicted of Sex Crimes Against Black Women. Why Did It Take Nearly 30 Years?

    Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Uvalde after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at nearby Robb Elementary School.

    Texas Agencies Resist Releasing Public Records on Uvalde School Shooting

    Celia Lewis ProPublica

    White Anti-CRT Parents Got a Black Educator Fired, Then Chased Her to Her Next Job

    Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York

    Overtly White Supremacist Ideology Is Being Sanitized and Mainstreamed

  • Inspiration
    • All
    • Bible
    • First-Person Essay
    • Poetry
    Everything Everywhere All At Once. (A24 Films)

    ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ & the Absurdity of Love as Resistance

    God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God's Unexpected Coming

    The Gospels Give Birth to Poetry (‘God Speaks Through Wombs’ Excerpt)

    two women talk

    100 Proverbs That Teach Us How to Speak, Listen, and Respectfully Disagree

    Rapper J Cole and a hanging tree

    J. Cole’s ‘Javari,’ the Cross, and the Lynching Tree

  • Members
  • About Us
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Write for Us
    • Advertise With Us
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
No Result
View All Result

Cherry-Picking the Bible and Using Verses Out of Context Isn’t Confined to Anti-Vaxxers

FM Editors by FM Editors
October 4, 2021
in Opinion & Analysis, Spotlight
Reading Time: 5 mins read
0
bible psalms

(Photo: Unsplash)

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on RedditShare on LinkedInEmail This
ShareTweetPin It

By John Fea, The Conversation

A devout evangelical Christian friend of mine recently texted to explain why he was not getting the COVID-19 vaccine. “Jesus went around healing lepers and touched them without fear of getting leprosy,” he said.

Mosaic Coffee

This story that St. Luke tells in his gospel (17:11-19) is not the only Bible verse I have seen and heard evangelical Christians use to justify anti-vaccine convictions. Other popular passages include Psalm 30:2: “Lord, I called to you for help, and you healed me.”; 1 Corinthians 6:19: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?”; and Leviticus 17:11: “For the life of a creature is in the blood.”

RELATED STORIES

8 Christian Conservatives Who Promoted False Claims of a ‘Stolen Election’

Why We Need Nurturing Fathers

All of these verses have been lifted out of context and repurposed to buttress the anti-vaccine movement. As a historian of the Bible in American life, I can attest that such shallow reading in service of political and cultural agendas has long been a fixture of evangelical Christianity.

Bible in the hands of ordinary people

In the 16th century, Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers translated the Bible from an already existing Greek text into the languages of common people. Prior to this, most men and women in Europe were exposed to the Bible through the Vulgate, a Latin version of the Old and New Testaments that only educated men – mostly Catholic priests – could read.

As people read the Bible – many for the first time – they inevitably began to interpret it as well. Protestant denominations formed around such interpretations. By the time Protestants started forming settlements in North America, there were distinctly Anglican, Presbyterian, Anabaptist, Lutheran and Quaker reading of the Bible.

The English Calvinists who settled the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay built entire colonies around their reading of the Bible, making New England one of the most literate societies in the world. In the 18th century, popular access to the Bible was one way that the British – including the North American colonies – distinguished themselves from Catholic nations that did not provide such access.

American evangelicals

In the early 19th-century United States, biblical interpretation became more free-wheeling and individualistic.

Small differences over how to interpret the Bible often resulted in the creation of new sects such as the Latter Day Saints, the Restorationists (Disciples of Christ and Churches of Christ), Adventists and various evangelical offshoots of more longstanding denominations such as Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists and Quakers.

During this period, the United States also grew more democratic. What the French traveler and diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville described as “individualism” had a profound influence on biblical interpretation and the way laypeople read the sacred text.

The views of the Bible proclaimed from the pulpits of formally educated clergy in established denominations gave way to a more free-wheeling and populist understanding of the scriptures that was often dissociated from such authoritative communities.

But these evangelicals never developed their approach to understanding the Bible in complete isolation. They often followed the interpretations of charismatic leaders such as Joseph Smith (Latter Day Saints), Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell (Restorationist), William Miller (Adventists) and Lorenzo Dow (Methodists).

