Bodies and Beliefs: Religious and Cultural Perspectives on Vaccination (Part 6 of 8)

Editor’s Note: This article is Part 6 of 8 in our series, “The Vaccine Paradox”. This series explores the stunning success of vaccination and the parallel rise of a skepticism that threatens to undo one of the greatest public health achievements in human history. Read Part 1: From Cowpox to COVID, Part 2: The Science Behind the Shot, Part 3: When Fear Overrides Facts, Part 4: The Wakefield Effect, and Part 5: Digital Contagion.

Introduction: Beyond Science, Into Sacred Territory

In modern public health discourse, vaccine hesitancy is often framed as a simple deficit of scientific understanding. If people just saw more data, the thinking goes, their doubts would dissolve. But that view misses a deeply human dimension: the web of faith, culture, and community that shapes beliefs about our bodies, our children, and our obligations to one another.

Attitudes toward vaccination seldom form in a vacuum. They’re forged by historical experience, religious teaching, and cultural identity. For many, a vaccine decision is not only a medical risk-benefit calculation; it’s a moral, ethical, and sometimes spiritual deliberation—weighing public-health guidance against trusted elders, ancient tenets against modern demands, and memories of injustice against promises of protection.

This installment explores those undercurrents. By seeking to understand rather than judge, we can see both the roots of hesitancy and practical pathways to build trust.

Religious Landscapes: Faith and Vaccination Across Traditions

Christianity: Diverse Responses Across Denominations

There is no single Christian stance on vaccines. The Catholic Church has broadly supported vaccination as an expression of charity and solidarity; the Pontifical Academy for Life endorsed Italy’s policies in 2017, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Dec 2020) deemed receiving available COVID-19 vaccines morally permissible when no alternatives exist.¹²

Protestant views vary. Mainline bodies like the United Methodist Church and ELCA have encouraged vaccination as a public good. In contrast, some evangelical communities were epicenters of COVID-19 hesitancy. As of October 2022, 57% of white evangelical Protestants reported being fully vaccinated—among the lowest rates by religious group—driven less by formal theology than by political identity, distrust of government, and insular misinformation networks.³

Islam: Scholarly Consensus and Community Challenges

Preserving life (ḥifẓ al-nafs)—a core objective of Sharia—grounds broad Muslim scholarly support for vaccination. Organizations such as IMANA have issued pro-vaccine guidance, and national bodies (e.g., Singapore’s MUIS) declared COVID-19 vaccines permissible. Concerns about porcine-derived gelatin (a stabilizer in some vaccines) have often been addressed through the doctrines of transformation (istihālah) and necessity, leading many scholars to permit such vaccines when alternatives are unavailable.⁴⁵⁶

Campaigns still face real-world barriers. In Pakistan, for example, polio eradication struggled against conspiracy theories and violence. One notable shift came in September 2024, when more than 190 religious scholars in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa publicly endorsed immunization in a joint declaration—an example of faith leadership countering misinformation.⁷

Judaism: Strong Religious Support, Community Complexities

Jewish law’s principle of pikuach nefesh (saving life) strongly supports vaccination across Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements. Yet tight-knit ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) communities have experienced outbreaks when targeted misinformation took hold—most prominently the 2018–2019 measles outbreak in Rockland County, New York (312 cases), contained through intensive public-health and rabbinic engagement.⁸⁹

Eastern Religions and Indigenous Spiritualities

In Hinduism and Buddhism, principles like ahimsa (non-harm) and karuṇā (compassion) align with protecting the community. Many Indigenous traditions emphasize interconnectedness—but also carry justified mistrust of state medicine due to colonial abuses, including forced sterilizations. A 1976 GAO review found 3,406 sterilizations of Native women by the Indian Health Service between 1973–76, contributing to a legacy that public-health programs must acknowledge and address.¹⁰

Cultural Factors: When Trust Is Broken

For many Black Americans, mistrust is rooted in real harms, notably the U.S. Public Health Service’s Tuskegee syphilis study (1932–1972). That history, alongside present-day inequities, shapes perceptions of official assurances. Even so, outreach through trusted faith institutions has mattered: by late summer 2021, 82% of regular attendees in the historically Black Protestant tradition reported receiving at least one COVID-19 dose.¹¹¹²

The Numbers: A Surge in Exemptions

In the U.S., most states allow some form of non-medical (usually religious) exemption for school vaccinations; five states (CA, CT, ME, NY, WV) currently do not, though West Virginia’s policy is under active legal/policy dispute in 2025 (e.g., charter-school guidance).¹³¹⁴

For 2024–2025, the overall kindergarten exemption rate (any exemption) reached a record 3.6%; before the pandemic, nine states were above 5%, compared with 17 states now—raising outbreak risk. Evidence from states like Vermont shows a “replacement effect”: when one non-medical pathway is eliminated, claims often shift to the remaining category (e.g., a seven-fold rise in religious exemptions after philosophical exemptions were removed).¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷

