What is going on with Tony Evans?

Last summer we called attention to Dallas-area megachurch pastor Tony Evans’s efforts at racial reconciliation. He called it “Kingdom Race Theology.” As I wrote then: “First, Evans clearly believes in systemic racism and the value of critical race theory. Second, Evans’s ‘Kingdom race theology’ sounds completely compatible with critical race theory.”

Today I learned that Evans does not believe in vaccine mandates. I will let Washington Post columnist (and evangelical Christian) Michael Gerson take it from here:

As we enter the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, it is the religious objections to routine vaccination that persist and perplex.

In some religious circles, the rapid spread of the omicron variant is being taken as an antidote to medical arrogance. “These variants aren’t just variants,” the popular television preacher Tony Evans explains. “This is God showing medical science, politicians, people: ‘I don’t care what you come up with. I’m talking now.’”

While conceding that “vaccines help,” Evans goes on to argue that “you should have a choice, whether it’s natural immunity or whether it’s therapeutics. You shouldn’t be mandated to put chemicals in your body. But you should be free to if you choose to. So our issue is against mandates, not against vaccinations if you choose to. … People don’t know what to do, so stuff keeps changing because God keeps messing stuff up. … So whatever decision you make, be able to trust God with it.”

This position — which assumes that God introduces an element of uncertainty into the conclusions of science to expose human arrogance — is intended to justify a reasonable middle ground of personal choice on vaccination. The problem? It is a theological absurdity based on a bald-faced deception in service to a dangerous ideology.

From the most recent data, we know that covid-19 boosters have an effectiveness of 90 percent to 95 percent against severe disease or death. According to a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine by Minal K. Patel: “This means that if the absolute effectiveness of two vaccine doses is 90%, the absolute effectiveness of two doses plus a booster is 99 to 100%.”

Read the rest here.