COVID-19

KIM:  Thank you. Greetings, I'm Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization that connects forty denominations and scores of Christian institutions and ministry. I'm delighted to be part of this conversation on the religion community's role in managing COVID-19. And along with me, as conversation partners, are Reverend Jacqui Lewis, senior minister for public theology and transformation at Middle Church in New York City. She is an author and activist preacher, public theologian, working particularly in the areas of racial justice, but also seeing the church as a place for social transformation. And with us, also is Melissa Rogers, executive director at the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. A role that she held previously with distinction and now has renewed. Melissa is not only an expert on religion in America, but she is also supremely capable leader to bring together people from various segments of society to address our country's greatest needs and possibilities. So, Jacqui, Melissa, thank you for joining in this conversation.   ROGERS AND LEWIS:  Delighted to be here. Thank you.   KIM:  Well, let's begin with the big picture of how religious communities have managed COVID-19. What are some notable themes, whether they're challenges or responses, whether they're strengths or weaknesses, in the religion community's responses? What are some of these themes that stand out to you from this past year?   ROGERS:  Well, yes, great. And thank you, Walter, it's great to be with you. And great to be with Jacqui, I want to thank you both for the tremendous work that you do on behalf of your own faith communities, and for everyone in the United States and around the world, your compassionate voices mean so much. And I also want to thank the Council on Foreign Relations, and Irina and her wonderful team for teeing up this dialogue. So, some of the themes that come to mind immediately for me, are themes like resilience, ingenuity, and compassion. When this pandemic hit, we had to, and religious communities, had to adapt. And so quickly, we think about in our, if we take ourselves back to the pre-pandemic mindset, it would have been almost unthinkable that religious communities would have had to turn on a dime and celebrate Easter, and Passover, and Ramadan, not in the traditional ways, but online, and outdoors, and in other ways. And that all the service that faith communities do to help people in need, would have to be radically adapted, not only because of the contagiousness of the disease, but also because of the growing number of people who had lost their lives and livelihoods. And  that makes us think, of course, of all the loss of life and how chaplains and ministers like you and Jacqui and so many others, have found ways, new ways, to minister to people, when the old ways  could not happen because of the disease.   So those are themes that hit me, right off the bat. And I'm just so thankful for what the faith community has done to adapt, and to show compassion in new ways.  A couple of other themes that come to my mind are revelation and reckoning. This virus has revealed to us, for example, racial disparities in a way that perhaps some of us had never seen before. It was so clear, I think, that no one could deny it. And that has meant that we have had to have a reckoning. And as a result, equity has come into the center of the conversation, both racial equity and equity for those who  have been underserved or disempowered in a variety of ways. And I think that has been a good turn in the conversation. One of the things I've mentioned is the Equity Task Force that the Biden administration has put in place along with the COVID response team. And I think that leadership and leadership in the faith community in particular in this area has launched a new conversation. And that has been all to the good.   LEWIS:  Thank you, Melissa, for those reflections. I wanted to dovetail into this idea of resilience and maybe even to put resistance in that. I think faith communities across denominations and across Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, I think I've seen my colleagues across the nation really show the ways love, revolutionary love, has no bounds. The way that it is not a tied to brick and mortar, it is not tied to place, but it's tied to heart. So, I had a chance to do media with Rabbi Sharon Brous, for example, in LA, right when the pandemic hit. Of course she was pivoting Passover, we were pivoting Easter, and our annual revolutionary web conference. Just the ways that our lay leaders are so creative, and our staff are so creative, how people turned to Zoom rooms into places of community and art, and justice, and love, that even in the midst of this pandemic—at Middle Church in particular, we were able to host a conference for 650 people last year and 1300 this year, more this year, Melissa and Walter—350 people joined the church during COVID.   So I think there was, again, across the nation across denominations, ways that faith leaders found to tap into creativity, to art, to community organizing, to protesting, to voter reform—look what we did in the elections during COVID. The way that we organized ourselves to learn issues, to share, to share resources, the Poor People's Campaign, Vote Common Good, just some of the allies that we work with. So that, yeah, I think resilience. And when I say resistance, I mean, sort of, resisting also, the fires that were burning, right? We had a tough year, not just with COVID, but the George Floyd murder, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, all of these moments of kind of racial crisis, the rising violence against Asian communities. We also, as faith communities, resisted oppression, resisted violence, and resisted racism, and actually bound ourselves, I think, together in an interfaith and multi-ethnic, multi-gendered movement for justice. And so I'm really proud of that.  And I would say maybe one more thing, not to be polemic, but to say, in some places, faith pretended that the pandemic wasn't real, okay. In some places, faith-based leaders gave their folks a sense that wearing a mask or distancing from one another was against faith, that if God was real and good that we wouldn't have to do that. And I struggled to understand that, I just want to make sure I say that out loud, to understand how responsible we are, for the ways our congregants take in information through the lens of faith leaders who they trust, and how powerful that is, right? And how important it is that we steward that power well.   KIM:  I've heard words—resilience, resistance, engagement, creativity. And I sense that the work of the NAE  face very similar issues. And, we've been seeking to engage in a few different ways. One is to inform. And so very early on, getting information out there, not only about the nature of this virus, but also about responses and—Jacqui, to your point, getting good information that puts it, not only in medical terms, but also in theological terms—medicine as a gift from God, the kind of creativity that was required to engage with worship service that both of you have mentioned, and in some ways, this has been a remarkable moment of entrepreneurial spirit within churches, spirit-led creativity that I would wish to highlight. But it's been complicated, right? And so, we've not only had to inform, but we've had to collaborate on a variety of issues, not only the medical issues, but the racial justice issues, and certainly as an Asian-American, I sense deeply the recent turns that really are revelation of long standing issues, that perhaps in the Asian-American, Pacific Islander community have been more silently endured.   But there's a moment of reckoning, another word that you all have used, that require not just information, but collaboration, and not just collaboration, but the third thing that, I think, at the NAE that we've been seeking to do is engagement, of actually participating, not just talking and building alliances, and developing this sense of solidarity, but engaging and becoming vaccinations sites at churches, or engaging with advocacy issues that deal with Black and Brown communities that have been disproportionately impacted. So, I sense, along with you, both this creative moment, but also challenging moment. And now I want to dive more specifically in why and how religious communities are particularly important to our national response to COVID. And by COVID, I'm not just meaning the virus, physical virus, but I mean, this whole last year and what has been revealed in our social settings. So why and how are religious communities so particularly important in our national response? Jacqui, let's begin with you.   