More than 1,000 church leaders and over 7,000 church members and attendees have signed an open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison opposing the implementation of a “vaccine passport” system in Australia.
The letter, dubbed The Ezekiel Declaration, was authored by three Queensland-based pastors who vowed to passionately resist any vaxx certificate system enforced on the church.
Timothy Grant of Mount Isa Baptist Church, Matthew Littlefield of New Beith Baptist Church, and Warren McKenzie of Biota Baptist Church said they penned the letter after it became clear there were few people resisting the developing medical two-tiered society.
“Part of me had been waiting for more experienced and more senior pastors or denominational leaders in Australia to speak up about what was happening,” co-author, Pastor Littlefield said. “But it was becoming clear this wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
“I knew many Christians were confused by this,” he said. “They want to know what pastors are thinking. So many people have heard Christians argue in apologetics that the Church has done much good for society, and now when so much is happening, the Church appears silent.”
The declaration presents five objections to the introduction of vaccine passports in Australia. That is, (1) The risk of creating an unethical two-tiered society; (2) The added burden on an already burdened society; (3) Government should never coerce conscience; (4) Arbitrary implementation and questionable science; (5) The inability of churches to exclude people from worship based on their medical status.
According to the declaration, for many Christian leaders and Christians, the proposed introduction of vaccine passports is an “untenable proposal that would inflict terrible consequences on our nation.”
The authors note that our generation is not the first to be confronted with vaccination passports. In 1880, during the smallpox epidemic, Abraham Kuyper, a Christian theologian, and eventual Prime Minister of the Netherlands, vehemently opposed the implementation of vaccine certificates, warning, “The form of tyranny hidden in these vaccination certificates is just as real a threat to the nation’s spiritual resources as the smallpox epidemic itself.”
The Ezekiel Declaration can be read and signed here.