It Could Happen Here - Anti-Vax America: God’s Will

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

For Peter, the father of the deceased child and a member of a Mennonite community in West Texas, the death of his child was God’s will. Many in the Mennonite communities of Texas and across the United States do not vaccinate their children, and their anti-vaccination stance is in line with their general religiously informed practice of eschewing modernity and its technological advances. But it is not merely the few sectarian Mennonite communities that still exist in the United States that have taken a stance against vaccination. Mainstream evangelical and charismatic congregations that embrace much of the modern world have also embraced anti-vaccination beliefs. This episode explores the relationship between conservative Christianity, anti-vaccination beliefs, and contemporary right-wing politics. Sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/texas-measles-outbreak-death-family/681985/ https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2025/03/24/too-good-for-this-earth-parents-of-child-who-died-in-measles-outbreak-say-no-to-vaccine/  https://www.christianitytoday.com/2013/09/measles-outbreak-megachurch-kenneth-copeland-vaccines/  https://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217746942/texas-megachurch-at-center-of-measles-outbreak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUGuJkVgXNA  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kenneth-copeland-blow-coronavirus-pray-sermon-trump-televangelist-a9448561.html  https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2025/03/04/west-texans-mennonites-at-center-of-measles-outbreak-choose-medical-freedom-over-vaccine-mandates/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/03/12/measles-vaccinations-texas-pastor-revels-in-schools-state-low-rates/81975293007/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Better Offline on the iHot Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts. I'm Stephen Monticelli. I'm a journalist in Dallas and an occasional contributor to Cool Zone Media. And this is episode three of Anti-Vax America, a special five-part series exploring anti-vaccination beliefs in the United States through the lens of the West Texas measles outbreak that has since spread to several other states in the nation and claimed three lives. One of those lives was the daughter of a man named Peter, a member of a Mennonite community in West Texas.

For Peter, the death of his child was basically God's will. He did an interview in which he described that if it's God's plan, you know, that is basically what he has to accept. But he also continued to oppose vaccines, and his wife said that they wouldn't recommend them to other parents. Now Mennonites have been singled out in a lot of the coverage about this measles outbreak, given that the outbreak has centered in their community in West Texas. And there's been a lot of pushback with regard to the idea that Mennonites, broadly speaking,

are opposed to vaccinations. There's nothing explicit in their theology or worldview that opposes vaccinations on principle. But these are individuals who hold strongly held beliefs regarding their religion, regarding their theology, and what they believe is right for them to do for their families and for their communities. It's not merely a few sectarian Mennonite communities in the United States that are hesitant to vaccinate

their children in this way. It's actually a much bigger problem among what we could call, you know, some people might say mainstream evangelical Christians, others might specifically refer to it as non-denominational charismatic Christianity. But no matter which way you cut it, there is a clear and observable relationship between conservative Christianity and anti-vaccination beliefs. Now as a journalist in Texas, I've done my fair share of reporting on conservative Christianity, particularly the highly politicized strains of it that are popular in the Lone Star State and in North Texas where I live.

I didn't grow up in one of these communities. I'm an outsider. So to help me unpack how conservative Christianity became so intertwined with this sort of anti-vaccination movement, I brought in a special guest with whom you may be familiar. Hi, I'm Garrison Davis. I write about politics, extremism, and how much fun it is to be in the 21st century for Cool Zone Media. So, you know, in terms of what I hope to hear from you, I mean, let's go back to your upbringing. Tell me a little bit about the community you grew up in and the sort of religious system that you were brought up in. Yeah. So I grew up in a non-denominational evangelical community that was largely, at least on like the leadership side, was transplanted from Texas to a, well, not a small

town because it's actually the biggest town in the in the province, but a relatively medium sized city, I guess, in Saskatchewan. Definitely an interesting mix of like Canadian customs matched with the whole Texas vibe, but definitely the type of like Bible belts, post fire and brimstone Christianity that came out of Texas was like the dominant form of Christianity, which was like preached from the pulpit and like influenced all other life choices beyond just your Sunday morning service or your Saturday night service or your Wednesday night service or your Tuesday morning service, et cetera. So let's dig a little bit more into the character of it.

