Springs Church offers vaccine ‘exemptions’

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This article was published 28/10/2021 (1107 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Springs Church has announced it will offer “religious exemptions” to parishioners who want to avoid getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

The non-denominational evangelical church said in a email to members from pastors Leon and Sally Fontaine on Thursday that “we have made the decision to provide religious exemptions to our attenders if they think that may help them with their employment.”

The e-mail states “these religious exemptions may not apply to all employee situations or be accepted by all employers.”

It concludes by stating, “We continue to believe that the overreach our government is taking with our freedoms will be challenged and come to an end.”

The email invites people who want more information about the exemption to contact the church.

Calls to Springs Church for more information, or for a rationale for the religious exemption, were not returned Thursday and Friday.

In a statement, the provincial government said there is no religious exemption from getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

“At this time, we are only permitting a medical exemption under very specific circumstances,” the spokesperson said.

Provincial Health Minister Audrey Gordon regularly attends Springs Church. In response to a query about the church’s announcement, a spokesperson from her office repeated the statement from the province about there being no exemption for religious reasons.

The spokesperson added that all eligible Manitobans should “get vaccinated to keep each other and their community safe.”

When asked about Springs Church’s email, other local churches said they are not planning to follow their lead. This includes Church of the Rock, another of the city’s large evangelical congregations, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Winnipeg.

Christian Martinez, who directs communications for the archdiocese, said, “We would find such an action to be contradictory since the Catholic Church advocates for the use of vaccines as a matter of good stewardship of oneself and one’s neighbour.”

Nicholas Greco, provost pro tem at Providence University College, said it sees being vaccinated as “showing love to our neighbours.”

Greco said Providence, one of Canada’s better-known evangelical schools, recognizes and affirms decisions being made by churches and denominations across the country to promote vaccinations. The school has mandated vaccinations for all students, staff members and faculty.

Erik Parker, pastor of Sherwood Park Lutheran Church in Winnipeg, said he has been asked if his church might provide a religious exemption.

“I simply cannot in good conscience or faithfully offer such a thing,” he said. “As far as I understand and have studied, there is no scientific reason to refuse the vaccine, save in extremely rare cases. But more importantly, for me, there is no biblical or theological reason why a Christian would refuse the vaccine.”

Mennonite Church Manitoba joined other provincial conferences in that denomination earlier this month in saying it will not provide a religious exemption from getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

This is not the first time Springs has been in the news over the pandemic. It was charged under public health orders for holding an indoor graduation ceremony in May and was ticketed for holding drive-in church services last year, when that was prohibited under pandemic restrictions.

The church established an online donation fund to pay for potential tickets after launching a court challenge to the drive-in ban. The challenge failed.

Provincial health officials announced a COVID-19 outbreak at the Lagimodiere campus of Springs Christian Academy, with Grades 1 to 6 moved to remote learning, on Monday.

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John Longhurst
Faith reporter

John Longhurst has been writing for Winnipeg's faith pages since 2003. He also writes for Religion News Service in the U.S., and blogs about the media, marketing and communications at Making the News.

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