LEWIS:  Sure. I mean, we're essential workers, right? Religious communities are essential workers. I mean, here is this global, devastating pandemic, that claims hundreds of thousands of lives, I think they're now putting the number at 900,000 here. And I think the role of faith communities is to, is to help our people theologically understand, ethically understand that we're a global community. I think, Walter and Melissa, about the word of “ubuntu,” this philosophy in South Africa. “I am who I am because you are who you are.” A person is a person through other people. The word for humanity in the Zulu language is actually this word, that is more than one, like there's more than one of us, and that we are inextricably connected one to the other. So I think religion, the word religion, you and I know, means to bind together, like to re-tie, right, to bind together, that the world of the world of religions and faith communities is vital, to help us understand that what happens in India affects us in America. What happens in China affects us in America. In particular, I want to say, the traffic and the ethic of revolutionary love—revolutionary love as an ethic to guide our lives. And there's this way in which what COVID showed us all is Black and Brown people die first—are most devastated. In fact, whole generations of Latinx, Hispanic men are actually lost to COVID. The ones who are on the frontlines, the one who are in the bodega jobs, the ones who drive the taxis, the ones who drive the Ubers. So there's an economic reality that faith communities can help people understand—that our economy, if our economy is going to be God's economy, how do we think about paying people more who work less? How do we—who work in these frontline jobs? How do we think about paid leave for moms and dads? How do we think about a living wage? How do we think about giving, making sure that everybody has healthcare? All those economic issues show themselves to us. Along with, again, the racial issues show themselves to us. We found out that we've not overcome, we've not overcome the way caste and race cause us to oppress one another. And I think those of us who do theology have an urgent responsibility to teach our congregants, to teach our faith leaders, the oneness of God, the many languages God speaks, the value that God has on all human life. The way that we are one people called to one, one hope, one ethic, and I think that we not only have a responsibility, we have an urgent calling, to make sure that these theologies of welcome, these theologies of love and justice become like air we breathe, and not so much caught in creed, and culture.   KIM:  Melissa, your job is to get faith communities engaged. So I imagine you have a lot of why’s and how’s.   ROGERS:  There are some why’s and how’s, yes. One of the things that I think has become even more clear during this period, is that because of the role that faith plays in our country, religious leaders and faith-based organizations are vital to public health. And you don't have to be a person of faith necessarily to see that, and let me just talk through one example. When we were thinking about early on getting facts to people about the virus and the vaccination, and you reference this, Walter, and also Jacqui as well, we knew that working with faith communities was going to be essential. It wasn't a choice. It was something that had to happen in order to effectively meet people across the country and around the world. And some of the reasons for that are just very factual. Houses of worship are pervasive, and they're familiar to many Americans. Religious leaders are among the most trusted figures in our communities, and vast majority of religious leaders are enthusiastic about helping, and one of the great bright spots of this has been that, for the most part, this has brought faith communities together, and saying, we can work on this together, we may differ on some other issues, but we can work together here. And that's been great. This love your neighbor moment has brought us together. We know that people have fears and anxieties, questions that need to be answered. And we know that when they see someone they trust getting the vaccine, talking about the facts here, that that can really change their willingness to get the vaccine. And that matters a lot.   We also know that many faith groups are exceptionally good at reaching underserved communities. And that matters a great deal. We also know that houses of worship are often gap fillers for a lack of culturally-sensitive healthcare. They help people you know with language barriers or with information barriers or other kinds of access barriers, for example, many minority groups and immigrants. And so it's just shot into the public recognition, I think, that faith communities are absolutely central to public health, including to this virus but not limited to this virus. And I think one of the things that has happened is, as we recognize the importance of the connection between faith communities and public health, it helps us perhaps, to think more intentionally and productively moving forward, about how we might strengthen those connections that have been built, because we'll face other challenges in the future and we want to make sure we're ready. So one thing I'm really grateful for is that President Biden has understood this from the very beginning. And he was very clear that we should be working with faith communities of all kinds, and indeed, has himself visited pop-up vaccination clinics at a chapel recently, and has always taken a great interest in this. So it's a great moment, I think, to think about how the government works with faith communities in a way that respects church-state separation, and religious liberty for everyone, and partners on shared goals, and make sure that no one is left behind.   LEWIS:  Well, I've got a couple of what and how’s to share that Melissa prompts me to want to bring to the table, if it's okay. I find myself shy about some of the things that have happened at Middle Church, but the collegiate church, my colleague at Fort Washington Church is an inoculation site now, and that's just amazing. There are four churches, if you will, that share one ministry. But at Middle, we decided to take 10 percent of our budget last year, Melissa, to make it for council. So how can we help people to stay in their houses? How can we help people pay their bills? How can we help people get groceries on the table? When the virus first hit, our deacons took food to families that were getting sick and delivered them on the doorsteps. We made a whole website about resources that were available in the community. Here's what we learned from the CDC. And let's put, so literally a one-stop shop for information. And then my colleague, Amanda, bless her heart, started a cadre of volunteers who stood in line to make vaccine appointments. So the older folks, who, like me, if we're not trying to be on the phone a long time, getting these young people just would keep refreshing their phones, and got inoculations for so many of the vulnerable people in our community, including me. My husband and I got vaccinated because someone stood in line for us. So information—we took selfies of ourselves getting shots. One of our members is a doctor, physician, an immunologist, actually, did a teach-in that we call “The Freedom Lab.” So education, trust that it works because we did it. Here's where you can get it. Here's some groceries. Here's some resources to get you through these tough times. And it made the whole community feel like we were doing wellness.   ROGERS:  Wow. Walter, if you don't mind—Jacqui, thank you so much for saying all that and much more importantly for doing that work and leading it which is just vital to people's life and their livelihoods. And one of the things I just want to mention is that Jacqui's example points out two things. One is just incredible heart that's put into this work and compassion. And secondly, how people of faith and community organizations are often the middlemen and women between government and people who need services. So people of faith and other community groups, they know how to reach government, and they know how to get information about what benefits are available, and what services, and at the same time, they know how to reach people who are struggling. And so that very important role, of that middle person role, is just what explains why these initiatives are so very important. And I think there's so much more we can do in this space by taking some of the best practices that NAE, and Jacqui, and Middle Church have done, and others, that it really makes me excited to think about how we can build on all your really great work.   