A church in California that has a history of defying pandemic lockdown orders is offering religious exemption letters for people opposed to being vaccinated against COVID-19.
KCRA News reports that after Sunday services last week, there were long lines of people waiting to pick up exemption letters from Destiny Christian Church in Rocklin, led by Pastor Greg Fairrington. Some say they traveled over two hours to get a letter.
Fairrington told the outlet that he doesn’t believe vaccine requirements are “right.”
“America is a free country. We have freedom of religion, and if a person has a moral objection to taking the vaccine, we want to come alongside of them,” he said in a video interview.
Destiny Christian Church, which averages 10,000 people online and in-person for its worship services, recently sent a statement to the Los Angeles Times explaining the importance of the exemption letters.
Fairrington said the church has gotten “thousands of phone calls from doctors, nurses, educators, and first responders, in tears, fearing that their livelihoods hang in the balance because of their religious convictions.”
“The vaccine poses a morally compromising situation for many people of faith,” stated Fairrington. “The religious exemptions we are issuing speak to that, honor that, and affirm that.”
Earlier this month, Fairrington and his wife, Kathy, led their congregation in a prayer for those who work in healthcare, education or other fields threatened with losing their job because they refuse to get the Covid-19 vaccine on moral grounds.
Michelle Mello, a professor of law and medicine at Stanford University, told the Times that she believes the exemption letters are “irrelevant” since most workplaces and the courts already recognize “bona fide” and “sincere” religious exemptions.
(Read entire story at Christian Post)
Again, Protestants leading the fight against government over reach. They understand that Covid is being used as an excuse to force people and churches into submission, the Catholic hierarchy for the most part, refuses to engage in this battle. In this fight I stand with our separated brethren.
The Catholic Church always has taught that obedience to lawful government is part of the 4th Commandment. The Catholic Church exists in countries with every form of government. The Catholic Church recommends getting the vaccine if you can.
Every area where you separate yourself from the Church is a chink in the armor of faith that Satan can enter.
A recommendation is not doctrine and you are free to reject it. That is not separating yourself from the Church, it is making a decision on a matter unrelated to the Church. Don’t over analyze it.
Fairrington will do this but Gomez and McElroy won’t?
Does this mean I’m Protestant now? Or maybe Gomez and McElroy just aren’t Catholic.
Bishops Gomez and McElroy are Catholic and so are you.
More the latter…
Nope. Not with that comment.
Deaths are back up to the equivalent of 2 9|11 every week in the US. Please be pro-life. Vaccinate if you are medically and morally able to do so. Next best, continue to mask when inside and get tested regularly to spot outbreaks. As Christians, as Catholics, we must live the exclamation of outsiders viewing the witness to Christ in the early Church: “See how they love one another?”
More fake compassion and virtue signaling will not change our minds. No mask, no vaxx, no guilt. If you are afraid of dying, go make a full and good confession, your soul is your own responsibility.
You are fake pro-life. Shame.
I am 100% pro life and do not offer the pinch of incense to false gods of vaccine propaganda.
Keep it up “Save” unborn babies. More fake news like yours means more innocent babies will die in the womb do to COVID. Fetal and neonatal ICUs are packed with tragic COVID cases because women followed your advice.
There are people-millions- who still live in the darkness of idolatry. Pray for their conversion and please stop trivializing it.
What has happened to Catholics?
YFC, that’s tabloid junk. Don’t buy into the trash headlines vying for your attention, they’re false.
Comes too late for my spouse. Requested a signed exemption from her pastor and confessor of many years. Flat out refused. Told her that the local bishop said no and Pope sez get the vaxx. She emailed the Colorado bishops group who had earlier offered exemption but got and auto email back saying they were all out!
Should anyone be surprised at those just flat out quitting or just no longer showing up?
No exemptions, no donations.
Catholics didn’t need a Protestant group to decide to issue some kind of ‘get out of jail’ letters that provide any legal protection that the existing law doesn’t anyway. There has been a centuries long track record of Catholic moral/ethical doctrine that Protestants benefit from and most only partially care to understand because its…well…Catholic.
This isn’t the first time the Church has dealt with this issue and it’s already been settled. And Protestants were as much the beneficiaries of the work of many prominent and orthodox Catholic bioethicists as any Catholic.
Bottom line? Forced vaccinations for adults are unethical and illegal AND there is no moral obligation one way or the other to get or refuse the vaccination based on an informed conscience.
But lacking a Catholic understanding of bioethics, I’m not sure what constitutes an informed conscience for a Protestant, given their near total rejection of Catholic bioethical doctrine.
In this instance Protestants could provide what the most Catholic churches won’t, a Covid vaccine exemption letter.
I’ll give them credit for doing the right thing and pray they will all cross the Tiber sooner rather than later.
