{"id":3094,"date":"2021-01-26T13:36:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T17:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/?p=3094"},"modified":"2021-06-09T08:55:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T12:55:39","slug":"rns-faith-vaccine-black-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/2021\/01\/26\/rns-faith-vaccine-black-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff: Faith and the Covid vaccine: \u2018Using the Black church to get the word out\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally Published in Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RNS) \u2014 Millions have already received the COVID-19 vaccination, and President Joe Biden has promised 100 million vaccinations in his administration\u2019s first 100 days. Already, however, fears that some Americans would resist taking the shot, lowering its effectiveness, are coming true. In early January, some 50% of front-line workers in Los Angeles were refusing the vaccine. In Ohio, 60% of nursing home staffers declined when offered a dose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s well known that faith leaders can change minds about public health measures. \u201cCongregants are more likely to trust not only their leaders but also those who share their faith, particularly people from their own tradition,\u201d wrote Elaine Howard Ecklund, a Baylor University researcher, in a Religion News Service op-ed last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To explore what American clergy are doing to support the vaccine effort, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the former CEO of the Conservative Jewish movement\u2019s Rabbinical Assembly and now a master\u2019s candidate at the City University of New York\u2019s School of Public Health, is interviewing a series of faith leaders about their tradition\u2019s views on public health and vaccination, and this vaccination effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week we interviewed<\/a> Imam Mohamed Magid, a former president of the Islamic Society of North America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We continue our series with the Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff, associate pastor of the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ<\/a>, a predominantly African American congregation in New York City, and chair of the Friends of Harlem Hospital. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. View the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve been a leader already on health matters. A recent national initiative you\u2019ve launched is Choose Healthy Life.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a partnership between Quest Diagnostics and the United Way, governed by the Choose Healthy Life organization. It\u2019s being rolled out in five cities \u2014 Detroit, Atlanta, Newark, Washington and New York \u2014 each with a local clergy chair. In Atlanta, our chair just got elected to the U.S. Senate, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, and we\u2019re delighted. Each city will have 10 churches, each with a full-time professional health navigator to lead us in testing and tracing and empowering our communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s my privilege to serve as the chair In New York, where we are using the Black church as a platform to get the word out and to motivate, and advocate on behalf of, our community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Black church has been a champion on behalf of our community going back to the struggle for civil rights, the fights against drug addiction and the crack epidemic, teen pregnancy and HIV\/AIDS. The pandemic is occurring, too, when there\u2019s racial justice unrest and issues dominating the headlines, economic uncertainty, food deprivation, so the church has to take its rightful place to preach our gospel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re the social justice pastor at Canaan Baptist, and you\u2019re perhaps more aware of the issues of why the Black community may be reluctant to take the vaccine.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, some people point to the Tuskegee experiment<\/a>, where Black men were intentionally injected with syphilis and then monitored over years. But our predicament in America today speaks to health disparities in diabetes, hypertension, cardiac issues. Black women have a higher maternal mortality rate than any other group in the country. At hospitals, the doctors don\u2019t treat us the way they treat other people. And so our relationship to the health care industry, the health care system is different than other communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When this crisis hit, that history was prevalent in our thinking. We needed bridge builders to get our folk. We met recently with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who mentioned Kizzmekia Corbett, an NIH researcher whose work is instrumental in the development of the vaccine. That\u2019s important because Black folk need to know that there\u2019s some folk who were in the room who look like us. There are now many in the scientific and medical community who are saying, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the advice that you would give clergy?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the unspoken dimensions of this crisis is that we haven\u2019t been able to have the rituals of bereavement that help us get through these moments. It expands the grief because we haven\u2019t had that release. People didn\u2019t get a chance to say goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we as clergy have to be comforters in this hour in an age when people are cynical about a lot of their institutions. There\u2019s an epidemic of mental health, and other issues that are now beginning to manifest. We see it in gun violence, domestic violence, alcoholism, and all of these things are tearing at the fabric of our faith. And so we have to double down as clergy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also have to ask who comforts the healers. So many clergy are not really good at self-care. We need to be mindful of how we take care of ourselves so that we can serve others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another group that is struggling are health care workers. What spiritual counsel do you offer them? <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Being the child of a nurse, I know what it\u2019s like when people do a double shift, or when somebody at home doesn\u2019t have their mother at Christmas dinner. At Harlem Hospital, we supported the creation of an Oasis Center in the hospital, where staff could go just to get a break, a room of quiet and serenity where they can listen to the sound of a babbling brook and breathe eucalyptus or hear soothing music. Two weeks ago I got word that a member of the church had COVID. I\u2019ve been in hospitals many, many times, but I had to put on a mask, put on a hairnet, gloves, the whole PPE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I went into the room and as soon as I saw our church member, I realized it would probably be the last time I\u2019d see him. As I was offering my prayer and my humanity, holding his hand, I realized that health care professionals are in this all the time, risking everything so that we might be well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It made me redouble our efforts to practice and preach on social distancing. The whole notion that we\u2019re in this together has to be coming from the pulpits. We need to say that it doesn\u2019t matter what public policy or the law says, it\u2019s the right thing because otherwise we make their sacrifice meaningless. We wear a seat belt, buckle up seat belts. Motorcyclists put on a helmet. Everyone, put on that mask, protect yourself, protect your brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the message: We all share health. What else can we all be doing that you want to make sure we know?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Stay connected. Somebody just needs you to call and say, I was thinking about you. Somebody needs you to say, I\u2019d like to do shopping for you. We need to go the extra mile for each other. And pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The late Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, my mentor at Canaan Baptist Church who had been Martin Luther King\u2019s chief of staff, talked about \u201canyhow faith\u201d \u2014 entering into situations where you don\u2019t know what the outcome is going to be and giving each your best anyhow. Even when we don\u2019t know when or how the win will come, we have to remain convicted that the best is yet to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

View the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[January 26, 2021]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally Published in Religion News Service (RNS) \u2014 Millions have already received the COVID-19 vaccination, and President Joe Biden has promised 100 million vaccinations in his administration\u2019s first 100 days. Already, however, fears that some Americans would resist taking the shot, lowering its effectiveness, are coming true. In early January, some 50% of front-line workers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9520,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[230138],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9520"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3094"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3128,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094\/revisions\/3128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/coronaguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}