SALT LAKE CITY, UT — In what top Church officials are calling “a troubling sign of creeping apostasy,” the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a rare internal memo this week expressing alarm over Utah’s continued absence of measles outbreaks, warning that the complete lack of vaccine-preventable diseases may indicate a spiritual “lukewarmness” among its members.
“We’re not saying anyone has to get measles to enter the Celestial Kingdom,” clarified Elder Ronald G. Whipple of the Quorum of the Seventy. “But if you’re out there willingly receiving both doses of the MMR vaccine, we have to ask—do you even want to be considered Christian by the rest of America?”
The Church, which has long walked the tightrope between mainstream Christianity and its own, shall we say, plucky theological universe, has recently doubled down on its efforts to be seen as part of the broader evangelical fold. However, recent data showing Utah is middling the nation’s average in childhood vaccination compliance has reportedly sparked deep existential concerns.
Even with Utah’s Governer Spencer J. Cox going out of his way and giving the LDS Church an ally-oop by making it illegal for employers to even consider the vaccine status of their employees when making HR decisions, and even though COVID vaccination rates were dangerously low in Utah, the LDS church is not satisfied with progress. The strategy is meant to impress upon members that the belief in an afterlife is more important than ever.
“Evangelicals in the South are out there catching whooping cough and blaming it on spiritual warfare,” said Dr. Kent Millhouse, a BYU sociologist who specializes in religious performance anxiety. “Meanwhile, Utah parents are scheduling booster shots with the same fervor they once reserved for 6:30 a.m. seminary. What gives? Makes me wonder what kind of non-infectious neighbors I’m raising my kids around.”
Vaccine-preventable diseases proliferate in America’s faithful Southern States, and now the Gulf of Mexico is 2000% more likely to catch measles after changing its name to Gulf of America. The US-Mexico border also appears to have dropped in migrant crossings, not because of draconian anti-immigrant laws, but because the life-threatening cocktail of epidemics emerging in the US has poked a few holes in the American Dream.
Church Public Affairs has tried to mitigate the fallout by releasing a statement reminding members that “faith without infection is dead,” and encouraging congregations to consider at least some medical skepticism, even if it’s just MLM-based essential oils or that one cousin who swears elderberry cured her shingles.
Diary Reveals Endowment Session Was Always Meant To End with Knock Knock Joke
The campaign also includes a new family home evening lesson titled “CTR, not CDC”, as well as Relief Society handouts listing the Book of Mormon references to pestilence, scurvy, and what Church leaders are calling “highly contagious righteousness.”
Not everyone is convinced. Sister Melanie Porter of the North Carolina State Branch (which recently combined with South Carolina State Branch) voiced concern that the Church may be “chasing the wrong kind of Christian approval.”
“I already got flak from my Baptist neighbor for having zero bumper stickers on my car,” she said. “Now I have to play polio-roullette too? What’s next, snake handling at Girls Camp?”
In response to the growing controversy, Church leadership has reportedly formed a special task force—The Committee to Appear More Doctrinally Reckless—which will explore faith-promoting alternatives, such as urging members to homeschool in RVs or naming at least one of their children “Liberty-Faith Gunsworth.”
As the Church enacts new policies to drive vaccination rates in a righteously downward direction, members seem committed to continue their relationship with Christ through more traditional paths: through their priesthood leaders.
Get our sacred insights hot off the press.
We'll never sell your information or ask for 10% of your income. Privacy Policy