These preachers built followers around innovative readings of the Scriptures. Without a church hierarchy to reign them in, these evangelical pied pipers had little accountability.

When large numbers of Irish and German immigrants arrived on American shores in the middle decades of the 19th century, evangelicals drew on longstanding anti-Catholic prejudices. They grew anxious that these Catholic newcomers were a threat to their Protestant nation and often based these fears on perceptions of how Catholic bishops and priests kept the Bible from their parishioners.

While this fear of Catholics was mostly rhetorical in nature, there were a few moments of violence. For example, in 1844, nativist Protestants, responding to rumors that Catholics were trying to remove the Bible from Philadelphia public schools, destroyed two of the city’s Catholic churches before the Pennsylvania militia stopped the violence.

These so-called “Bible riots” revealed the deep tensions between the individualistic and common-sensical approach to biblical interpretation common among Protestants and a Catholic view of reading the Bible that was always filtered through the historic teachings of the Church and its theologians. Protestants believed that the former approach was more compatible with the spirit of American liberty.

Vaccine opposition and the Bible

Today this American approach to reading and the interpreting the Bible is front and center in the arguments made by evangelical Christians seeking religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccination mandates. When they explain their religious objections to health officials, employers and school administrations, evangelicals select verses, usually out of context, and reference them on exemptions forms.

Like they did in the 19th century, evangelicals who refuse to get vaccinated today tend to follow the spiritual leaders who have built followings by baptizing political or cultural propaganda in a sea of Bible verses.

Megachurch pastors, televangelists, conservative media commentators and social media influencers have far more power over ordinary evangelical Christians than those local pastors who encourage their congregations to consider that God works through science.

When I ask those evangelicals who oppose vaccines how they come to their conclusions, they all seem to cite the same sources: Fox News, or a host of fringe media personalities whom they watch on cable television or Facebook. Some others they cite include Salem Radio host and author Eric Metaxas, the Liberty Counsel and Tennessee megachurch leader Greg Locke, to name a few.

Social media allows these evangelical conspiracy theorists to become influential through their anti-vaccine rants.

From my perspective, the response of some evangelicals to the vaccine reveals the dark side of the Protestant Reformation. When the Bible is placed in the hands of the people, void of any kind of authoritative religious community to guide them in their proper understanding of the text, the people can make it say anything they want it to say.The Conversation

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


John Fea, Professor of American History, Messiah College

Leave your vote

0 Points
Upvote Downvote

Browse and manage your votes from your Member Profile Page

What's Your Reaction?

  • AngryAngry
    0
    Angry
  • CuteCute
    0
    Cute
  • CryCry
    0
    Cry
  • LOLLOL
    0
    LOL
  • LoveLove
    0
    Love
  • OMGOMG
    0
    OMG

REPRINT REQUESTS | MEMBERSHIPS | GIVE



Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report
ShareTweetPin It
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

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

8 Christian Conservatives Who Promoted False Claims of a ‘Stolen Election’

fathers

Why We Need Nurturing Fathers

Patriarchy, Purity Culture Are Blocking Efforts to Address SBC Sexual Abuse Scandal

Should the USPS Honor the Sabbath, or Amazon?

Upcoming Live Events

There are no upcoming Events at this time.

Recently Published

  • 8 Christian Conservatives Who Promoted False Claims of a ‘Stolen Election’
  • R. Kelly Has Been Convicted of Sex Crimes Against Black Women. Why Did It Take Nearly 30 Years?
  • ‘Truth’s Table’ Authors Talk Early Beginnings, Centering Black Women, and Inspiring One Another
  • Texas Agencies Resist Releasing Public Records on Uvalde School Shooting
  • Why We Need Nurturing Fathers
Mosaic Coffee
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Newsletter

© 2022 Faithfully Media LLC, owner and operator. All rights reserved. This site participates in the Amazon Associates program, and other affiliate programs, and may earn a commission from your purchases.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Clippings
  • Features
  • Spotlight
  • Inspiration
  • Log In
    • Your Profile
Share via

Share This Post

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

Log In

Sign In

Login with Facebook
Login with Twitter
Forgot password?

Don't have an account? Register

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Back to Login

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Accept

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

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

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Send this to a friend