In Texas, we've got a wide variety of congregations and subsets. Non-denominational Christianity is absolutely the fastest growing flavor of Christianity. Not just in Texas, but in the United States. There's some good research about this. Some people describe it as evangelical. Some people describe it as charismatic. Sometimes both of those descriptions are accurate. There could be some differences between these types of churches. Some of them are focused a lot on like things like prosperity gossip, others, maybe towards more Southern Baptist-esque style of preaching and theology. And some really lean into maybe more like Pentecostal style beliefs in

miracles and supernatural power of God to directly intervene in people's lives and things like that. So, you know, how would you characterize your church and the community that you were part of? Like, you know, what was it was it common for people to talk about spiritual healing or sort of those miraculous interventions? Totally. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was kind of like a Christian chili. We certainly had some prosperity gospel elements. We had some like Southern Baptist elements, certainly when it comes to like social views. But yeah, no, like the spirit healing aspect, huge, huge. People would get like healed during services. People would like faint and pass out. They would like bring

in preachers from the States who would go in these big like tours where you're, you know, both trying to like recruit people and then also like offer these like miraculous healing services during these like, you know, five hour long sermons. So yeah, certainly a Pentecostal element was pretty dominant, combined with like, you know, focus on the family type stuff, some Southern Baptist stuff. That makes sense. I mean, that tracks with what I expected and the sort of things that I see around here. Maybe you're familiar with Kenneth Copeland. Kenneth Copeland is, or how do I start this? So the main pastor of the church I was from

is the uncle of a pastor in Oklahoma, who used to run a church called Church on the Move. And he is very close personal friends with Kenneth Copeland. And I think I've seen Copeland a few times in person, like dinners and stuff. He was a pretty regular figure. I believe preached at the church a few times. I was younger, but I know my dad's met him through work because my dad worked for the church.

And yeah, so no, very, very Kenneth Copeland vibes. Well, that makes sense because Kenneth Copeland, you know, he's not only the wealthiest pastor in the United States, but he's one of the most influential as well. And definitely in North Texas, where his home base is, he's got a big church in, you know, Tarrant County. And I've been to his annual convention, which is a special time. So, you know, I totally understand

the vibe that you're talking about then. It also illustrates the vast reach of someone like Kenneth Copeland for it to be all the way up in Saskatchewan. And like the interconnectedness, because like, the pastor of my old church is American, born in Texas, is currently in America because he's in hiding from Canadian authorities related to a series of court cases and criminal complaints about abuse in this church. So he's currently fled and is in hiding somewhere in the US, hiding from His Majesty's Royal Court. Incredible.

Yes. He's also my step-grandfather. I'll get back to my conversation with Gare here shortly, but first, an ad break. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait, head to Apple podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable,

showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm JR Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and I Heart podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly,

one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Inc. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. first and episodes four, five and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother.

She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murderline

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So before we go any further, we need to talk a little bit more about Kenneth Copeland. So he's the wealthiest and one of the most influential pastors in the United States, perhaps the world, but he's also a highly political one. He's affiliated with the Charismatic Christian Movement, which is one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest growing Christian movements in the United States.

And early on, he lent his support to Donald Trump in Donald Trump's first campaign in 2016. Three years before that, in 2013, the church led by his daughter, Terry, which is called Eagle Mountain International, was at the center of a measles outbreak. At the time, the church and its leaders were criticized for preaching against vaccinations. And even as they set up vaccine clinics at the back of the church, when things got really bad, they continued to speak out against vaccinations in this way and implying to their flock that. And when the COVID-19 pandemic was first kicking off in America, Kenneth Copeland spoke of the disease as a sort of tool

of Satan, but he actually called for vaccinations, interestingly enough. I execute judgment on you, COVID-19. I execute judgment on you, Satan. You destroyer. You killer. You get out. You break your power, you get off this nation. I demand judgment on you. I demand, I demand, I demand a vaccination to come immediately. Yes. But Copeland's belief in spiritual healing and his ties to the Trump administration seemingly led him to quickly return to his old antics.

