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What Mask and Vaccine Mandates Mean for Religious Liberty

Over the past week, I’ve received lots of questions about whether everything from mask mandates in schools to vaccination requirements in the United States military are issues of religious freedom. Many pastors say they are getting requests from large numbers of people to write them notes for “religious exemption” from these things. (That’s not how it works.) So are they religious freedom matters or not?

In certain, very limited cases they could be. Someone who is part of, for instance, a religious tradition that eschews all medical treatment, along with any other shots or inoculations, could make a credible claim to religious liberty. There are very few such groups—and no group that I’m aware of with a creedal prohibition on masks.

Beyond that, the principle is well established in American law and culture that public health measures are a legitimate state interest. Almost all public schools have required, for years, proof of vaccination for polio and smallpox, etc. The United States military certainly has the mandate to keep troops from dying off from a potentially deadly disease. Certainly, private businesses have the right to ask potential customers to abide by their safety protocols.

This is important because of what it means to keep our health care systems from being, as many are, overwhelmed. People who cannot get timely treatment because the hospitals are filled with COVID-19 patients are in peril. This question is also important, though, if we want to preserve and protect religious liberty.

I spent the last eight years working on religious freedom issues in the United States Congress, in the courts, in state legislatures, and with interest groups across the spectrum. I can tell you that I came across very few, if any, people who would say, “I hate the First Amendment; let’s outlaw religion.” Most people who would object to religious liberty would say that it means “a card to say you can do whatever you want.” They usually include some extreme example: “So are you saying that a religion that believes in human sacrifice should be able to kill people on an altar?” Or they would say, “So religious freedom means you can play with fire in a church building and not allow the fire department in when the building’s aflame with people trapped therein?”
No. Religious freedom doesn’t mean that—and never has. Religious freedom has always recognized, as with any other freedom, that no liberty is absolute. Religious liberty means, among other things, that a government restricting liberties should demonstrate a compelling public interest and should show that it has followed the least restrictive path to getting to that outcome.

If you are part of, say, an offshoot of Christian Science that thinks any medical treatment is a lack of faith in God, you may have a legitimate religious liberty claim, showing what your religion teaches and how you cannot carry out your faith in such circumstances. That still would not allow you to walk unmasked and coughing through a Walmart, but it would be a good-faith question to address.

In times of war, governments have a legal right to conscript qualified parts of their population into military service. Pacifists (those who believe that any violence is always wrong) have a right to conscientiously object. This usually doesn’t mean that they are free from service altogether but that they might be assigned to other, nonviolent forms of service. No one wants a government forcing Mennonites to be Navy SEALs.

Conscientious objection, though, does not mean that one can cite religious liberty because one thinks the Iraq War was a mistake or because one doesn’t trust Donald Trump to make good decisions in Syria or Joe Biden to make good decisions in Afghanistan. All those things might well be true—and they may be good reasons for you to argue that you don’t want to serve. But none of those things are a matter of religious liberty.

Someone may resent having to wear a mask on a Disney cruise. Someone might think the local public school system is too demanding on mask policies with young children. A nurse might resent having to have a vaccine to work in her hospital because she doesn’t trust the injection. Those are all legitimate points of debate, I suppose, but they are not religious liberty matters. Thinking that a mask restricts your breathing the way God intended or that FDA approval of the vaccine didn’t meet your standards or whatever—these are not religious liberty questions.

We all have ideas about things for cultural or political reasons—and we should argue those things in those terms. If we call religious liberty what is not religious liberty, we jeopardize religious liberty.

You might think it’s a restriction of your Second Amendment rights that you can’t fire a gun into the air in the French Quarter of New Orleans on New Year’s Eve. That doesn’t give you the right to do so, when other people could be hurt.

The “boy who cried wolf” is a cliché, but clichés become clichés usually because they are so demonstrably true. If we call schools asking for proof of COVID-19 vaccination a religious liberty violation when we didn’t do so for proof of polio vaccination, we are not talking about religious liberty. When we rail against mask requirements for school when we never did for the school dress code, we are not talking about religious liberty. And once we define religious liberty as our right to carry out our political opinions regardless of how they affect public health or safety, we have defined religious liberty right out of its meaning.

That doesn’t settle the question, of course. Cultural and political conflicts are going to happen—but they should be argued that way.

A Baptist, an Anglican, and a Presbyterian Walk into a Monkey Bar

Some of you know that many of us here in the Nashville community—and around the country—are stunned and grieving the loss of Father Thomas McKenzie, along with his oldest child, in a car accident this past week. If you didn’t know about Thomas, this brilliant piece by my Christianity Today colleague Daniel Silliman is the best place to start. After processing through some of the shock of this news, I couldn’t help but think about how Thomas was there, just by what seemed to be random coincidence, at one of the darkest times of my life.

Several years ago, my friend Randall Goodgame asked me to do an episode of his Slugs & Bugs Show alongside Father Thomas and another friend, Presbyterian pastor and author Russ Ramsey. He called it “A Baptist, an Anglican, and a Presbyterian Walk into a Monkey Bar.”

Randall’s idea was that we would gather in a children’s classroom at Christ Presbyterian Church here in Nashville. We did, at a tiny little table sitting on tiny little chairs—literally coloring pictures and playing with Play-Doh while talking about what Jesus meant in saying that only those who come as little children can enter the kingdom. We even swung (Is that the past tense of swing? If not, what is? Swinged?) on a swing set.