KIM:  There's a tremendous kind of collaborative spirit that's developed as a result of this challenge. And, of course, there are moments of fragmentation, we are human. And despite the call to shared humanity, there is a streak of obstinance in all humans. But, by and large, I have entered into all sorts of conversations I don't think I would have had otherwise. Tomorrow night, I'll be with bBlackdoctors.org, in a collaborative event, a multi-racial approach to this challenge of vaccination. And these are relationships and partnerships, these are collaborations that maybe would not have existed. But the new kinds of friendships that develop from this, hold a promise far beyond this pandemic. They are friendships, they are relationships, that could be leveraged for other sorts of social challenges in the future, that the faith community could be using this as an occasion, not just to solve a problem of this past year, but to engage with problems in the coming years that beset us. And the kinds of work that we've been doing in webinars to get better information out there. In opportunities to say your organization has a strength that ours doesn't.   So at the NAE we collaborated with the Ad Council and faith leaders in Black and Brown communities to produce ads that the NAE—we could not have produced. But the Ad Council, that's their job, that's their expertise, and to be able to use that in the collaborative effort to get information out, but distributed in these trusted places. Both of you talked about the church as being this trusted, localized, trusted place. And these are very powerful issues, because, you know, if we're going to address issues of racial justice, yes, they'll be national conversations, but they're going to be localized efforts that need to move the needle for change, the conversations on the local level. So this has been very heartening for us to broach these opportunities together. Both of you have mentioned vaccination in some way, shape, or form. And now I want to turn our attention to this. Can you give us a quick snapshot of where we are, in this pandemic right now? Your current work, especially in the area of vaccination, whether it's being a vaccination site, or other things that you're seeking to do to address the multifaceted challenges of vaccination. So give us a snapshot of what you're doing right now and where you see we need to be going in the next weeks to come. Melissa, why don't we begin with you to start.   ROGERS:  Okay. Sure. Yeah, well, so this week has been a landmark week, as the President announced more than 60 percent of people eighteen years and older have received at least one dose of the vaccination. Cases have continued to decrease, hospital admissions are down, deaths, thank God, are down, and we're vaccinating between about 1.5 to 2 million people per day. So I think we are winning the war against the virus, but the battle is not done. There is an incredible amount of work ahead of us, particularly this summer. The President has set a goal that 70 percent of the country's adults will have at least one vaccination shot by July 4, and 160 million Americans will be fully vaccinated by July 4. And in that regard, I’d just like to mention, if I could, several things that, and I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I hope that we can all redouble our efforts this summer and just want to mention a few resources that you can take advantage of, some of which are new. One is vaccines.gov, to help people find a location near them where they can be vaccinated. They can also text their zip code to 438829, that's 4388292, to find a vaccination near them. There's an 800 number that they can call. And also, we're having a Digital Day of Action this Friday, May 21. And we'll be sure that everyone who's on the call receives materials about that, that could be as simple as posting your own vaccination story. And  linking to vaccines.gov, for example. It could be something like joining the COVID-19 Community Corps that I know so many of you are a part of, where you receive new resources that you can share with your community, because we're finding we really have to go where people are, we have to meet them where they are, wherever that is, and make sure that we're telling personal stories, talking to our friends, our family, and others who may have some hesitancy here to make sure that their questions get answered. And they're assisted in getting vaccinated. So I think we're doing well. There's reasons to be optimistic. But at the same time, I'd ask everybody to redouble their efforts as we move forward during these important coming weeks to make sure that we can return to many of the things that we enjoy so much, including gathering in our houses of worship in person safely.   LEWIS:  That's great, Melissa, thank you so much for all of that information. Maybe I'm going to be anecdotal at this moment to just say both the kind of, “yay, we're doing it,” and the challenge, right. The way we're doing it is, again, just to thank my colleagues at Middle Church, who've been collaborating across the city. Yes, to make sure that we got the information on the website, yes, to make sure that we got inoculations for our most vulnerable people, our young people are going. I was talking to a mom the other day who said I'm sitting here, my boy’s inoculated now, second shot for her sixteen-year-old, and she was brilliant and joyful, and thanking God, that this is available now so that their family can get somewhere back to normal. I was at my church a little while ago today doing fire work, we burned down in December. And one of my security guards has not been inoculated. And so I say as a pastor, my job is I'm saying to everyone, have you got your shot? Have you had your vaccinations? 70 percent of our staff is inoculated now, and I want a 100 percent inoculation by October. So when we open up, our staff can model, “yes, we've done this thing.” Here's the anecdote of the resistance, this security person—sorry to tell on you, friend. “I did not get inoculations. I was a soldier. They gave us immunotherapy when I was in Afghanistan. I don't think I need a shot.” Come on. That doesn't seem really true. Who's putting that information out? Who's still resisting? And I understand this, Black peoples’ bodies have been sites of terror around medicine, around experiments, around eugenics in the time of Reconstruction. All of our listeners don't know that. But it's true. So there can be a kind of, “can we trust this?”   So Dr. Meghan Kirksey, who's our member, who did a class for us, is an African-American mom of three girls, who said, the most reliable witness, Walter and Melissa, is you. We are the most reliable witness. So to the ones who are listening, you read the information, you got the data from the places that Melissa said, you had your inoculation. And then when you turn to your family or your community, and you testify to that you felt better. And yes, that second one was rough, but I did it. We're our best eyewitness, is what I really believe about the power of the inoculations. And the importance of still masking and distancing while everybody gets safe and well. So I'm wanting to encourage religious communities, can I be honest? To not be afraid, to expect that, to articulate that as a norm, to make a reopen protocol, that you, that with physicians and lawyers in your community, that your community owns, so that people can together hold the norm of what it's going to look like to be in community together—we're going to gather this way, we're going to gather this way, we're not going to gather this way, so everybody owns it with the most vulnerable in mind. And I think that that's what's going to get us to President Biden's goals and to all of our goals, of a kind of a well community. Seriously loving each other enough to get shots and stay distant until we do.   