He preached that COVID would be over soon because God would destroy it. COVID-19! I blow the wind of God on you. You are destroyed forever and you will never be back. Thank you, our God. Let it happen. Cause it to happen. Over the course of many sermons, Copeland compared the virus to the flu, he suggested people who attended his services could be healed in person, and asserted that the president's

opponents had, quote, opened the door for the pandemic with their, quote, displays of hate against him. Later that fall, with the pandemic fully raging across America, Copeland still held his annual conference in Fort Worth, Texas. In August of 2020, a television news report showed that no one at the conference was wearing a mask. And in September 2021, Copeland begged his viewers to help him fund the purchase of a new private jet that would allow him to avoid travel restrictions that were still in place around COVID-19 and requiring vaccinations. He compared those

vaccination requirements for flying to the satanic quote, mark of the beast. By the time that I attended Copeland's annual convention in 2023, he had embraced the likes of Mike Lindell, the election conspiracist who has promoted junk cures for COVID while sowing doubts about vaccines. So you know, I didn't grow up in one of these communities. I had been to some megachurch sermons and services in the past. I knew people who went to places like Gateway Church, which is a huge one here in North Texas, very politically involved in their founding pastor was just implicated in, you

know, child sex abuse. Many such cases. Many such cases. And as an outsider, in my mind, I directly link sort of belief in spiritual healing with vaccine hesitancy. Yeah. Because, you know, there's, there's this sense that will if God can heal you, why would you need to rely on something like a vaccine? But also that, you know, you need

to place your faith in God more than man or the government. It's more that thing. It's that by electing to get a vaccine that demonstrates that you do not have faith in God. Like it's, it's, it's, it's more so like a larger theological issue beyond just like, you know, we don't, we don't trust the science. Like it's more so like a larger theological issue beyond just like, you know, we don't trust the science. Like I trust God more than the science. It's that like even electing to do that demonstrates this deeper, like more core belief that you do not have the faith in God that is adequate in order to like take care of you, your body, and whatever he may have planned for you. like take care of you, your body, and whatever he may have planned for you. Perhaps that includes getting measles.

And you'll work through that maybe or not, you know, as we're seeing now in Texas a lot. But yeah, like it's not just about like medical skepticism, science skepticism. It is this deeper aspect that more relates to someone's, like, individual relationship and faith in God. So, when you were growing up, I mean, did you pick up at all on this sort of skepticism with regard to not, you know, I guess modern science broadly, but also medical interventions? Totally. Totally. Yeah, no. I mean, like, literally, this school that I went to, which was a part of this church, like, I was taught from, like, an American creationist curriculum for, like, the first, I guess, like, seven grades called the ACE. There was big ACE conferences that, like, the teachers and my dad would travel to the States for every year.

and my dad would travel to the States for every year. But yeah, like this stuff is literally like taught to all the kids, because in order to go to this church, you have to also send your kids to the school. You are raised in this and like you have no choice in the matter. And that just becomes like what is real. Like that just is reality. Like it's not that there's like an alternative to that. It's like when you're like a nine-year-old kid, like that just is what the world is. So like what you're reading in those textbooks, that just is truth. It's a very isolated environment.

It's like you aren't really fully aware that there's like an alternative to that. And if there is, it's like, what's the word? We didn't even use words like atheist. I think secular was maybe the word that they use. You can't listen to like secular music or like be aware of like, you know, like secular culture because it's satanic or it can lead you away from God or it's a distraction from God, you know, that sort of thing. But no, like, yeah, this is built in and like, yeah, you know, very basic creationist stuff like Answers in Genesis being like the highest bastion of science, which is like a fake science website touted by creationists and evangelicals. But this also extends to medical science as well.

Same way you believe the earth is 6,000 years old. You maybe also don't believe in like cancer treatment. Right. So to the extent that you can recall, if you know, or you know, if you're willing to share, do you recall if you were vaccinated as a know, if you're willing to share, do you recall if you were vaccinated as a child? I was not. No. The first time I got vaccinated was as an older teenager when I gained medical autonomy and I was like, hey, I should probably get vaccinated, huh?

Okay. Because both like unplugging from these takes time. Like I think my family got away from this community when I was like 11 or 12. But because I'm like the oldest of all my siblings, this was the most like baked into me more so than my other siblings. So like, even if you like get away from this physically, you still have to like mentally detox. You have to realize that you were kind of in a cult and then you have to like deprogram yourself and that like takes years. So like I didn't like fully disconnect from this style of Christianity and like you know Christianity in general until like a few years after. So by the time I was like

a you know middle to older teenager is when I started like sort this type of stuff out and eventually got caught up on those vaccines. Luckily, I never got chickenpox, although people did throw chickenpox parties when I was a kid, which I can recall the concept of, especially if like a baby or a toddler or even like, you know, like a like a like a 10 year old has chickenpox. No one else, of course, is vaccinated for this in this whole community. So if someone has chickenpox, you will not just isolate them, you will actually encourage other people to like hang out and play together with the express intent of getting sick yourself as a form of like natural immunization. I think I was offered to go to one of these chickenpox parties, quote unquote.