I was spooked when Cardinal Burke almost died of COVID-19 last week, on a ventilator in the ICU, in an induced coma…now he has miraculously improved, by the grace of God! He is off the ventilator, transfered out of the ICU, into a hospital room. Will this terrible illness leave scars on him, and possibly shorten his life? So sad! We are all praying for his healing, worldwide! I have no medical knowledge, but follow all the COVID-19 protocols, got my shot (Pfiser) as required at work, will get the booster too, and pray daily for all those suffering and dying from the Pandemic, and their grieving loved oves. All our priests at my church are vaccinated, and I will not go to a church without that– too dangerous, and I am in a medically vulnerable age group. I knew I would get awfully sick after taking the vax– and so dreaded it!– but bravely did it anyway. Blessed to have it, though it is not a “perfect” solution! Hope it helps not only myself, but will contribute to help the health and well-being of all others around me, each day! I also cannot risk being around anyone who refuses the vax and Pandemic protocols– I am in a vulnerable age-group, and have a responsibility also, to do the best I can, for the well-being of others. Of course– other people are free to do as they feel is right, and I respect that. Some devout Christians just believe mostly in prayer, and natural remedies found in the Bible, and refuse some, or almost all, of Modern Medicine. That is their right. But I cannot be around them, won’t take a chance. May God bless us all! We pray daily at church, for the sick and dying, and deceased, of this terrible Pandemic, and for their grieving loved ones.
I am in the vulnerable age group – 76. I will not put an experimental, never used before drug into my healthy body. I believe in taking responsibility, though. I take Vit C, Vit D3, Zinc, Melatonin — all immune boosters. I exercise, maintain a healthy diet and weight. I do not wear a mask unless I absolutely have to — like going into a “social medicine Kaiser”. I hug my grandchildren and friends. I have been exposed to several people with Covid (I learned after they told me their positive results). I have been tested a few times and am always a bit disappointed when my Covid test comes back as negative (I would like to have natural immunity). In case I do get sick, I will start taking hydroxychloroquine and Erythomycin, obtained from the American Frontline Doctors. One should always be skeptical at a government trying to “force” a drug on anyone; promoting an experimental drug on pregnant women and children; paying people to get a drug. One should also be skeptical of censorship.
Abby Johnson said that she and her entire household of ten (eight children) contracted COVID-19. She contacted a special group of doctors online, and got onto a special regimen which they prescribed– including some vitamins and supplements. And it worked. Her whole family got cured of Coronavirus. A nurse told her that COVID-19 cases are abnormally high among those who are overweight. So, Abby went on a diet, and lost 50 lbs., so far.
Younger women need to lose the weight before they age, as it is harder to lose when one gets older and leaves one flabbier and more wrinkled if one loses too much in age. Get off the junk food, such as potato chips and sodas, and remember every “low cal” foods that use artificial sweetens are filled with sodium which trigger high blood pressure and strokes. Artificial sweeteners increase the appetite too.
Fish is a brain food but best freshly cooked as canned fish can have from 80 to 780 grams of salt, depending on the brand. If you eat too much salt in one thing, use no salt in another
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I am really enjoying reading the comments are articles here. I found this website when I was searching for a Destiny Church article.
I am a former Catholic who now attends Destiny Church. I was baptized, received first Holy Communion and confirmed in the Catholic Church as a child. I have left and returned to the Catholic Church several times over the years. My youngest daughter graduated from St. Francis (an all girls Catholic High School in Sacramento.) Her husband graduated from Jesuit, the all boys Catholic High School in Sacramento. They are no longer Catholic. And now I can say with true conviction – I won’t return.
As with some of the other commenters, I am in that “age group” for which the covid jab is recommended. I refuse to take it for moral, ethical, religious, physical reasons and for the reason the pro-abortion people have always used (which now flies in their face), “My body – my choice.”
Larry Elder spoke at Destiny Church today. He is devoutly pro-life and believes in a person’s right to choose or refuse the covid jab. I like what he said about pro-abortionists: how come the pro-choice (pro-abortion) candidates are never asked to define their pro-choice stance. Why aren’t they being asked, “At what point does life begin according to you, 10 weeks, a minute before they are born, 5 minutes?”
I loved being Catholic, I even wanted to be a nun like my Catechism teachers. I went to Catechism for 3 hours every Saturday, then confession, then mass on Sundays. It’s embarrassing that now several decades later, I can still recite The Apostle’s Creed, the Act of Contrition and the Rosary. To see the hypocrisy over and over again of a church I loved so much is somewhat sad. I don’t understand why Pelosi, Biden, and other so called devout Catholics and are allowed to remain in the church. And then I remembered what my dad told me, “Anytime something doesn’t make sense to you the answer is always money or power or both.”
Thank you for the opportunity to share.
Perpetua, God bless you. Keep praying the Rosary. I feel that the Lord has laid on my heart to tell you that the reason you leave the Church and the reason you will not remain with Him is because you are judging just like He warned us not to do.
Do not let people come between you and Him. So what if other people aren’t doing or saying what you think they should?
At least they did not leave Him abandoned on the Altar.