President Russell Nelson, other top LDS leaders vaccinated against COVID

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Church leaders are urging their members to be shot as well.

(Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church President Russell M. Nelson receives the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, in Salt Lake City.

| January 19, 2021, 5:15 p.m.

| Updated: 22:02

Eight Latter-day Saint leaders over the age of 70 – including 96-year-old church president Russell M. Nelson – received their first “prayed and fasted” dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday morning to show ” in word and deed ”their long-term support for immunizations.

And he hopes that everyone else in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will follow their example.

The Utah faith “urges its members, employees, and missionaries to be good global citizens and help quell the pandemic by protecting themselves and others through immunization,” Nelson and the two First Presidency advisers, Dallin H. Oaks, 88 and Henry B. Eyring, 87, wrote in a press release.

The statement acknowledged that all people will make their own decisions, but said they hope that individuals will “advise a competent medical professional about their personal circumstances and needs.”

Nelson, Oaks, and Eyring were immunized Tuesday, as were apostles M. Russell Ballard, 92; Jeffrey R. Holland, 80; Dieter F. Uchtdorf, 80; Quentin L. Cook, 80; and D. Todd Christofferson, 75. Most of their wives were also vaccinated at the same time.

Three other apostles, all younger than 70 – Gerrit W. Gong, 67; Dale G. Renlund, 68; and Ulisses Soares, 62 – previously contracted and recovered from COVID-19.

(Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the church’s first presidency, receives the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, in Salt Lake City.

“I am glad that it is our turn to have this vaccination,” Oaks said in a statement. “We are very hopeful that the general vaccination of the population will help us to overcome this terrible pandemic. It is full of hope, as is the light at the end of the tunnel. There is relief and appreciation for those who invented the vaccine and for those who made it generally available on a sensitive priority system. ”

The church “has recognized the importance of vaccinations and immunizations for decades,” according to the statement. As early as 1978, the name urged members to “protect their own children by immunization.”

Since 2002, the faith of 16.5 million members has also helped fund 168 projects in 46 countries, including many that provide immunizations. Recent charities, the church’s humanitarian arm, has provided financial support to “prominent global immunization partners to procure and deliver vaccines, monitor disease, respond to outbreaks, train health workers and develop eradication programs.” and eradication ”.

These efforts have resulted in more children being immunized and fewer lives lost from measles, rubella, maternal and neonatal tetanus, polio, diarrhea, pneumonia and yellow fever.
Only in 2019, Saint Charities in recent days and partners such as UNICEF USA and Kiwanis International have helped eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus from Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statement said. With such partnerships, “Africa has eradicated wild poliovirus.”

(Photo, courtesy of UNICEF and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) A health worker vaccinates a baby while his mother keeps him at the Sante le Rocher Maternity Center in Lubumbashi, Congo, November 2018.

Most of the hundreds of commentators on the church’s Facebook page celebrated the news of Nelson’s vaccination, with many saying it was an answer to prayer or believing that the surgeon turned prophet was doing what God wanted.

A considerable minority, however, said they would not follow suit, arguing that vaccines were unproven or even dangerous and that immunization also showed a lack of faith in the divine healing power.

Some have suggested that Nelson embraces vaccines because he is a former doctor, not a prophet, on the subject, and have said they want the church to stay out of medical decisions.

A woman, who identified herself as K. Moore of West Jordan, said in a message that she would not receive the vaccine because her son “is vaccinated injured.” He would prefer the church to be “vaccine-neutral.”

It is not the first time that Latter-day Saints have been divided over vaccinations.

Anti-vaxxers of yesteryear

After one was developed amid the smallpox epidemic of 1899-1901 in the United States, more educated and urban members lobbied for immunization, while less educated, hardworking and rural farmers “favored botanical and faith healing. and the health of the diet … [and] folk remedies ”, according to a history of the debate by the scholar Ben Cater. Among the most ardent opponents was Charles Penrose, editor of Deseret News owned by the church and later a holy apostle of the last days.
Penrose estimated that 90% of the “LDS church” at the time “strongly opposed … vaccination and were very vocal about it,” said Cater, who teaches history at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. last month on The Salt Lake. Tribune’s “Mormon Land” podcast.
Historian Matthew Bowman, who leads Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California, believes opposition to vaccination was partly caused by distrust of the U.S. government’s involvement in public health.

After all, Bowman pointed out, this happened just 10 years after the federal government gave up the Mormons and asked the church to give up polygamy.

“A distinct LDS strain of Western libertarianism has developed here,” the historian said. “A lot of suspicion about government mandates was a hangover from that era.”

Tuesday’s announcement of the leaders’ vaccination, Bowman predicted, is likely to change some minds among Latter-day Saints. Those who are already in favor of the vaccine will receive it; the opposites will not.

“There is only one camp in the middle,” he said, “which could be influenced by LDS general authorities asking them to do so.”

(Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland receives the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, in Salt Lake City.

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