I think I was like a 10 year old or something declined. Wow. I mean, good on you for at least having that wherewithal. So, and you know, Saskatchewan and Canada are different than the United States and Texas. Medical exemptions, exemptions of conscience or religious medical exemptions are a big thing. And there's actually a bill in the state house right now to expand that sort of thing with regard to vaccines. I mean, was that something that was going on up there? I mean, was it just because were you in a private school? You were kind of outside of any sort of regime of accountability. Yeah, we were in the private school.

I know people who worked in the private school did like lobbying in the province to like keep their medical freedom intact to make sure the state does not interfere. Though I do remember when my family moved to the states throughout the immigration process, we had to fill out a lot of those religious exemption forms because you're supposed to get vaccinated and make sure you're not carrying tuberculosis when you immigrate to a new country.

But even for those, there is like religious exemptions that if you have enough money, you can pay for. When was this like roughly timeline? When you were a child, when you were in private school was the broad range. This is like the knots, right? This is the early 2000s. Yeah, I mean, I'm in my early 20s now.

Vaccine hesitancy has clearly been a part of certain conservative Christian congregations for some time. Something I remember happening kind of because of like what my parents were involved with at the time is, you know, there's on one side, this whole like theological side of like not wanting to do vaccines or like unnecessary medical procedures because of your faith in God. On the other hand, kind of around like 2010 and a few years before and after, we started to really see

kind of that aspect along with like the hippie mom Facebook group aspect kind of collide. Right. And like this healthy, you know, organic, natural like hippie mom thing used to be more associated with people on the left, especially in the 90s. And you started to see these two kind of poles converge around 2010. Because this is what happened with my two parents at the time, where my dad was more on the theological side and my mom was more on the crunchy side of things.

And these things combined into this new breed of evangelical Christianity that you see is side than my mom was kind of more on like the kind of like crunchy side of things. And these things like combined this new breed of evangelical Christianity that you see is like very popular right now with like the trad wife angle combined with like, you know, crunchy, like naturalistic organic stuff that used to be left wing and is now like very, very right wing, very, very like conservative, like family values coded, which, which did not really used to be the case as much. And that's kind of like strengthened the anti-vax hold on this section of the population. So I mean, this is incredible. You're a part of a church that basically had connections

to Texas by way of Kenneth Copeland. And you had mentioned, you know, kind of having a crunchy, more maybe left leaning mom. How apparent in retrospect was sort of the political nature of your church? Was it particularly political? You had mentioned lobbying, but you know, lobbying isn't necessarily partisan. They preached like Glenn Beck from the pulpit, like very, very conservative, openly conservative. Like that is like the Christian godly correct path, I guess. Like this is where it's tied in a bit more with some of like the some of like the Southern Baptisties type stuff, right? Where you have like anti-gay conversion therapy, like camps that they can send people to. Like, no, like this is very, very like Bill O'Reilly, very, very Glenn Beck. Like

that was, that was the moment, right? This is, this is 2008. The Antichrist has just been elected president of the United States, possibly literally. And even though they're up in Canada, this is still like concern number one on the like the transnational, like Christian, Christian world. So no, like extremely openly conservative to the point where it is being preached alongside the words of Jesus and Paul. Jared Suellentrop You had a front row seat to sort of a shifting ground because, you know, Southern Baptist Christianity is kind of declining and it has, I think, has been supplanted by this quote unquote non-denominational. Totally.

Set of networks, you know, there's a, there's a term that some scholars use, independent network Christianity. Yeah. Where the leaders of the churches, they are non-denominational, they're not a part of a hierarchy. They answer to no higher power other than God, you know, so their interpretation of God is basically the rule or it is the authority.

It's like a post Billy Graham era. Oh yeah, it's like networked churches but are not part of like a coherent structure. They're kind of like terrorist cells. They operate very similarly to like a cell network of terrorists. I'm trying to remember what the most wild faith healings I've seen are. The thing I think people were faith healed the most for is probably back pain. A lot of back pain gets faith healed. Of course, there might be the odd person who's able to claim that like, you know, a faith healing cured their cancer, who then probably died three years later of cancer.

