2,500 Church Leaders Urge Australia’s P.M. Not To Mandate Vaccine Passports

Nearly 2,500 church leaders from different denominations in Australia are urging Prime Minister Scott Morrison not to implement vaccine passports in the country, warning that it would create “an unethical two-tiered society” and “medical apartheid.”

The proposed introduction of “vaccine passports” into Australian society, is for many Christian leaders and Christians, “an untenable proposal that would inflict terrible consequences on our nation,” reads an open letter to Morrison, composed by three pastors from Baptist churches and signed by church leaders from across the country.

Called The Ezekiel Declaration, the letter states that “the government risks creating an unethical two-tiered society,” explaining that “while some individuals will receive the vaccination with thanks, others may have good and informed reasons for declining. … Free citizens should have the right of consent, especially when the vaccine rollout has been labeled as a ‘clinical trial.’”

Following a series of lockdowns “to now requiring a proposed ‘vaccine passport’ in order to live a normal life, the government is putting immeasurable pressures on ordinary people,” it adds, noting that studies have found that lockdowns have resulted in the rise of people contemplating suicide.

It’s also a matter of people’s conscience, it continued. “The conscience is the immediate contact of God’s presence in a person’s soul, and so an individual forced to act in a way that is objectionable to their conscience will never be at peace, either before God or before the state.”

The church leaders further reason that “making vaccination the basis of participating in normal life would make no logical sense in terms of protecting others.”

They cite a CDC study that shows 74% of people infected in Massachusetts’ COVID-19 outbreak were fully vaccinated and point out that four of those who were vaccinated were admitted to a hospital.

The letter adds: “We as Christian leaders find it untenable that we would be expected to refuse entry into our churches to a subgroup of society based on their medical choice. Only our precious Savior, Jesus Christ, has the authority to regulate the terms of corporate worship. These terms tell us that we are to make no distinction between those who call out in faith, neither on race nor medical choice. We are also under obligation to proclaim the gospel to all men.”