{"id":1261025,"date":"2022-02-01T10:23:21","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T15:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1261025"},"modified":"2022-02-01T10:23:28","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T15:23:28","slug":"how-the-federal-government-used-evangelical-leaders-to-spread-covid-propaganda-to-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-the-federal-government-used-evangelical-leaders-to-spread-covid-propaganda-to-churches\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Federal Government Used Evangelical Leaders To Spread Covid Propaganda To Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-the-federal-government-used-evangelical-leaders-to-spread-covid-propaganda-to-churches%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1261025&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In September, Wheaton College dean Ed Stetzer <a href=\"https:\/\/churchleaders.libsyn.com\/nih-director-dr-francis-collins-shares-critical-steps-for-back-to-church-sunday\">interviewed<\/a> National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins on his podcast, \u201cChurch Leadership\u201d about why Christians who want to obey Christ\u2019s command to love their neighbors should get the Covid vaccine and avoid indulging in misinformation.<\/p>\n<p>For those not familiar with Stetzer, he\u2019s not just a religious liberal arts professor and this wasn\u2019t just another dime-a-dozen pastorly podcast. To name just a few of his past and present titles in the evangelical world, Stetzer is also the executive director of the Billy Graham Center and the editor-in-chief of Outreach media group. He was previously an editor at Christianity Today and an executive director at LifeWay, one of the largest religious publishers in the world. That\u2019s to say nothing of the dozen-plus books on missions and church planting he\u2019s authored.<\/p>\n<p>In short, when it comes to leveraging high evangelical offices to influence everyday Christians, arguably no one is better positioned than Ed Stetzer. You may not know his name, but if you\u2019re a church-going Protestant, it\u2019s almost guaranteed your pastor does.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why, when Stetzer joined a line of renowned pastors and ministry leaders lending their platforms to Obama-appointee Collins, the collaboration was noteworthy.<\/p>\n<p>During their discussion, Collins and Stetzer were hardly shy about the fact that they was asking ministers to act as the administration\u2019s go-between with their congregants. \u201cI want to exhort pastors once again to try to use your credibility with your flock to put forward the public health measures that we know can work,\u201d Collins said. Stetzer replied that he sometimes hears from ministers who don\u2019t feel comfortable preaching about Covid vaccines, and he advises them, in those cases, to simply promote the jab through social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just tell them, when you get vaccinated, post a picture and say, \u2018So thankful I was able to get vaccinated,\u2019\u201d Stetzer said. \u201cPeople need to see that it is the reasonable view.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their conversation also turned to the subject of masking children at school, with Collins noting that Christians, in particular, have been resistant to it. His view was firm\u2014kids should be masked if they want to be in the classroom. To do anything else is to turn schools into super spreaders. Stetzer offered no pushback or follow-up questions based on views from any other medical expert. He simply agreed, \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The most crucial question Stetzer never asked Collins however, was <em>why<\/em> convincing church members to get vaccinated or disseminating certain administration talking points should be the business of pastors at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Christians and Conspiracy Theories<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Stetzer\u2019s efforts to help further the NIH\u2019s preferred coronavirus narratives went beyond simply giving Collins a softball venue to rally pastors to his cause. He ended the podcast by announcing that the Billy Graham Center would be formally partnering with the Biden administration. Together with the NIH and the CDC it would launch a website, <a href=\"https:\/\/wheatonbillygraham.com\/institutes\/coronavirus\/coronavirus\/\">coronavirusandthechurch.com<\/a>, to provide clergy Covid resources they could then convey to their congregations.<\/p>\n<p>Much earlier in the pandemic, as an editor at evangelicalism\u2019s flagship publication, Christianity Today (CT), Stetzer had also penned essays parroting Collins\u2019 arguments on conspiracy theories. Among those he lambasted other believers for entertaining \u2014 the hypothesis that the coronavirus had leaked from a Wuhan lab. In a now <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20200416092325\/https:\/www.christianitytoday.com\/edstetzer\/2020\/april\/christians-and-corona-conspiracies.html\">deleted essay<\/a>, preserved by Web Archive, Stetzer chided, \u201cIf you want to believe that some secret lab created this as a biological weapon, and now everyone is covering that up, I can\u2019t stop you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It may seem strange, given the evidence now emerging of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbko.com\/2021\/10\/21\/nih-acknowledges-us-funded-gain-of-function-wuhan-lab-sen-rand-paul-reacts\/\">NIH-funded<\/a> gain-of-function research in Wuhan, to hear a church leader instruct Christians to \u201crepent\u201d for the sin of discussing the plausible supposition that the virus had escaped from a Chinese laboratory. This is especially true as it doesn\u2019t take any great level of spiritual discernment \u2014 just plain common sense \u2014 to look at the fact that Covid first emerged in a city with a virology institute that specializes in novel coronaviruses and realize it wasn\u2019t an explanation that should be set aside too easily. But it appears Stetzer was simply following Collins\u2019 lead.<\/p>\n<p>Only two days before Stetzer published his essay, Collins participated in a <a href=\"https:\/\/biologos.org\/resources\/francis-collins-on-science-and-faith-during-covid-19\">livestream event<\/a>, co-hosted by CT. The outlet introduced him as a \u201cfollower of Jesus, who affirms the sanctity of human life\u201d despite the fact that Collins is on record stating he <a href=\"https:\/\/albertmohler.com\/2010\/09\/03\/the-predicament-francis-collins-human-enbryos-and-the-sanctity-of-human-life\">does not<\/a> definitively believe, as most pro-lifers do, that life begins at conception, and his tenure at NIH as been marked by extreme anti-life, pro-LGBT policies. (More on this later).<\/p>\n<p>But the pro-life Christian framing was sure to win Collins a hearing among an audience with deep religious convictions about the evil of abortion. Many likely felt reassured to hear that a likeminded medical expert was representing them in the administration.<\/p>\n<p>During the panel interview, Collins continued to insist that the lab leak theory wasn\u2019t just unlikely but qualified for the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In September, Wheaton College dean Ed Stetzer interviewed National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins on his podcast, \u201cChurch Leadership\u201d about why Christians who want to obey Christ\u2019s command to love their neighbors should get the Covid vaccine and avoid indulging in misinformation. For those not familiar with Stetzer, he\u2019s not just a religious liberal &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1261025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1261025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1261025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1261025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1261025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}