KIM:  Jacqui, early on, you talked about revolutionary love, and this kind of ethic of love that ought to drive us in terms of this vaccination. It's not simply about personal protection. But it's an engagement of protection for the community at large and a reengagement. Speaking as not only president of the NEA, but as a local pastor, reengagement of all that church represents. The breaking of bread together, the studying of the Bible in small groups, the being on mission in our neighborhoods, sending short-term mission teams overseas in different contexts to help out, I mean all the myriads of ways that the church represents an opportunity of service. And this is true of other faith traditions as well. And it's in part why I joined with the COVID Community Corps and recently put out a Trusted Voices video with the Department of Health and Human Services that followed me around as I got my second vaccination shot, and one of the most compelling things about that second vaccination shot for me was to see the people gathered there. I mean, there were National Guardsmen who were doing the registration and welcoming us. There were a whole slew of nurses coming in, some retired and others making the extra effort putting extra hours in, and then the line of people I mean, men, women, old, young, racial diversity, ethnic diversity represented in the line as I was standing, waiting to get my shot. And it really was the sense that we can do this. And we are doing this. And it really does take everyone. And that's a very compelling vision of what America could be. And in its better moments, really is, but we need to continue to persist in this. Now I know that there are a number of questions that are starting to come in and others that wait to be asked. So I want to invite Liz Powell to come back on to help navigate this transition to our Q&A section.   OPERATOR:  We'll take the first live question from Munir A. Shaikh with the Bayan Claremont Islamic Graduate School. Please accept the unmute now prompt.   It appears we are having some technical difficulties.   We will take a written question then from Katherine Marshall of Georgetown University.   “American religious communities, including interreligious bodies, have many transnational links. What concrete steps can and should these communities take to address the global challenges posed by COVID? What are priorities you see in the most meaningful areas for concrete action?”   ROGERS:  Great. And thank you so much, Katherine Marshall, who does such great work on these issues, both in the United States and around the world, and so grateful for her and for all of her contributions. So I wanted to just note, that this week, the President reaffirmed his commitment to leading an international and coordinated vaccination effort, announcing that the United States will donate 80 million U.S. vaccines to  people around the world, and will continue to use our leadership with our G7 partners, the EU, COVAX, and others to coordinate a multilateral effort focusing on ending the pandemic. Now, this effort is multifaceted and will continue, and faith and community groups can play key roles in this effort as well, as Katherine notes. One of the things that we were doing earlier this week is talking with Administrator Samantha Power at USAID about helping to get shots in arms not just in the United States, but around the world, in part by working with faith and community groups. And so I would say that one of the best first steps you could take if you're interested in ramping up your work, or if you want to tell us more about the work you're doing in this area, would be to connect with our Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at USA, and let us know that you're interested, we are beginning to ramp up our strategies in that area, and to make sure that we know what's already going on, and build on those efforts. So I think, I would recommend that as an excellent first step, either telling us what you're doing, or raising your hand, or both things to say, I want to do more to help around the world, because this is absolutely a key mission for us, both in terms of the moral mission, and also the safety mission, the virus knows no borders. And we won't all be safe until we are all safe. So let's make sure that we lean into this. And I'm just really thrilled by the question and the excitement that we've already seen among faith and community partners about getting this job done all around the world.   KIM:  Let me add to that, within the NAE, I've mentioned that there are forty plus denominations and scores of Christian institutions, ministries, nonprofits. Some of our denominations that have a much larger footprint globally than they do within America itself, and there's eager conversation about what does it look like to be a partner to the global community. And then of course, we have Christian ministries like World Relief, World Vision, Compassion International, that work very diligent—Salvation Army, very diligently, globally in terms of providing healthcare, and they're already trusted voices, resources, known entities within communities throughout the world. And they have expertise in exactly this area of medical health, that's also in partnership with religious communities that have an extraordinary level of trust. So in some ways, as I look at the work of the NAE, our connections globally, are not only as significant, but perhaps even more significant, given the specific organizations like World Relief that I've mentioned, that their job is, in fact, in this area of addressing the most vulnerable throughout the world, in a holistic way, both in terms of mind, and body, in terms of spirit, individually, and in community. So there's a rich opportunity. I'm excited to hear about some of these initiatives from the administration, because they're rich opportunities for collaboration, not only nationally, but internationally.   LEWIS:  Can I just say a brief thing there really quickly, to say, what happened in this time of COVID is that all of us developed more digital connections than we had before. So your web includes your mother's cousin's auntie, right, who lives in Paris, or your father's best friend who lives in China. So to maybe use, to take advantage of that to  invite the people in your community, to be in touch across the globe, to tell stories, to collect stories, to tell share best resources, and pick a few people that you trust to follow and follow them where they go. So Valarie Kaur is a Sikh activist, author, but who helped us all get in touch with this catastrophic COVID death rates in India. So, To India With Love is a campaign that's up and about now, you can make a donation or you can read and learn. Pick a few people to follow across ethnicity, across religion, and stay in touch with that and help build your own web of connectivity.   KIM:  Thank you. Liz, Let's move to the next question.   OPERATOR:  We will take the next live question from Tom Getman of The Getman Group, former Senate staffer, and World Vision International director. Please accept the unmute now prompt.   GETMAN:  Thanks, friends, you make us all proud. And we're very grateful for your comments today. Could you comment please about the amazing engagement between Black Lives and Asian Lives Matter with international issues? I'm segueing off what you just talked about. It's been so interesting to see their relationship with Palestinian Liberation. Our liberation leaders here and in South Africa have mentioned if even one person or group lacks freedom, we all lack freedom and liberation. That's particularly true, I think, in the COVID crisis. What can we do as faith communities to help? We're going to a different level here to help oppressed people in refugee camps or in really marginalized areas to be freed from this fear and oppression of not being inoculated, like the Palestinians or the Uighurs, or the religious minorities in many places. Thanks very much for your help in this.   KIM:  Jacqui, you want to give us an initial thought, given your work in some of these spaces?   LEWIS:  Thank you, Walter. I was just pondering like, what would one want to say quickly? I mean, I think one of the things, thank you so much for that question. What you're asking about, this leads us to the intersectionality of these issues. We all know that they're connected, we know that we're inextricably connected. We know that race connects to class, connects to healthcare, connects to economic justice, connects to sexuality and gender, connects to region. And we also know, we also have a sense that a common opponent, I'll say it that way, a common opponent for all of us, is racism, and white supremacy, and entitlement. And that is a common opponent to our Asian siblings, who are now, I can't even believe the violence being enacted upon them. I find myself thinking, if an African American person is violating an Asian person, Walter, to be just blunt, I feel like what Kool-Aid has that Black person drunk, right? What have they taken in to make them pass on the oppression? Do you feel what I mean? There's a common opponent. And so what do we do together, we say to ourselves, we're not going to buy the hype that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization. We're going to find a Black Lives Matter chapter to connect to no matter our race. And if not that, white folks can connect to SURJ, who's really gathering anti-racist work with whites. We know that the AAPI community is connecting now deeply to the Black Lives Matter community.   