BUSTH DMin Student’s Church Interviews Dr. Anthony Fauci about COVID-19 Vaccines
Humble, TX – Current STH Doctor of Ministry student Rev. Chad Brawley serves as the Worship Arts Pastor at The Luke Church in Humble, Texas. When the church’s senior pastor, Dr. Timothy Sloan, thought about his own hesitancies with receiving the new COVID-19 vaccine, he had an idea.
“I have been…really wrestling with my own personal level of confidence in the vaccine,” Dr. Sloan said during an interview with K-PRC 2 News in Houston, Texas. “I knew if I had these questions, then I was certain my congregation had these same questions. How do we get a trusted voice to communicate the importance of the vaccine? I believe that for the African-American community, the Black church is the most important vehicle of disseminating this type of information.”
Dr. Sloan wrote a letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who agreed to a one-on-one interview.
Dr. Sloan’s first question to Dr. Fauci was why the Black community should trust the COVID-19 vaccine, given the historical mistreatment of the Black community at the hands of the established American health care system. “We need to acknowledge the concern and hesitation based on [the Tuskegee experiments and racial disparities in American healthcare, and]…the mistreatments of the African-American community historically by the government medical establishment is real in history,” Dr. Fauci agreed. “With that as a background, it is important to explain to our African-American brothers and sisters what the questions are that people ask are the cause for their concern and hesitation, and address each of these concerns that people have in a clear way that people can understand.”
DMin student Rev. Brawley sees the utmost importance in sharing this interview with Black churches and their congregations around the country. “The goal is to get this info to as many as possible in hopes that they will learn more about and become comfortable with the vaccine,” he wrote in an email to the School.
To Vaccinate or Not: A Conversation Concerning the COVID-19 Vaccine with Dr. Timothy W. Sloan & Anthony S. Fauci, MD