Navigating the Vaccination Divide
September 22, 2021 Statement from Dean Pak, Dean Stone, and Dean De La Rosa
Many are aware of the recent Boston Globe article that features a current first-year Master of Divinity student who has made strong statements against COVID-19 vaccination and testing. As many already know, Boston University provides exemptions from vaccines for sincerely held religious beliefs. Alongside the University, the School of Theology respects the freedom of persons to express their views and defend them. The School of Theology also strongly affirms the profound importance of vaccination as a fundamental practice for the well-being and safety of our community and those around us. Further, the School of Theology proudly implements the University’s public health measures to help ensure the safety of every member of our community—and those with whom they come into contact—through mandated masking in University buildings and regular COVID-19 testing. Vaccination, masking, and testing are crucial practices that help ensure public health safety. They are also loving practices to express care and esteem toward vulnerable populations.
We are living in a world that is increasingly divided, where bridges for conversation and possibilities for compassion toward an opponent are rapidly disappearing and unsought. Divisions over matters of personal safety and basic human dignity, as well as matters where opposing sides claim their own ethical mandate, are the most acute. Understandably, they struggle to find (and often cannot find) common ground. There is reason and need passionately to stand for what one believes is right, just, and good. Indeed, that is the heartbeat of religion itself. Yet, looking at the history of religions and Christianity in particular, one finds that the failure often comes when we cease to be able to embrace each other’s humanity and can only singularly embrace our own cause at whatever cost it takes to win that cause. At that point, we have not only lost sight of another’s humanity, we begin to lose our own humanity.
We are convicted that Beloved Community has got to find a way to embrace differences, practice humility, and be saturated with compassion. We are also convicted that Beloved Community must have boundaries—things to which it does and will say “no.” Religious and faith communities have often struggled in how to say this “no” or to assert a particular identity without also demeaning the other. We desperately need a model of the nonviolent “no,” as well as the nonviolent “yes.”
We hope we can find a pathway that seeks to say yes to humility and empathy and no to arrogance and disparagement. May we together say yes to conviction with compassion.
People on both sides of the vaccination issue have a right to be heard—and listened to—precisely in the midst of passionate disagreement. People also need to feel safe, recognizing that definitions of safety vary quite significantly on each side. We hope we can find a pathway that seeks to say yes to humility and empathy and no to arrogance and disparagement. May we together say yes to conviction with compassion. May we together say yes to not losing sight of the humanity of each and every one of us.
G. Sujin Pak, Dean
Bryan Stone, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Cristian De La Rosa, Associate Dean for Students and Community Life