If you look for anti-AAPI hatred group websites and find your way into that relationship, again, the interweb has connected all of us, so I think it's both national and international, but deeply local, and Google is your friend, and we'll get you to a place that feels safe. And maybe what you want to do, loves, is to set up a conversation group among ethnic folks and white folks in your setting. Whether you're a church, or a parachurch, or a synagogue, or a mosque—in your community, what kinds of conversation groups can you set up to read, to learn, to study about the underlying conditions, I'm going to call them the pre-existing conditions, that lead us to this place of violence in this place of deep sickness.   ROGERS:  Walter, I know you as well as Jacqui have done such great work in this space. And I just wondered if you wanted to comment on the question as well.   KIM:  Yeah. There's a very complicated immigration history for Asian Americans. And so even this notion of AAPI as a unitary movement is something of an illusion, because the immigration pattern has been so varied. And unlike African American situation, or the Hispanic Latino situation, there isn't a unifying language. So not only is there not a unifying history, but within the Hispanic community, predominantly speaking Spanish. And with an African American community, most people are not asking, well, where were you originally from? What country? You don't think to ask that. But when you talk about the AAPI community, you're talking about scores and scores of languages, cultures that have some similarity and overlap, but also a number of distinct qualities. And then, what does collaboration and unity look like when the Vietnamese experience is different from the Malay experience, is different from the Chinese or Korean experience, and the languages are different and so forth. And yet their common experiences of race or disempowerment, even among those who might fit the model minority  stereotype, and I point at myself in this way, but here's a moment of solidarity, to Jacqui's point. There are some profoundly shared experiences that point to opportunities of mutual understanding and work. But we need to hear those stories. And they are very difficult conversations because some of those stories include difficult experiences between racial and ethnic minorities, not just between the dominant culture, and racial and ethnic minorities. And that just adds a layer of complexity.   But there have also been very beautiful moments of solidarity. And I point to a documentary that recently just brought me to tears, Far East Deep South, I would highly recommend it to those of you who are listening, a Chinese immigrant family’s discovery that they actually weren't immigrants, but had a heritage in Mississippi. And that journey of discovery included a journey of discovery of the solidarity between the African American and Chinese American communities in Mississippi. Was a beautiful, compelling, but at times painful, narrative. We need to hear these stories, we need to engage in that if we are to move together. Seems aspirational, but it is, in fact, possible. And, lives gets transformed, communities get transformed, when we engage in these difficult conversations with one another. And we hear our stories, and we move forward together in a way that would not be possible if we were not really attending to each other's stories. That's a bit of a pastor coming out of me this moment, but—   LEWIS:  I think that what you're saying, Walter, causes us to think also about the multiethnic possibilities in our faith communities that sadly still elude us. Eleven o'clock in the morning is still often way more segregated than I think our faith calls to, in that context. And so, Middle's a multi-all-the-things church: multiethnic, multiracial, multiclass, multigendered. But when we are together in that community, the aunties that got violated are not like our grandmothers, they are our grandmothers. Right. But the, and so I think there's an opportunity, Melissa and Walter, right now, for us to think about multicultural, multiethnic systems as antidotes to hate and violence.   KIM:  We have several more questions. So I know that we should be pushing on to address those. Liz?   OPERATOR:  We will take the next written question from Tabassum Haleem, with the Islamic Networks Group, and it's directed to Melissa.   “Thank you for your leadership and continuously providing faith-based institutions new tools to better serve their communities and combating COVID-19. Do you see increased collaboration among interfaith groups? And do you see future opportunities for cooperative initiatives? If so, do you have any specific examples?”   ROGERS:  Great. Thank you so much. And I appreciate the question and your work. Yes, I think the answer is a resounding positive one. There have been so many instances in which we have seen groups of different faiths and beliefs come together to work against this virus, one that I would lift up is the Coalition Faiths for Vaccines, which has a national summit next week on May 26. And that is a well-timed national summit, and the work of this group has really been spectacular, and so inspirational. I've been a part of their meetings many times and they include people of so many different faiths, I couldn't even recite all the different groups, it sort of, I think covers the landscape, of the religious landscape, I should say, of the United States. And they have worked together very intentionally, to make sure that people have the tools and the understanding to plug in and help with this problem. And I think in the course of doing so, efforts like this are not only helping us to become more physically healthy, but to actually heal our nation in other ways too, because they are helping to build bridges across differences, as we've all just talked about, to show solidarity and to find new ways to work together that maybe we would not have found if we hadn't had to face this challenge together.   So I think, that's just one example, I know ING has done a lot of work in this space, including through the “Know Your Neighbor” campaign that they run that's pre-pandemic but has been adapted to the pandemic setting to bring people together to talk and work together on issues of shared concern. So one of the things that I think has been a great fruit of the effort has been a powerful reaffirmation of pluralism and respect across differences and affirmation of the principles of our country that out of many weeks can be won. And so that's been a real shot in the arm if you wouldn't mind me saying so.   OPERATOR:  We will take the next live question from Laura Alexander, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Please accept the unmute now prompt.   Okay, we will take the next written question from Kevin McBride of Raymond Baptist Church.    “How do we heal the division within the faith communities as we move forward between those who stand against the vaccines and those who have participated?”   KIM:  Well, one of the things that I would begin, just by saying, and then I'd love to hear from both Jacqui and Melissa, but is to acknowledge that there are divisions, I mean, there's no way to address this issue if we don't acknowledge this issue. But I would have to say, let's acknowledge it and try to understand the deeper reasons behind it. And not simply to characterize or attribute motivations before we actually have real conversations and address those concerns. It's very easy to assume that a person's motivation is the worst possible motivation when that person happens to disagree with you. And we tend to give ourselves the latitude of nuance in our position. But we tend to afford simplistic motivations to others. So I think one of the ways that we are going to go about healing this, is that even understanding that two people who say the same thing may have very different reasons for why they say it. But you're only going to get that if you have these difficult conversations. If you dignify the other person with the basic assumption, they probably have nuance to why they're doing it. Emotional, intellectual, spiritual motivations, cultural context. And if we're to heal that division that exists, we're going to need to enter into an understanding. And that just takes work. And we're frankly, all tired. So it's a lot easier to just characterize and move on. But the kind of labor that's required to see the pandemic finish is the kind of labor that's going to be required to move on in healing our nation in all sorts of other ways.   