Case Studies: When Faith Communities Face Outbreaks

Ohio Amish (2014): An imported case ignited 383 measles infections across interconnected, undervaccinated communities. Respectful, community-led clinics and clear information helped reverse hesitancy and halt spread.¹⁸
Rockland County (2019): Targeted misinformation in ultra-Orthodox networks drove low MMR uptake until coordinated action with rabbinic leaders and public-health orders boosted vaccination and ended transmission.⁸
Polio in Pakistan: Partnership with respected Islamic scholars—framing vaccination as a religious duty to protect children—has been crucial to recent progress.⁷

What Works: Build With (Not Against) Belief

Partner with trusted leaders. Clergy endorsements carry unique moral authority (e.g., Pope Francis calling vaccination “an act of love”; imams publicly backing immunization). Use faith spaces. Clinics in churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples normalize vaccination. Context matters. Tailor messages to local history, theology, and language. WHO’s “Tailoring Immunization Programmes (TIP)” offers a practical, respectful framework for this work.¹⁹

Policy & Ethics: Liberty, Duty, and the Courts

U.S. courts have long upheld the state’s power to mandate vaccines to protect public health—Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) and Zucht v. King (1922) are the cornerstone cases—and that authority is balanced with civil-rights protections in specific contexts.²⁰

Conclusion: Building Bridges Through Understanding

Vaccine decisions live at the intersection of science, history, faith, and trust. Dismissing the religious or cultural dimensions as “ignorance” misses the point—and misses solutions. The path forward is humility and partnership: listen first, acknowledge the past, work through trusted leaders, and align public-health goals with community values. That’s how you protect both conscience and the common good.

Coming up in Part 7: Mandates vs. Freedom: The Politics of Public Health Policy—how democratic governments weigh individual liberty against collective protection, and why vaccine mandates have become flashpoints.

References

Catholic Women’s League Alberta. “Pontifical Academy for Life – 2017 Note.” https://www.cwlabmk.ca/uploads/1/4/4/3/144311478/2017pontificalacademyforlife.pdf
Vatican. “Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines.” December 2020. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20201221_nota-vaccini-anticovid_en.html
Kaiser Family Foundation. “Kindergarten Routine Vaccination Rates Continue to Decline.” https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/kindergarten-routine-vaccination-rates-continue-to-decline/
Pew Research Center. “Americans’ Largely Positive Views of Childhood Vaccines Hold Steady.” May 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/05/16/americans-largely-positive-views-of-childhood-vaccines-hold-steady/
Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura. “Religious position on COVID-19 vaccine.” https://www.muis.gov.sg/resources/khutbah-and-religious-advice/irsyad/part-11—religious-position-on-covid-19-vaccine–english/
British Fatwa Council. “Fatwa on Flu vaccine containing Porcine gelatine.” https://www.britishfatwacouncil.org/fatwa-on-flu-vaccine-containing-porcine-gelatine/
PMC. “The muslim patient and medical treatments based on…” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10612269/
Rockland County, NY. “Measles.” https://www.rocklandcountyny.gov/departments/health/communicable-diseases/measles
CDC. “Notes from the Field: Measles Outbreaks from Imported Cases.” https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6819a4.htm
The Text Message. “An Indigenous Woman’s Legal Fight After Forced Sterilization.” August 2022. https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2022/08/25/an-indigenous-womans-legal-fight-after-forced-sterilization/
CDC. “The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee Timeline.” https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/about/timeline.html
STAT News. “Rise in religious vaccine exemptions points to some false claims.” November 2019. https://www.statnews.com/2019/11/04/rise-in-religious-vaccine-exemptions-suggests-some-parents-are-making-false-claims-study-suggests/
Immunize.org. “State Vaccine-Specific Requirements.” https://www.immunize.org/official-guidance/state-policies/requirements/
West Virginia Watch. “WV charter schools will accept religious exemptions to vaccines.” August 2025. https://westvirginiawatch.com/2025/08/07/wv-charter-schools-will-accept-religious-exemptions-to-vaccines-siding-with-morrisey/
Justia Law. “Zucht v. King | 260 U.S. 174 (1922).” https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/260/174/
WHO Europe. “TIP: tailoring immunization programmes.” https://www.who.int/europe/publications/i/item/9789289054492
PMC. “How Childhood Vaccination Policies Shape the Landscape…” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7111605/
The Text Message. “An Indigenous Woman’s Legal Fight After Forced Sterilization.” https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2022/08/25/an-indigenous-womans-legal-fight-after-forced-sterilization/
Pew Research Center. “Americans Reflect on Nation’s COVID-19 Response.” July 2022. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2022/07/07/americans-reflect-on-nations-covid-19-response/
Justia Law. “Jacobson v. Massachusetts | 197 U.S. 11 (1905).” https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/

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