During my decades in religion-beat work, I have heard many an evangelical leader make the following sardonic observation.

Wait, I’ve also heard traditional Catholics offer variations on this theme. And there may be partisan political versions of this, as well. But that’s not my turf.

OK, here is the message: The quickest way for an evangelical to receive glowing elite press coverage and commentary (add social-media praise, after about 2000+) is to attack other evangelicals.

Now, that is not what this think piece is about. I say that, even though some vaccine-resistant religious leaders may have thought that’s what Daniel Darling, senior vice president for Communications at the NRB (think National Religious Broadcasters) was doing in his recent USA Today op-ed entitled, “Why, as a Christian and an American, I got the COVID vaccine.”

But careful readers could see that his message was way more complicated than that. If you weren’t sure about his intent, check out the lengthy interview with Darling that followed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program (click here or see the YouTube at the top of the full copy of this post). The veteran evangelical leader — former head of communications for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — was clearly sending two messages.

Yes, one was to religious leaders who have doubts about the COVID-19 vaccines. But he also had sobering words for their critics, whose attacks have caused anger and conflict, instead of changing minds.

Thus, what we have here is a piece of op-ed work, and the MSNBC appearance that followed, that people on both sides of this warfare need to parse carefully. This includes journalists who are covering this story — which is so not over yet.

Please read it all (this is a link to a copy posted by Yahoo).

But here are two crucial sections, one short and one long. First, Darling notes:

I know some reading this are still hesitant. I’m not writing this to shame anyone. I think it is perfectly reasonable to have questions and skepticism about a new vaccine. Injecting a new chemical in your body is a very personal decision. Nobody should shame you into it.

He’s talking, of course, to the people doing the shaming, as well as those being shamed.

Then there is this length passage. In the middle of this, Darling reaches his sobering thesis: It’s hard to find unity, even in a pandemic, when public trust as crashed, in terms of how millions of Americans view the core institutions in our culture (including the mainstream press that mediates most public-square communication).

If you’ve paid any attention to the news in recent months, you’ve probably seen stories about the number of people who are reluctant or refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine. There’s a lot of hostility out there toward these vaccines, and honestly, I get it. If you’re one of those people, I understand exactly where you’re coming from.

After being told we had to shut down for two weeks to “flatten the curve” and “slow the spread,” the shutdowns turned into months, and in some parts of the country, well over a year.

Our public health officials have continued to give confusing guidance, condemning any and all public gatherings, then praising public protests. Some have even misled the public about the efficacy of masks and the possible source of the COVID-19 virus.

Now, about those waves of simplistic and often inaccurate headlines (important Ryan Burge charts and commentary here) about white evangelicals and their institutions serving as the point of the anti-vax spear?

Let’s continue reading:

Journalists have, at times, selectively shamed certain populations for failure to wear masks and for gathering while ignoring others. And the narrative, proven false by actual data, that some red states performed worse on COVID than blue states, is tiresome and false.

What’s more, we are experiencing a deficit of trust in our institutions. At almost every level — political, business, religious — we have seen profound and catastrophic failure by those we’ve asked to lead us.

We’ve all watched elitism, a lack of transparency and a general failure to listen to the concerns of people who live at the end of their decisions create major distrust in the foundational institutions of our society. Our leaders have grown entrenched and isolated from the people they lead. And yet, in spite of this cloud of confusion and era of mistrust, I felt it was important for me and my family to get the vaccine. Why?

First, I’ve been following the development of the vaccine since early last year. The discovery and technology are one of the most amazing feats of discovery in modern history. The discovery was made by dedicated scientists and doctors — many of whom are people of deep Christian faith.

Read this and pass it on.

FIRST IMAGE: Graphic used at Crosswalk.com essay on euthanasia.