Category: Values

By Dannah Gresh, founder of True Girl

Recently, I read an article where the author stated that the Bible lays out an overriding Christian principle that has been used to defend vaccination.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”…“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:30-31).

Rachel Marie Stone offered her viewpoint in Christianity Today’s women’s blog, Her.meneutics.

I'm concerned that so many people seem willing to let others carry the supposed burden of vaccination so that they don't have to. To me, that's a failure of the commandment to love our neighbors: our infant neighbors, our elderly neighbors, and our immune-compromised neighbors. That's a disease of the soul for which the only treatment is love—best shown in the God who became man to bear our infirmities in his own body.

Truly, Jesus told us we should not love ourselves more than we love others. I think it's fair to at least consider the fact that vaccinations are a practical way to love our neighbors well. (Ask someone who lived through the polio epidemic what they think of vaccines?) Does that make the decision an easy one? Unfortunately, no.

Though I’ve never liked one single shot in the arm that my children had to receive for the good of mankind, they are up to date in all recommended vaccinations…with one exception: Gardasil.