Churches can play ‘vital role’ in reducing vaccine hesitancy: theological professor

Atlantic School of Theology professor David Deane says that work must be done between people who trust and love one another

CITYnews\ Chris Stoodley

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A Halifax theological professor says churches can play a vital role in helping vaccine-hesitant people get fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

David Deane, a professor at Halifax’s Atlantic School of Theology, told CityNews Halifax that these conversations must be done in local settings between people who trust and love one another.

“It needs to happen at the local level, and churches can play a vital role in this,” Deane says. “All on-the-ground organizations, which include a mixture of vaccinated and unvaccinated people, they can play a role in facilitating these conversations.

“We’re not doing a good job.”

National vaccination coverage data shows that 27,785,206 people or 72.65 per cent of Canada’s population is fully vaccinated.

Deane says it’s easy to have a community figure or leader preach about getting vaccinated. However, it’s not going to be as effective as having serious, yet safe, conversations between people.

While he says it’s a difficult line to walk, he urges more places of worship to talk about COVID-19 vaccinations.

Still, it might not be as easy as starting more conversations.

The New York Times reported that white evangelicals are the least vaccinated Americans. In fact, millions of white evangelical Americans don’t intend on getting the COVID-19 vaccine due to tenets of faith and mistrust of science.

In terms of religious people who are hesitant to get the vaccine, Dean says the majority of people don’t say they’ll refuse the vaccine because of God or their religion.

Instead, many will say they don’t trust the vaccine, they don’t trust the media’s “spin” on vaccines or they can’t trust academia.

“It breaks down in relation to lack of trust in established society rather than for specific theological reasons,” he said.

Deane says there’s unquestionably a perspective where some people believe their faith trumps science and vaccines.

However, he said it’s only a small number of people — around 3 or 4 per cent of unvaccinated people — who have that perspective.

“We came into COVID as a fractured society with various groups feeling isolated, feeling non-represented in the media, non-represented by the establishment and distrusting of the establishment,” he said. “These fractures have really begun to come apart during COVID. So, now we’re in a situation where those who feel marginalized by society are significantly less likely to be vaccinated than others.”