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New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian, Tim Keller’s church, is segregating its congregation by vaccination status.
Churchgoers are told where they could sit based on if they got the jab, The Daily Wire’s Megan Basham told the Todd Starnes Show.
“Individuals who are fully vaccinated…are welcome to sit on the main floor of the sanctuary without social distancing and masks will be optional,” the church’s July statement reads. “Individuals who are not fully vaccinated…are welcome to sit in the balcony…”
But Redeemer is not alone. There are churches with even stricter vaccine policies across the country.
One Atlanta church won’t let children attend because they are not able to get vaccinated against COVID. The Southern Baptist Convention is forcing its missionaries to get vaccinated. Other churches are requiring vaccine papers to get into the building.
“They’re trying to shame Christians into getting this vaccine and how many people have lost their lives as a result of the shaming,” host Todd Starnes said.
Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina required its staff, including children’s ministry workers, to get vaccinated or resign.
“Think about that,” Basham added. “Does that not conflict with, I don’t know, ‘let the little children come unto me?'”
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Below is a rushed transcript of Daily Wire writer Megan Basham on the Todd Starnes Show:
STARNES: [00:41:40] I just finished reading an incredible column written by our good friend and our favorite writer over at The Daily Wire, Megan Basham and here. And and I’ll just set this up and we’re going to bring Megan on in just a moment. In New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian, which was Tim Keller’s theologically conservative church, they made vaccinated people sit on the main floor of the sanctuary, and unvaccinated people had to sit in the balcony. What is going on in the Church House in America? Well, on the Patriot mobile newsmaker line, our good friend Megan Basham, Meagan, good to have you back on the show. [00:42:16][35.7]
BASHAM: [00:42:18] Always good to be here, Todd. [00:42:19][1.1]
STARNES: [00:42:20] This is an insane story, Meghan, and what is going on in the church houses where they’re really grappling with this issue of the of what to do post-coronavirus pandemic. [00:42:30][10.3]
BASHAM: [00:42:32] Right, and you know, I think the point to the thing to point out is that it’s not just redeemer press. There are multiple churches throughout the country theologically diverse. Some are progressive, but some are very conservative, geographically diverse who are starting to institute these vaccine mandates to come to worship, to serve at church, to work at church. And so I kind of wanted to alert people, you know, while we’re all having this debate over whether or not religious liberty objections are legitimate for secular workplaces. There are some churches that are way past that now, and they are enforcing vaccine mandates themselves, not always just for staff. Sometimes, even if you want to come worship the Lord, [00:43:16][44.1]
STARNES: [00:43:17] I want you to tell our listeners about what happened at Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. We have a lot of listeners in North Carolina. I think there would be very stunned to hear what went down there. [00:43:26][9.4]
BASHAM: [00:43:28] Well, you know, I have a lot of good friends at Calvary. I have visited Calvary many, many times. Recently, we met last Christmas. We took our children to their beautiful Christmas concert. They put on some beautiful concerts. And so it’s known as a very conservative church. Well, people started reaching out to me. The way I started developing this story was that people started calling and sending me private notes, really alarmed about what was happening and saying, Can you please look into this? So essentially, they instituted a vaccine mandate not for the entire staff, but for workers in the children’s ministry, in the Child Care Development Center. They said To protect children, we want to make sure that all the staff in that department is vaxxed. Well, of course, the issue there is that usually people who work in children’s ministries are often young women are young women of childbearing age. They may even be pregnant. While some of these young women who did not want to go on the record reached out to me and said, We have concerns, you know, this vaccine is very new. There hasn’t been a lot of testing long term on pregnancy, on fertility. We don’t want to take it. So they left. So about 20 percent of their staff quit, and that left people who made use of this ministry in the lurch, moms and dads who relied on that ministry for child care were told you have two weeks to make other arrangements. Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a worker shortage. So daycares all across the country have miles long lists waiting list to get into, you know, use their services. So suddenly, all of these parents were left in the lurch. And I also want to add, you know, I again, I have good friends at Calvary. It pains me to say it. But the way they announced it to the staff was pretty shocking. They basically said, If you don’t comply with this or you do not respond to this, we will consider that your resignation. End of story. [00:45:23][115.3]
STARNES: [00:45:24] Now, now Meghan. And by the way, folks, Meghan Basham, who is on The Patriot Mobile News, make her line here in our Liberty University studios. Meghan, I’m glad you wrote this and it is an in-depth piece, folks. So this is one of those you need to sit down and you need to read and reread it. Just there’s so much truth and information packed into this. This the story. You do a great job of pointing of pointing out where all of this is coming from because I’m a southern Baptist. Russell Moore was president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and I think using that platform, he was very influential in a lot of and I don’t like to use this term, but a lot of woke preachers out there, they really embraced his ideology and also David French’s. [00:46:09][45.3]