We were goofing off, making jokes with one another. But it happened to be the worst day of my life up to that point. I drove there from a horrific meeting where unbelievable things happened. I was in a deep place of pain. When I went back and watched the episode, I could see behind my smile a mind that was reeling through, replaying that meeting and gaming out all my alternatives.

But what I remember most is how Randall and Russ and Father Thomas stood around, before and after filming, and laid hands on me to pray for me. And then Thomas told a dry joke that made me laugh.

When this Baptist was facing some awful stuff from (some of) my own people, the Anglican and the Presbyterian were brothers to me. The childlikeness I experienced there had nothing to do with the crayons or the swing set but with my dependence on them and their willingness to stand with me.

I thought of that day a couple of months ago. Maria and I were missing the first Southern Baptist Convention we have missed since, I guess, 1995—and starting a new life without Southern Baptist Convention meetings. I had not yet started my new ministry and was sort of in the transition space, grieving and uncertain and second-guessing myself.

Our time at our new church hadn’t started yet, and I needed a Sunday morning place of worship where someone would have me. Thomas’s church, Church of the Redeemer, was the perfect choice. After the service, I was talking to Thomas and said, “Thanks for letting me worship with you today,” to which he responded, in perfect deadpan, “This building is open to the public.” I laughed again—and remembered the day at the playground.

I’ve thought about that moment back in the Sunday school classroom a lot over the last 48 hours or so, since Russ Ramsey told me that Thomas was gone. I wish I had thought to thank him for the way he was there for me—with both gravity and care. I keep thinking about how much we all respected him, how he was the only man I ever looked up to for his maturity and grace while we shot water pistols at each other.

His ministry in that moment gave me the strength to go on. And I’ve heard from countless people from near or far who can say the same, most of all those in his flock who had the blessing to be led and loved and served by him for so many years. No wonder his death has prompted such grief all around the country—grief that, like love, doesn’t seem to respect denominational boundaries.

It makes me look forward to the day when we Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and others will walk into the New Jerusalem together. I plan to tell Thomas what I never got to tell him here: “Thank you.”

This week’s Desert Island Bookshelf comes from Matt Kinnell, who writes:

The PreHistory of The Far Side, by Gary Larson—If this was a bookshelf for literally being stranded on a desert island, you’d need a sense of humor. Nothing captures “desert island humor” better than The Far Side.

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo—Jean Valjean is my all-time fictional hero, and this novel is one of the greatest explorations of grace and love in all of fiction.

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson—The first time I picked up this novel, I remember being struck by what a pleasure the prose was to read. And beneath the beautiful language is a depth and honesty to which I aspire.

For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway—In which Hemingway makes the case that when you believe something is worth fighting for, even if the cause is lost, you go on.

The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene—The “whiskey priest” is not a great example of piety, but his ability to see the image of God in those with whom he comes in contact is something that many Christians would do well to imitate.

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck—Knowing that our ancestor Cain’s struggle for love and acceptance is repeated over and over, generation after generation, is somehow both a comfort and a discouragement. But the novel provides hope that the cycle can be broken in the truth of timshel: “thou mayest” be who you long to be.

Virgil Wander, by Leif Enger—Sometimes life sends something to slow us down so we can see what was always around us.

Benediction, by Kent Haruf—The entire Plainsong trilogy is great, and Kent Haruf’s writing is always warm and kind. This volume is a poignant reflection on life and mortality and how each informs the other.

On Homesickness, by Jesse Donaldson—If I am ever separated long-term from “my old Kentucky home,” this little book—part memoir, part meditation on place/belonging, part love letter, part history/geography of my home state—will either help or make it worse.

Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand—This is my favorite book because it has it all: sports, war, trauma, sharks, perseverance, survival, a brutal antagonist, love, self-destruction, forgiveness, and redemption.

Sing to the Lord hymnal—I’ve often said that hymns are like old friends. Besides reminding us of who God is and who we are in relation to Him, these songs take me back to the best parts of the faith communities of my youth.

A Song of Ascents, by E. Stanley Jones—The spiritual autobiography of one of the greatest missionaries of the 20th century. “I have been shedding labels all my life. I hope to be able to shed them all, except for one: he was a Christian in the making.”

This Day with the Master, by Dennis Kinlaw—My favorite daily devotional. What better way to start the day than with the Master?

Thanks, Matt! What do you think? If you could have one bookshelf with you to last you the rest of your life, what volumes would you choose? Send a picture to me with as much or as little explanation of your choices as you would like.

Quote of the Moment

“It is not clear that politics is improved by our relentless fixation on it. The same things that make the news and politics exciting and stimulating—in the manner of television, drugs, and apocalyptic religion—are what make them bad for us. If ‘being political’ means working toward a tangible political goal in one’s life among other people, that’s one thing. But it seems safe to say that ‘politics as a presence in our daily lives,’ as the vast majority of us understand it, means podcasts, cable-news shows, a few national newspapers’ homepages, doom- or schadenfreude-scrolling on Twitter and scouring social media for fresh political stimulation. A kind of virtual churchgoing, in other words, with the occasional public executions of heretics.”

—Greg Jackson, “Sources of Life”
The Point magazine

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