But you also get faith healed for a bunch of like smaller ailments, right? And so someone will walk up to you, put hands on you, you might start convulsing. It's like this like psychosomatic thing. Sometimes you'll pass out. A lot of people pass out. It becomes like this performative thing like subconsciously. I remember there was there was people they were stationed where people would pass out with little, I think they're called modesty blankets. So that when they pass out, maybe your shirt will come up a little bit and someone will see a little bit of tummy.

You can walk over and put the blanket over as you're recovering from your healing session. All this is happening during like, essentially like, an acoustic concert. So it creates a very peculiar vibe of people kind of poorly playing musical instruments as other people like walk through like an auditorium and just start like passing out and you just get this pile of bodies. And as a 10 year old, you think this is totally normal and fine and then you later realize why you're into so much weird shit. Oops.

Something I also covered in a previous episode in this series was a quote from the Seattle Public Health Commissioner during a smallpox outbreak in the early 1900s. He called Seattle a hotbed for anti-vaccination and Christian science and various anti-medical cults. So, you know, we are kind of truly like reliving a period of history. I hate it when time's a flat circle. This sucks. Why should I live in history, huh?

I don't want to know anything anymore. This is a world where nothing is solved. Someone once told me time is a flat circle. Everything we've ever done or will do, we're going to do over and over and over again. Lone Star, man. Fucking Lone Star, Texas. The one thing I remembered through not being vaccinated as a kid, something I did develop, and this

was like behaviorally ingrained, is a paralyzing fear of rust. Because you don't have the tetanus shot. So even though we're told God will keep us safe and healthy, we are also taught you have to stay like 10 feet away from like rust. If you see rust on anything, like you have to be on high alert. Because even though God should protect you, he might not if you get a rusty nail like poking your finger. So rust is still something I'm like really afraid of despite being vaccinated now, just because this was ingrained so young. Which just kind of shows the kind of like a paradoxical

thought process behind some of this sort of thing where it's okay if your kids aren't vaccinated, but you also have to teach them to like never get close to anything rusty because that could send them to the hospital. We'll return to my conversation with Gare after a short ad break. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld

of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad free on iHeart

True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable. today. I'm JR Martinez. I'm a US Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and I Heart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice.

Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley,

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts.

Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

I have never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister.

There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. So what was it like moving out of this science-skeptic religious community? It's funny because when I moved away from this conservative community in Canada, we moved to Portland, Oregon, which has its own anti-vaccination problem, but from the other side. So, I was still around a whole bunch of people and kids who weren't vaccinated, where there is frequent measles outbreaks. But it is more for that like crunchy hippie thing that then is kind of, you know, converged

with this evangelical side. But at the time, it's interesting going from, you know, one of these worlds to another. And in some ways, the medical reality did not change that drastically. Right. But I'm wondering if you agree on this. My sense is that that form of anti-vaccination belief, this sort of hippie, crunchy stuff. It's dying. It's not only dying. Yeah, it has not spread. It has not been turned into like a program that is far-reaching. Those types of people have either evolved in their beliefs and have caught up with consensus

scientific understandings or have married far-right Christian husbands and have just gone full conservative. They have split in twine. You are much less likely to now find, you know, someone who would describe themselves as like liberal or like leftist who would hold these beliefs if they're like, you know, like a 40 year old mom with like, you know, braids or beads in her hair. Like that's that's that is definitely less less likely to have that person be holding like anti-vax beliefs now than it was 20, 10 years ago. now than it was 20, 10 years ago. You just gave me the beautiful idea of making sure I include an audio clip of the anti-vax Rastra Christian guy whose videos have been going viral. Have you seen these at all?

No. Oh, man's good. It really does encapsulate this sort of, you know, the quote unquote, conspirituality. Even the way like Russell Brand has moved the past 10 years, right? It's a pretty clear example of this thing we've been talking about. Yes. How he's now this weird Jesus guy who can't stop raping. Not good. Yeah.