LEWIS:  I think that's really beautiful, Walter. And I would say, friends, that building a relationship is difficult work. It's really difficult work. And so, if we want that, if we want to be a part of the healing, I think we need to build relationships. It might be that you decide to, I'm talking, I'm going to say this better. Talking about developing a sense of your own border personality. Put yourself on the border, read news that you don't usually consume, listen to music you don't usually listen to, turn on that other news channel and listen to what other folks are saying there. Broaden your inner border self. W. E. B. Du Bois used to say that Black people have two nests, that were double conscious, or double consciousness of our own consciousness and white consciousness. I think all of us need to be doubly conscious or maybe triply conscious. How can I develop a sensibility to understand a particular friend’s perspective? Let's just start there. I want to know that friend, that Chinese one, that Japanese friend, or that friend from the Dominican Republic who has a different sensibility than the one from Puerto Rico. Dip into the ethnicity of our white friends. They're not white. They think they are white, but they're also Polish, and German, and English, and Dutch. What do those ethnicities bring to the table? What does it mean to be Muslim in America? What is Ramadan? What's the conflict in Palestine-Israel about? Let's be students of the world, students of each other's culture, as a way to build bridges.   ROGERS:  I would so much agree with all of that and I think it's bound up in this is the importance of recognizing that people, everybody is carrying around a certain amount of pain, and perhaps a certain amount of fear. And to remember that sometimes people, they get exhausted, and they get exhausted by information overload, by the stresses in their lives. And  so  faith communities are so good at their best, at  taking a compassionate approach and recognizing dignity in everyone, and the pain that people carry and trying to take an empathetic approach to people's pain and suffering, and to try to have those great conversations that you've all just described.   KIM:  Thank you. I think, looking at the clock now, I realize that we're going to need to draw this to a conclusion. I know there are fantastic questions that are still in the Q&A and hopefully we'll find ways of being able to address those in other contexts. I would like for us, as we draw to a conclusion, for each of you to provide a brief main takeaway from this. What is a final thought, or an encouragement, or exhortation that you would leave with us?   ROGERS:  Great. So I would say that when I reflect on the situation we're in, it reminds me that sometimes, tragically, we can't stop pain and suffering sometimes. And that is such a terrible thing when that happens. But thankfully, that is not the case here. There is this vaccine that is safe, effective, convenient, and free. And so it's this wonderful opportunity for us to be able to stop pain and suffering. And so I know that we all know that, and are committed to that. And I think that what we need to do is recognize that there is a difference that we can make in these coming weeks, for the betterment of our neighbors, and our nation, and our world. And so I would just encourage everyone to ask  what they can do, whether it's posting on social media, joining this Digital Day of Action this Friday, becoming a member of the COVID Community Corps, take, if you haven't already, I would encourage you to take one of those steps. And if you have, take them again, please, and get your neighbors and your friends to do so, because this is a grassroots movement. And the way that we will win is by all of us getting off the sidelines and getting active in this fight, which is all of our fights together. And I feel very optimistic and hopeful. And I just want to thank everybody for their tremendous contributions to this work.   LEWIS:  That's beautiful, Melissa. I think I might add, agreeing with everything you're saying, I might add, we are, what is being revealed about us as human beings right now, in this COVID time, is just how much we can do together. That we got to a vaccine this fast, that we got to an effective vaccine that's working this fast, is amazing, miraculous. All the people who are caring for their neighbors, all the people who are doing love out loud as justice, both in the way the pandemic has affected us but also, I'm going call the second pandemic of racism—those pandemics are being addressed medically, sociologically, theologically, and with love, and you also are a love warrior. So wherever you are, remember that you are the best testimony to your neighbor, to your grandmother, to your son, that this can work. So get your shot, read up what you can on all things vaccine. But also, let's become, let's lean into an anti-racist culture. Because we study, listen for, hear the stories of our neighbors, and see how much we are alike, and how much we can heal together.   KIM:  Thank you so much for sharing your perspectives. Thank you for the questions that have been brought in. Thank you for the earlier presentations. I've really enjoyed this conversation. It's so promising, not only with respect to drawing COVID-19 to a close, but it's very promising for the future challenges that remain. That the kind of information and collaboration, the lessons learned, the relationships built. This notion that as a nation, multifaceted problems require multifaceted responses, and that we need to be in this together is something that bodes well, even as the challenges are profound and real. Thank you, Jacqui. Thank you, Melissa, for this amazing conversation.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, will speak on the considerations schools face in terms of reopening, taking into account their individual needs as well as public health and CDC recommendations. Jacob Carpenter, education reporter at the Houston Chronicle, will discuss best practices for framing stories related to this topic. Carla Anne Robbins, adjunct senior fellow at CFR and former deputy editorial page editor at the New York Times, will host the webinar.

Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and lead pastor at The Gathering Place church, and Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, discuss the role faith communities play in the COVID-19 vaccine distribution process. Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS:  Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy webinar series. I'm Irina Faskianos, Vice President for the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. As a reminder, today's webinar is on the record and the audio, video, and transcript will be available on our website cfr.org and on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Reverend Gabriel Salguero and Rabbi Moshe Hauer with us today to discuss COVID-19 vaccines in the faith community. We've shared their bios with you but I'll give you a few highlights.   Reverend Gabriel Salguero is the founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, which offers an important leadership voice for the close to 8 million Latino Evangelicals in our country. He serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals. He and his wife Reverend Jeanette Salguero are the co-lead pastors of the multicultural Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City. They conducts worships in three languages: English, Spanish, and Mandarin. He has been named one of the most influential Latino Evangelical leaders by the Huffington Post, CNN Español, and Jorge Ramos’ Al Punto, to name a few. He's a feature writer for On Faith and he's served as an advisor to the White House on issues of immigration and health care and the faith community and also served on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in New Jersey as well as director of the Institute of Faith and Public Life and Hispanic Leadership programs at Princeton Theological Seminary.   