Russell Moore, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC)–a far-left organization in the denomination that has been used to advance progressive politics ranging from open borders to slave reparations–has relentlessly promoted NIH director, Francis Collins, in an effort to convince Evangelicals to accept one of the coronavirus vaccines.
Moore has promoted Collins as “Christian” ally in the medical field. In a previous article penned at Reformation Charlotte, we wrote:
Who is Francis Collins? Dr. Francis Collins was appointed by President Barack Obama to head the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and has continued in that role through the Trump and Biden administrations.
He serves as “boss” to Dr. Anthony Fauci and has become a significant public voice in COVID-19 responses and vaccine information. He professes to be a Christian, and in a December 12th, 2020 article in the Washington Post, he seeks to persuade pastors and churches that although the Moderna mRNA-1273 and Pfizer BNT162b2 COVID vaccines have associations with HEK 293 fetal cells obtained from an abortion, Christians should dismiss this as a moral concern and take one of the vaccines.
It should be noted at the outset that Dr. Collins is not agnostic on the issue of abortion. Although he publicly professes to be pro-life, for years he has zealously advocated for the use of fetal tissue from abortions in medical research and usually justifies this stance by citing the legality of abortion in the country from which the fetal tissue came (as he does with the HEK 293 cell line), and the utilitarian usefulness of fetal tissue in the possibility of saving life or ending disease.
Recently, a report came out that the University of Pittsburgh had been experimenting with aborted fetal tissue and grafting tissues, such as scalps and other organs, onto mice–a twisted practice that would not only have no usefulness in actual medicine but could only be performed by a deranged person. Images of the specimens showed human hair growing on mice in what appeared to be an evil mixture of playing God and the Mad Scientist.
This prompted a response from Phil Johnson, director of John MacArthur’s Grace to You ministry, citing disgust at the thought that well-known coronavirus medical “expert,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, played a part in funding it.
While it is true that Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) did in part fund this project, it should come as no surprise–Fauci is certainly no Christian and professing to be a Roman Catholic. On the other hand, Francis Collins, who is over Fauci and is the director of the National Institute of Health (NIH), professes to be a pro-life conservative Evangelical Christian, is platformed by Russell Moore and the ERLC as such, and has, as well, funded the project through the NIH.
The study, titled Development of humanized mouse and rat models with full-thickness human skin and autologous immune cells, reads:
The National Institute of Health, which funds this work, requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication.
Yet, this is who Russell Moore wants conservative Evangelicals to trust for medical advice.