It is so fascinating that now, yeah, like, Maha is appealing to that, that sort of like orphaned set of people that you're describing who have less of a political home. Yeah. RFK Jr. similarly to Russell Brand is like a prime example of someone who used to be more of like a, you know, left-wing environmental lawyer who is now Trump's anti-autism take away red number 40 anti-vax dude. And, you know, another thing about growing up in these communities is like beyond vaccine hesitancy or anti-vax beliefs is also this like anti-psychological beliefs like therapy

or like psychoanalysis or like mental diagnosis are framed the same way. Like you shouldn't need real therapy. You can talk to like a Christian counselor and you can pray and that should be all you really need. You don't need to go to like a therapist or a psychologist. Like that delayed my understanding of like being autistic by like maybe 15 years, which you know, didn't serve younger gear very well in trying to unpack like social interactions as a as like a teenager or even like a preteen because you know, I wasn't even aware of like

the concept of like what autism actually actually is until so much later. So you're saying that childhood vaccinations didn't cause your autism? No, because I was never vaccinated as a kid and yet here I am. Yeah, I saw a nice little sign recently that it fooled me because I read it too quickly, but it said, childhood vaccinations cause adulthood. That's right. They sure do. Childhood vaccinations cause adulthood. That's right. They sure do. Gare's experience is not unique. There are countless children who are raised in religious communities that eschew medical interventions in favor of their faith and in the power of God to

heal them. These communities seek exemptions from vaccination requirements on either religious grounds or on the grounds of what they call medical freedom. Consider the children who attend Mercy Culture Preparatory, a private Christian school in Fort Worth. After the measles outbreak became national news, a report in the Dallas Morning News highlighted that the school had the lowest vaccination rate out of any private school in the state of Texas. And unlike the Copeland's, who at the very least have facilitated vaccinations among their flock, even as they've given contradictory messages from the pulpit, the leader of Mercy Culture was unapologetically thrilled at the news.

Hey, guys, quick video. I just walked into an MC prep board meeting and there was these balloons and a surprise gift of like, what's this going out? And I just found out I'm a little behind on the news, I'm a little slow, getting old, but I just found out we are the number one school in Texas for leased vaccinations. And I guess the news got ahold of it

and they were trying to spin it like it was some awful thing. But I just wanna congratulate all the family members of MCPREP that embrace freedom of health and they're not allowing government or science projects to affect how you live and lead your life. I know the entire world was shut down with insanity and people were fired from their job for forced vaccinations and freedom is something that we take seriously.

Religious freedom, freedom of our health. And so shout out to MCPREP for being the least vaccinated school in Texas. We'll take it. Or as mercy cultures say, we celebrate it. We'll put it on the board. State Representative Nate Schatzlin, who is also a pastor at the church and who has been a featured guest at Kenneth Copeland's annual convention, spread a similar message in his own video that celebrated the news of low vaccination rates in their private school. Hey, what's going on? This is state rep Nate Schatz.

I'm standing in front of our Texas state Capitol and I was alerted on X from an X post from Bud Kennedy. Now, you probably don't know who Bud Kennedy is, but he is a reporter for the Star Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas. Now, Star Telegram is losing followers by the thousands. It's crazy. However, he attacks Christians in churches more than almost anyone else I know. And this post said that Rosiculture Repertory, which is a private school in my district,

also happens to be where I send my kids to school. He said they are the least vaccinated school in the state of Texas. Now I was incredibly concerned for a couple of different reasons. I was concerned that number one, we're just finding out about this because the second concern is why haven't we celebrated this sooner? Look, I am so excited to say that Mercy Culture Prep is celebrating medical freedom where we honor the wishes of moms and dads over any type of health official like Rachel Levine or so-called public health expert like Bud Kennedy. This brazen lack of concern about the risks of the spread of measles, which has already

killed multiple children, is concerning for many reasons. One of them is that it implicitly asserts that it's better for people to be unvaccinated. Another is that it effectively disregards the risks that vulnerable people face when diseases like measles spread unchecked and when infused with this hardened belief that God can miraculously heal them and also that God makes no mistakes. It can lead some people like Peter, the Mennonite father of the first child to die from measles in over two decades to believe that getting measles can actually make their communities stronger. This is basically survival of the fittest style

quasi eugenic thinking with the veneer of religion. In the next episode we will explore why anti-vax beliefs and the policies now being pushed by the leading vaccine denier RFK jr. are effectively eugenic in nature and how the twisted history of eugenics and racist public health abuses in the United States has unfortunately buttressed the viral anti-vax ideology we are dealing with today. Thanks for listening to episode three of Anti-Vax America for It Could Happen Here. Until next time, I'm Steve Monacelli. Thanks for listening. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Thanks for listening. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.

This medal is for the men who went down that day. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might've dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and we need the talk is tapping in. I'm Nailah Simone, breaking down lyrics,

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But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down and he never woke up. But then I see, my son's not moving. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Open AI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be, an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm going to tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech

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