Rabbi Moshe Hauer is the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union. Rabbi Hauer was the spiritual leader of congregation Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion in Baltimore for over 26 years. He's active in local, communal, and national leadership in many areas with an emphasis on education and works with social service organizations serving the Jewish community. He serves as a trustee of the Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore, and is a member of the National Council of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as well as a member of the Rabbinical Council-Vaad HaRabbonim of Baltimore and the Rabbinical Council of America. And he's founding editor of the online journal Klal Perspectives, and leads a leadership training program for rabbis and communal leaders. And I know that Reverend Salguero and Rabbi Hauer have worked together as well. So it's wonderful to have you here today to talk about the role religion leaders are playing in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, what you're doing to work with other leaders on the issue and to manage a lot of the disinformation and misinformation about the pandemic and the vaccines. So I thought we could first begin with you Reverend Salguero to talk about your efforts, and then we'll turn to the rabbi.   SALGUERO:  Thank you so much, and good afternoon for those of you who are on the east coast and good morning for those of you who are on the west coast. And thank you, Miss Faskianos and the team for this opportunity. As you've heard, I'm Reverend Gabriel Salguero. I'm the president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. And an update actually, I'm no longer in New York, I'm in the city of Orlando, Florida, pastoring in Orlando, Florida at the gathering place. Here's how I would take a Latino Evangelical position, not “the” Latino evangelical position, but “a” Latino evangelical position. There's over 10 million Hispanic Evangelicals in the United States, there's 60 million Latinos living in the United States, one out of every four children born in the U.S. are Hispanic, one out of every two is a person of color, and so it's a significant community. When it comes to the vaccine in the Latino evangelical community, which is the community that I serve, there has been some vaccine hesitancy so I want to talk, I want to frame my conversation with you all around three areas. First, taking inventory of the moment we're living. How do Latino evangelicals respond to the vaccines of COVID-19? Number one, we have to take inventory that there is some historical trepidation or what is known as “vaccine hesitancy” because of the history of inequitable healthcare distribution and, of course, although we are disproportionately impacted, Latinos are twice as likely to be victims of COVID-19 either to death or to contagion. And there is because of the history of sterilization that happened within the healthcare among Latinos, there's some vaccine hesitancy. That hesitancy is further compounded because there are entire streams of misinformation or disinformation that are being sent through social media, that are being sent through group chats, a WhatsApp of pastors, maybe 100, 150 pastors, and through the social media platforms that are sadly sometimes repeated in Latino evangelical platforms.   What are some of these myths that we are wrestling with? One, that there's a chip in the vaccines that are having Latinos or people of color attract: a myth, it is not true. Two, and this is much more theological to come from an apocalyptic and eschatological view that's dominant in many Hispanic evangelical communities, that is somehow the mark of the beast or the sign of the times a reference to the book of Revelation in the Christian scripture. Three, that somehow your DNA is being changed when you receive the vaccine. That coupled with the historical distrust of systems, be it government, some of us have traveled from Latin America and other countries where there's historical distrust of government and distrust of the healthcare system, given the history of sterilization and inequitable health care distribution has created a major challenge. What is the Latino evangelical community and what is now like the national Latino Evangelical Coalition doing in response? We have partnered with the Ad Council and we have created a public service announcement in Spanish for faith leaders, talking about the benefits of the vaccines and why they save lives, framed around the theological moral framework of the Good Samaritan; love your neighbor as yourself and taking the vaccine is part of this moral commitment of loving your neighbor and loving your community.   Not only are we doing public service announcements, we've had several national forums in Spanish with the CDC and the Health and Human Services, where we have talked about the realities of the vaccines and we've had epidemiologist answer questions. At one call, we had over 1100 pastors with Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is the Surgeon General, Dr. Nunez-Coba, who's part of the administration's response, Nunez-Smith, who’s part of the COVID-19 response, and two national forums on Facebook and on Zoom with over 500 pastors responding directly to the questions. And so the main thing that we have to do is be distributors of information. The second thing is we need to validate people's questions. It is not helpful in our experience to cast judgments around real and genuine anxiety that does not contribute to trust, that does not contribute to an increase in vaccinations if people feel that they're legitimate questions, and/or anxieties cannot be responded to by medical experts, and by trusted brokers, be they faith leaders or community leaders in the Latino community.   Lastly, many of our congregations are being used as vaccination sites around the country. And we're partnering with local and state outreaches in our communities and we're using our churches as vaccination sites. I think that the reality is that if we're not intentional about responding to questions, if there's not a collaboration between faith leaders and medical experts and researchers. And number three, if we do not take a pastoral using the language of our tradition approach to actually listen to people and addressing their anxieties, this misinformation will continue to expound and continue to reach these communities and we will have a harder and much regrettably, much longer time where we're rushing with the vaccines. The last thing I want to say and this is very important, is that we have to be committed for the long haul. People want to know that we're not just committed to COVID 19 vaccinations, but that we're committed to equitable health care distribution in communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted and that we're committed to bringing factual information, that we're committed to being consistent, and that the people who are speaking, my wife and I were fully vaccinated on April 1 and we took a picture. And so we can't just say we want people vaccinated. We need to share our stories and talk about what are all of the challenges that people face. We are about two weeks away from an interview I had with Brooke Baldwin on CNN. One of the questions she asked us is why should faith leaders be involved in a national information campaign. One of my simple responses is because faith leaders are historically trusted brokers. And if we are able to leverage that influence, to get people to a place of health, we're doing our job to the best ability. Thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to further conversation.   FASKIANOS:  Thank you very much. And Rabbi Hauer over to you to talk about the interfaith work that you're doing to inform the community about the pandemic.   HAUER:  Thank you. Thank you very much, and I want to really, first of all echo everything that Reverend Salguero said. The approach which he has taken is reflected in the approach that we have taken. The elements of making sure that clergy is educated so that they're able to speak with a clear voice, and reassure their communities and encourage their communities. As religious leaders we, certainly in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, we view the preservation of life, both of our own lives and our responsibility towards others, towards ensuring public health to be a religious mandate. And when faith leaders are able to themselves be made comfortable with the science, with the science of the vaccines, and to be able to speak with a clear voice, and yes, walk the walk, as the Reverend said, you know, to themselves be vaccinated and show its importance, show, it's important. So as a matter of personal safety and of communal responsibility, you know, thank God, all of us looking and seeing the trajectory of how it how the vaccine is having really positive effects on the trajectory of illness, and we can see this is something that we can do for our community at large. We have also done work internally, before I address, you know, some of the interfaith effort which we which we did, we did this, you know, similar kind within the Orthodox Jewish congregations, which we had significant work where we brought together, with leaders in the scientific community, some of the important halakhic voices, the voices of Jewish law leaders, you know, rabbinic leaders, to be completely comfortable with the science where it was and so that they could provide the guidance and the reassuring voice and worship reassuring voice to the community.   