Let’s do a COVID-19 religion-news flashback, looking at a storyline or two near the start of the pandemic.

I’m doing this in order to analyze how the press is framing a major new development — the federal-court lawsuit filed by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Asbury Seminary challenging the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate. These are, by the way, two of the largest seminaries in the United States and, while other seminaries are collapsing, these two are growing.

Coverage of this lawsuit was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. (CLICK HERE to tune that in.)

So now the flashback.

Remember when I was writing — at GetReligion and in my national “On Religion” column for the Universal syndicate — about the vast majority of American religious groups who were caught in the middle of the “shelter in place” and lockdown wars linked to COVID-19?

Remember the Catholic priests in Texas who were trying to hear confessions out in the open air (in a big field and parking lot), while following guidelines for social distancing? Or how about the churches that were under attack for holding services in drive-in movie theaters, with the faithful in cars, while it was OK for folks to be in parking-lot scrums at liquor stores and big box super-marts? Then you had the whole casinos are “essential services” while religious congregations were not “essential.”

I argued, at that time, that this was way more complicated than religious people who cooperated with the government and those who didn’t. This was not a simple left vs. right, good vs. bad situation. In fact, there were at least FIVE different groups to cover in these newsy debates:

They are (1) the 99% of religious leaders who cooperated and took worship online, (2) some religious leaders who (think drive-in worship or drive-thru confessions) who tried to create activities that followed social-distancing standards, (3) a few preachers who rebelled, period, (4) lots of government leaders who established logical laws and tried to be consistent with sacred and secular activities and (5) some politicians who seemed to think drive-in religious events were more dangerous than their secular counterparts.

That’s complicated stuff.

The problem is that, in the world of American politics, things have to be crushed down into left and right templates or even, there for a few years, into pro-Donald Trump and the anti-Donald Trump. I’m sure we’re past that last part. Right?

Settling for this kind of simplistic lingo is especially egregious when covering church-state issues. As always, it helps to remember that, as recently as the Bill Clinton administration, there was a truly liberal public-square coalition that contained believers from the Assemblies of God to the Episcopalians and everyone in between. That was the era when there were only three votes cast against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the U.S. Senate.

Was RFRA “liberal” or “conservative”? I would argue — seen through the lens of 2021 political realities — that this was an example of old-First Amendment liberalism which created a truly “centrist” stance.

Now flash back to today’s political realities — a time when the American Civil Liberties Union isn’t even sure that it’s pro-free speech (see this blast of candor at The New York Times).

To be blunt, many journalists seem to think that it’s “conservative” when lawyers use RFRA-style defenses for conservative believers (think Colorado cake artists) and “liberal” when lawyers defend the religious liberty claims of Muslims, Orthodox Jews, peace demonstrators, etc., etc. Hold that thought.

Now, let’s look at the Religion News Service report on the SBTS-Asbury lawsuits. You can see some tension in the double-decker headline:

Two evangelical seminaries sue to block vaccine mandates, citing religious freedom

Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he has encouraged people to get vaccinated but opposes mandates.

Here is some of that report’s background on Southern seminary and COVID-19 vaccines.

Albert “Al” Mohler, president of Southern, said the two schools had “no choice but to push back against this intrusion of the government into matters of conscience and religious conviction.”

“It is unacceptable for the government to force religious institutions to become coercive extensions of state power,” Mohler said in a statement.

Mohler has praised the COVID-19 vaccine in the past. In a press conference Friday, Mohler said he has been vaccinated and has encouraged others to be vaccinated. He said the Biden administration rules turn the seminaries into arms of the federal government, charged with enforcing government rules.

“The larger issue here for the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is religious liberty. And on that we take our stand,” he said.

Note that Mohler is said to have praised vaccines “in the past.” Has his stance changed? It appears that it has not. However, he is opposed to the government mandate applied to seminaries and, one can assume, similar religious ministries.

Is this stance “left” or “right”? Is it possible to be pro-vaccines (which is “liberal” and thus good) while also opposed to the mandates (which is “conservative,” and thus bad)? Wouldn’t the “conservative” stance be to oppose vaccines AND the mandates? Is it possible that the seminaries are trying to find a “centrist” or compromise stance?

Coverage at The Nashville Tennessean pulled in commentary from the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty office, which has been attacked from the political and theological right in recent years.

The seminary lawsuit points to a nuanced debate over the COVID-19 vaccine in the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist seminary and ERLC have come out against the federal government mandating vaccines, but leaders at both entities have expressed support for the vaccine itself.

'I as president have encouraged taking the vaccine,' said Mohler at Friday’s news conference. The ERLC has published several pieces clarifying vaccine misinformation and encouraging Southern Baptists to receive the vaccine.

The seminaries are being represented by the church-state pros at the Alliance Defending Freedom. The RNS report states that ADL is “a major Christian legal nonprofit that often promotes conservative causes.”

The word “often” is crucial, since the ADL has — on quite a few cases — stood with the ACLU and other “liberal” groups in defending the First Amendment rights of other brands of religious believers (click here for info on a case involving the rights of Muslim prisoners). In many of these court cases, guidelines and logic linked to RFRA are in play.

Once again, we see the problem that I am trying to underline.

Is the ADL a conservative group when defending “conservatives,” using RFRA arguments, but a liberal group when defending groups backed by “liberals,” also using RFRA arguments? We can see this struggle with labels once again at the end of the RNS story:

Alliance Defending Freedom, which focuses on protecting the religious liberty of Christians, has also represented churches that challenged COVID-19 restrictions on large group meetings during the pandemic.

The word “focuses” is important. It would have been nice, however, to have noted the ADL’s role in other kinds of church-state cases and that reference would have taken an additional sentence, at the most. Also note that RNS says the ADL “represented churches that challenged COVID-19 restrictions on large group meetings.”

Now, were these churches among the few that opposed all limits on worship or those that fought for the right to return to in-person services, while striving to abide by the regulations applied to churches? Maybe some of these churches were trying to win the right to hold services that were similar to “essential” civic gatherings that were being granted looser guidelines?

Once again, was the ADL backing the truly rebellious churches or churches that were seeking some kind of centrist stance, one consistent to how government officials were handling other groups?

Back to the seminaries: Are they on the right, in this conflict, or in the middle?

Journalists need to be careful and precise. Reality is complicated.

Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it on to others.

FIRST IMAGE: Illustration with a vaccines feature at the website of the Steven’s Institute of Technology.