While religious Pharisees like The Gospel Coalition, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, John Piper, and Russell Moore–along with their secular state-sponsored cohorts they plan on turning you over to save their own hides–continue to rail against Christians who opt against mass vaccination mandates while arguing against religious exemptions continue to sell us out, the one thing they continue to miss the mark on is the matter of conscience.

At the heart of Christian morality is teaching on conscience. Scripture is abundantly clear on certain matters involving sin–clear commands of “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not…” But there are many areas that the Scriptures do not have a clear moral side to take. For example, in Romans 14, Paul actually prohibits passing judgment on others who, by their conscience, conclude that doing something like eating meat or observing a sabbath, would dishonor God. Paul’s point is that those who would violate their own conscience–even though others may not by doing the same thing–would be sinning by doing so.

Here we are at a crossroads in our culture with mass vaccine mandates for COVID-19 at the forefront. The Gospel Coalition is once again attempting to argue against religious exemptions for vaccine mandates. Today, it released a new article titled Why Your Employer Can Deny Your ‘Religious” Vaccine Exemption. In the article, the author argues that despite the number of religious exemptions applied for, very few of them are actually for religious reasons.

“I’ve reviewed many of these vaccine exemption requests,” the author writes. “Few, if any, plausibly assert that receiving the vaccine would violate the employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

“Under current law, that’s enough for employers to turn them down,” he continued.

The author then considered the possible concern one might have with government overreach and says that while he is sympathetic to that concern, “it doesn’t provide the basis for a religious exemption.” He then argues that the belief that something is a matter of conscience isn’t sufficient enough to allow the exemption.

“Understand this: A belief that something is a matter of conscience or personal choice—even if that belief is religiously informed—isn’t itself a sufficient basis for a religious exemption.” He then cites an obscure case from 2002 where a UPS driver applied for a religious exemption to a company policy that would not allow him to wear his hair in dreadlocks that ruled in the company favor.

Of course, the comparison is absolutely absurd–comparing a conscientious objection to a company’s hairstyle policy to an objection to being forced to inject one’s body with experimental vaccines–of which would be permanent and irreversible–is simply asinine. Of course, they are different–and the author isn’t that stupid. He knows that.

The bottom line is not to let these Pharisees pressure you into believing your objection to vaccination requirements is not valid. If your conscience won’t allow you to do so yet you do so anyway, for you, that would be sin. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it would be sin for someone else to do so. But, for you, it would be.