Texas Mennonites: Combining antivaxxerism with Calvinist-like determinism

 Yes, I know that Anabaptist types like Mennonites aren't Calvinist per se, but many of them hold to the same rigid determinism, as do the parents of the child who was the first measles death in West Texas a few weeks ago.

The child's parents make that clear.

The Texas parents of an unvaccinated 6-year-old girl who died from measles Feb. 26 told the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense in a video released Monday that the experience did not convince them that vaccination against measles was necessary.

“She says they would still say ‘Don’t do the shots,’” an unidentified translator for the parents said. “They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be.”

The West Texas measles outbreak, the biggest in the state in 30 years, has infected more than 270 people and hospitalizing dozens of them. Public health officials have repeatedly told Texans that studies have time and time again shown that the safest and most effective way to avoid contracting the very infectious, life-threatening disease is to vaccinate with the measles-mumps-rubella shot.

The couple, members of a Mennonite community in Gaines County with traditionally low vaccination rates, spoke on camera in both English and Low German to CHD Executive Director Polly Tommey and CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker.

“It was her time on Earth,” the translator said the parents told her. “They believe she’s better off where she is now.”

What do you say in response to that?

It's hard.

First, once again, a reminder that there is NO "theology of the bible," contra these people and other literalists in general. On the issue in hand, in placed like Third Isaiah or Job, you bet I can find support for not just Calvinist-style double predestination on salvation vs damnation, but more specifically, on a broader general determinism. 

Martin Luther, despite his rejection of double predestination, or so he claimed to be doing in "The Enslaved Will" ("Bondage of the Will") actually really supported it in many ways himself.

I can find arguments against such determinism, though, starting with the Yahwist version of the creation story in Genesis 2-3.

Beyond that lurk other issues.

First, reading between the lines of Covenant Hospital's statement, these parents are willing to lie for their religion.

Lying in the name of religion? All-American! And yet another reason why secularists generally score better on issues of ethics than the religious do, especially the fundamentalist within religions. And, that's not limited to Christianity, nor to the United States.

And, with that sort of lying, they surely don't care about endangering others.

Health experts say it could take a full year to fully contain the West Texas measles outbreak:

That said, per that same piece, is this all about religion or not? One person says no:

Katherine Wells, director of public health for the City of Lubbock, during a Tuesday meeting of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a national organization for large metropolitan health departments ... said efforts to increase the vaccination rates in Gaines County, which is about 70 miles from Lubbock, and the surrounding region have been slow as trust in the government has seemingly reached an all-time low.

“We are seeing, just like the rest of Americans, this community has seen a lot of stories about vaccines causing autism, and that is leading to a lot of this vaccine hesitancy, not religion,” she said.

But, putting the cloak of religion on non-religious beliefs is an all-American pastime. And, that, too, is probably not limited to Christianity nor to the US. Nor is it limited to fundagelical forms of religion, whether Christianity or otherwise.