BASHAM: [00:46:11] Right, and I did spend some time on that because those arguments have been so influential, influential over, I think, a lot of well-meaning pastors, but we have been told that this means loving your neighbor, that getting this vaccine, regardless of, you know, potential reasons, could be very legitimate reasons that you have not gotten the vaccine yet. That it is a way of loving it, loving your neighbor. And if you haven’t done it, then you are not loving your neighbor. So they have created a religious observance out of the vaccine. And I, you know, like you said, deeply went into quote showing how they have done that and how many churches, how many pastors are going, OK, we need to teach that this is loving your neighbor. Well, that is keeping a legalistic burden on people. There are ways to love your neighbor that may include not taking the vaccine. And so this idea that we are going to institute again, some of these mandates are so extreme. There are churches that I cited in Atlanta who are not letting children in the building because children can’t be vaccinated yet. So think about that. Does that not conflict with, I don’t know, ‘let the little children come unto me.’ [00:47:17][66.5]
STARNES: [00:47:18] Yeah, unless they’ve been vaccinated. I mean, you know, we’re rewriting the scripture, right? [00:47:22][4.1]
BASHAM: [00:47:23] They’re not supposed to be if they’re under 12, so you’re out of luck. [00:47:26][2.6]
STARNES: [00:47:27] So you point out that it’s not just the, you know, the liberal groups. And I would contend that my denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is becoming liberalized at least our leadership is. The International Missions Board, as you write, announced that any missionary or a member of a missionary family over the age of 16 has to be vaccinated against COVID. Unbelievable. [00:47:48][21.1]
BASHAM: [00:47:50] Right. And you know that one that’s hard for me because I, you know, again know very, very many good folks in the SBC. But what they need to know is the reason I wrote. I also had people reaching out to me DMs on Twitter. These missionaries are a. They’re wanting to do the right thing, but they sometimes have sons who are in that age range, who are 19, 20 years old, who would go with them. Well, there is research showing that that age group of young males faces more risk from the vaccine than they do from COVID. Now it’s disputable. We’re still research researching it, but it’s very much out there. And the idea that they’re going to ignore that in the name of love is pretty stunning. [00:48:33][43.1]
STARNES: [00:48:34] It is Meghan. And and look, I’m one of those people. I’m a little bit on the older side of that 53, but I got the vaccine on the advice of my doctor, and less than a week later, I was in the hospital with heart issues that I did not have before I had the vaccine. So I get it. And you know what? What really? And I’m sitting there in the hospital. I remember this Meghan, and I’m just fuming because there are all these people out there saying, if you don’t get the vaccine, you’re a bad person, you’re a horrible person, you’re not a good Christian. And that’s what they’re trying to imply here. They’re trying to shame Christians into getting this vaccine and how many people have lost their lives as a result of the shaming. [00:49:12][37.8]
BASHAM: [00:49:14] Well, and that was something I really wanted to delve into that that was why I spent a good portion of the piece speaking to a pastor who also happens to be a pediatric cardiologist and a medical missionary. So we had some great talks about how this is not being driven by science. You know, he was very firm that, look, they’re not considering natural immunity, which gives you much better protection than the vaccines. He said they’re not considering the fact that children are at such low risk for this. So. So why do you need all the children’s ministry workers vaccinated when almost no children have been severely impacted by this, who did not already have severe underlying condition? So the idea that all of this is being driven by science, he just utterly rejected that. He he is a scientist. He’s a not just a scientist, a pediatric cardiologist, and said this makes no sense. There is no reason to not allow this to be one of the issues. That is a disputable matter pointed out in Romans that says let each man be convinced in his own mind. Let each of us who want to be vaccinated, do it under the Lord’s. Let those of us who don’t want to be vaccinated do it unto the Lord. [00:50:26][71.2]
STARNES: [00:50:26] All right. And so, so Meghan, we’re going to we’re going to people have an issue. We’re going to have them reach out to you. And you know, it’s like they’ve got something happening in their church. I’m and we want to make sure that you’re aware of that. It is a terrific piece. We’re going to have a link on our live show blog. But great work and great investigative work as well. [00:50:46][19.4]
BASHAM: [00:50:47] Thank you so much, and yes, if you have stories and stuff you want me to look into, definitely, please reach out. [00:50:52][5.3]
STARNES: [00:50:52] Tell Shapiro, I said, You need a raise. [00:50:54][2.0]
BASHAM: [00:50:56] All right, I’ll tell him. [00:50:57][0.9]
STARNES: [00:50:58] Alright. Good stuff. Meghan Basham, ladies and gentlemen on the Patriot mobile newsmaker line. This is an important piece. I just I do have some concerns about where we are in the country right now, and I I don’t want to. I will not name the names of the churches, but there are a lot of megachurches that were packed filled to the brim before the pandemic started. Many of those churches shut down, and I’m here to tell you that many of those churches today have reopened and they are running at a fraction of the numbers they had before the pandemic. Many churches are having to implement layoffs, and they’re having to fire people because they just don’t have any money to pay the bills. And I think that a lot of the churches allowed themselves to be neutralized, and this is part of a plan and overarching plan. We talk about puzzle pieces on this show. This is part of a plan to bring socialism into this country. And the first thing that has to happen is you have to neutralize the churches. They’ve got control of the schools. They’ve been able to neutralize a good chunk of the church community in America. And that concerns me. So we’ve got to fix that, and I’m so glad that Meghan wrote this story, exposing what some of these places like Tim Keller’s church, what Russell Moore and David French are out there shaming you. Christians were not getting the virus or getting the vaccine rather, and then the Southern Baptist Convention forcing their missionaries to get vaccinated. That’s obscene. [00:52:31][93.5]