The Delta variant story keeps getting bigger and bigger, which means that debates between anti-vaccine activists and mainstream science and government leaders are getting hotter and hotter.

There are plenty of religion-news angles there, of course. There are plenty of articles to read about COVID-19, vaccines and fights in pews.

With that in mind, let’s connect several dots while on our way to this weekend’s “think piece” — which is a David French essay with this double-decker headline:

It’s Time to Stop Rationalizing and Enabling Evangelical Vaccine Rejection

There is no religious liberty interest in refusing the COVID vaccine.

Start here, with this passage near the end of my GetReligion post earlier this week that ran with this headline: “Was this a story? Why? Mississippi governor talks about heaven and Southern anti-vax trends.”

When thinking about religious liberty and those seeking exemptions from vaccine mandates, remember that — for decades — the U.S. Supreme Court has said that government can ask tough questions about religious beliefs and actions when they involve fraud, profit and clear threats to life and health. Watch for discussions of that third factor in these public-policy debates. …

The fact that there are bitter debates on this topic in conservative pews is a sign of DIVISION on the topic, not that Black and White believers are UNITED against vaccines and masks. The press coverage keeps implying unity here and that is the opposite of what the facts show.

Now, it is becoming clear that some religious leaders are going to test these religious-liberty arguments with employers and then in courts.

As you would expect, this is causing heat among Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest non-Catholic flock of believers. You can feel the various tensions in a new Baptist Press feature: “Vaccine mandates raise religious liberty questions.”

You see, there are people who are pro-vaccines, but question the need for government and employer mandates. This passage is long, but essential.

“The SBC Executive Committee has received numerous inquiries from Southern Baptists around the country about authorizing religious exemptions for vaccine mandates,” said Jonathan Howe, the SBC EC’s vice president of communications. “However, this is not an assignment given to the EC by Southern Baptists due to the autonomous nature of our Convention.”

Evangelical ethicists and legal scholars agree that many followers of Christ object to the COVID-19 vaccines, but they’re split on whether any of the objections commonly articulated among believers constitute religious objections. The distinction between religious liberty objections and more general objections could become a key issue as more businesses require employees to be vaccinated.

The SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission says the COVID vaccines are “safe and effective” and has cautioned pastors against endorsing hasty appeals to religious liberty by vaccine skeptics.

“We must not allow or give support to mere personal or political preferences masquerading as religious liberty claims,” wrote Jason Thacker, ERLC chair of research in technology ethics. “Indeed, doing so is not only morally disingenuous but also can do long-term damage to the credibility of pastors, churches, and Christian institutions in our communities. At the same time, pastors should graciously and patiently consult with those seeking such exemptions or accommodations in order to determine whether the request is predicated on sincere religious grounds.”

ERLC trustee Jon Whitehead, a Missouri attorney who specializes in religious liberty cases, expressed a similar perspective.

“Most Baptists will listen to Scripture, facts, and experts they trust and decide to take the vaccine. I am among them,” Whitehead said. “Many vaccine objections are grounded in Constitutional interpretation, concerns about government power, or even about how to analyze data. Some of these concerns might be prudent, but not religious.

“People who don’t understand religious liberty might fear that religious accommodation opens Pandora’s box. But that fear isn’t supported by the long legal record in the United States,” he said. “Baptists believe in protecting religious liberty for all. …Baptists should remain united against government religious discrimination. And Baptists should oppose government retaliation against people who ask for exemptions.”

This brings us to the French essay.

When reading this, it helps to remember that he is (a) an evangelical, (b) a Harvard Law School graduate and (c) a veteran of many, many court cases in which he has defended the religious liberty rights of religious believers, including many conservative Christians.

Journalists need to read what he has to say because, as I mentioned earlier, religious liberty cases linked to disputes about a “clear threat to life and health” are some of the most agonizing First Amendment cases that exist. There will be headlines. There will be mistakes and stereotypes, too.

French is making a case for the vaccines, of course, but also AGAINST clergy and activists attempting to play the First Amendment card in this fight. Thus:

… There is a scramble by Christian Americans to seek “religious exemptions” from employer vaccine mandates. I’ve received correspondence from Christian religious liberty ministries who report a sharp rise in requests for legal assistance to secure religious exemptions. One ministry indicated in an email to affiliated attorneys that it had been “inundated by requests” for help. A pastor in a large church in California has promised to hand out “religious exemption forms” to anyone who attends the church and asks. 

There’s the news hook. Now read this:

I … fear that the relentless right-wing political focus on religious liberty has obscured two realities — that our liberties have limits when they collide with the rights of others, and that the exercise of our liberty carries with it profound moral responsibility. 

The idea that liberty has limits is inherent in the American social compact. Think of our founding Declaration — “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Through more than two centuries of controversy and progress, our classical liberal legal system is learning to harmonize these three unalienable rights.

I have liberty, yes, but my liberty does not extend to taking or endangering your life (this is one reason why Roe v. Wade is such a profound violation of our founding principles). In addition, my liberty doesn’t extend to materially impairing your ability to pursue happiness. Even if COVID doesn’t kill, the frequent infliction of painful, long term illness can sap a person of hope and joy and deprive sick Americans of economic opportunity and the psychological benefits of social participation in American life. 

In more prosaic legal terms, the state is able to regulate even the strongest of liberties when it possesses a “compelling governmental interest” and places those regulations in proper limits. And what are some legally recognized “compelling” interests? Foremost among them are protections for life and health.

Read all three, if you have the time. But reporters will want to underline and file some of the names and terms in the Baptist Press and French pieces.

Be careful out there.

FIRST IMAGE: A popular anti-vax button on the market.