Even though the vaccination debate has nothing to do with religion, the public colored it with religious tones, and opted for policy inspired by the evolving culture of religious toleration and respect for individual conscience. After this move in the direction of post-reformation European culture took shape, public health turned medieval.
The power of Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump’s political extremism lies precisely their ability to erase extremism from their respective political actions.
Non-vaccinating parents are asking, in the name of religion, to risk their own child and their child’s classmates with a preventable disease. This is not a theoretical risk: the last outbreak of polio in the United States, to give one example, was in a Christian Scientist school with low vaccine rates.
Uprooting a fear without replacing it with helpful information is redundant. Therefore, it is time to shift focus from merely quashing anti-vaccine sentiment to intentionally building vaccine confidence. Nigeria provides a heartening case study on how this can be achieved.
Over the years we have realized two things. One, the anti-vaccination lobby is very strong and they use social media to their benefit. Second, for any vaccination campaign to be successful it would require a positive socio-political and religious background.
Contemporary rabbinic authorities have established this religious obligation as carrying scriptural authority – citing no fewer than five affirmative Commandments and three Biblical prohibitions.
How do we account then for bodily interactions at the southern border ethically and theologically?
…theologies of disability can aid human flourishing, because caring for people of varied abilities made in God’s image allows us all to create more just and compassionate political systems
…placing the feeling of exhaustion as the central organizing principle hails a subject as experienced and expressed through divisions and differences
What does thinking about affect mean for the politics of the religious studies classroom?
Why does Trump’s face matter? Why does Trump—a world-class performer and master of the craft of showmanship—practice shaping his face? What does his face do? Is Trump’s face part of his power?