The interfaith work which you refer to was actually, was with the National Association of Evangelicals. I had the privilege to publish together, Dr. Walter Kim and I, an op-ed which was really a letter calling upon the government to view the religious community as a partner, as a partner in making the vaccination efforts successful. We published this, this goes back already a few months. And it was at the beginning, towards the beginning of the vaccine rollout when we felt, and we continue to feel ,and actually I think the time really has ripens for it to work, that using the vast infrastructure of houses of faith in the in the community as sites for vaccination would be an outstanding opportunity for the government to be able to achieve their goal of being able to make vaccines available for all. There'll be an outstanding opportunity as well for the private industry that was involved, you know, the CVS’s and the Walgreens. You know, our houses of faith are both experienced and well equipped of having hundreds of people come through for different kinds of health initiatives, blood drives, and the like, and probably easier than getting down the aisle of a pharmacy. You know, trying to you know, to do it with safety and social distancing, the social halls that we have in our houses of faith would really be and are becoming, thank God, an important site and for us to speak matters one faith community, but as a joint faith community that we want to be part of the solution to this problem. And we want to be able to help not only the members of our own faith community, but the members of our neighborhoods, all of our communities to be able to access.   I took a family member for vaccination, to a mass vaccination site, which was at stadium. And it was it was magnificent it was well run, you know, the National Guard was there, that was incredibly pleasant. But getting, there getting to the stadium, which was downtown, and you know the distance to walk in the lines and going to the proper level of the stadium to be able to get the vaccination, I was able to do it, thank God, I'm a relatively young person, not everybody is going to be able to do it, being able to go to your neighborhood house of faith, which is both comfortable and accessible. And providing the, you know, the neighborhood with a sense of confidence, this is not going to some strange, unfamiliar location with, you know, as friendly as they would be and as efficient as they would be with strangers. But to being it's being able to do this, with which people face with an understandable degree of uncertainty, to do it in the friendly and inspiring confidence of their house of faith of a neighborhood, of a neighborhood facility, it can really make a difference in fighting this battle. You know, there's the informational battle, trying to combat the disinformation that the Reverend spoke about, which our faith communities, frankly, are especially vulnerable to because they’re networked. I don't know what the percentage of WhatsApp groups there are with religious communities of the whole, but people are networked and they share with each other and sometimes they share with each other things that are not so responsible.   We have to be able to provide not just the counter education, but just actions that speak louder than words. If your house of faith is a place where you can go to get vaccinated, I think that that helps us a lot to get people and to get people over the hump. When Dr. Kim and I published that op-ed, I would hope that there was an eventual effectiveness, I would say unequivocally that at the time, there was very little impact that was able to be seen that the process of the vaccine rollout effort was so early, it was so early in the process, and the government was really finding itself in terms of how to do it. And the private industry, that pharmacy, the great national pharmacies, were just trying to find themselves as to how to get this how to get this done. And it was too early, really, for them to think about actively using us as partners. I think that has shifted, thank God. And I think the consistent voice which has come from so many, way, way beyond beyond the article and the readiness of the administration, the strong outreach of administration to the faith community, is now really starting to see it pick up steam. We're hearing many, many synagogues that now are being given the opportunity, many, many churches, and all kinds of houses of faith, mosques, that are there are being given the opportunity to serve as vaccination sites as supply starts to rise. And I think that we would believe that if we do our job as faith communities, we're going to help the demand rise as well. And together that that will that will, with God's help, help us overcome this, this pandemic that has altered our lives.   FASKIANOS:  Thank you very much. And to your point, I know that last week, President Biden spoke during the weekly White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships call to leaders. And I think, you know, it does seem evident that they are really reaching out to the faith communities, which has that facilitated and help the work that you're doing in your communities to have that boost. at a national level?   HAUER:  I think it definitely has, and really the evidence of it is in the news we get on a regular basis of another house of faithful has been given the opportunity by its local government, by its local health department to be a vaccine site. It's happening. Thank God it's happening. And I think that the more that we play that role, the more accessible and reassuring this, this campaign will be to all of our parishioners.   SALGUERO:  I think I want to echo what Rabbi Hauer has said. Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris was on a national call where they launched the community core of founding members to get the information out, and I was actually on that call with Vice President Harris. I think there were over 145 between religious and community organizations. And so there is a great deal of intentionality. The the question that remains to be answered is, when will we get to the tipping point? Because the truth is we are in a race, right? Different strands are continuing to have outbreaks. And so we need to--and so I think that the public private partnerships are essential. We the calls we done with the Surgeon General, and with the CDC are important because you have two important voices, the scientific community and the religious community. Our coalition NALEC has partnered with people like Barbara William Skinner, and the African American clergy network and values partnership, and the Ad Council, because we know that the key here is not just a one message, right? When we did the New York Times interview, when we did other interview, did one with Vice, it has to be repetition, repetition, repetition, because people are being flooded by misinformation more than daily, perhaps on an hourly basis, or second by second in their social media feeds and on the cell phones they carry. And so it's important that we're persistent and that we continue to repeat this message. And the more quite frankly, as the rabbi says, they see interfaith voices, that there's a broad coalition of faith voices who, from our theological and religious perspective, say "No, this is this is a moral challenge, in addition to a scientific and health challenge," to quote from from our Jewish brothers and sisters as part of being the "tikkun olam," right? The healing of the world, this is very critical, because the messages and the bombardment in the Latino community, there are videos of faux-medical experts saying that the vaccines are ineffective that, that they're targeting minority communities. And so we have to be persistent because people are being, as the rabbi has said, we are so connected in the religious community. I did not know how many WhatsApp in the Jewish tradition, but there's certainly a lot in the Hispanic faith communities. And so I think we're very similar in that. So we have to be consistent and persistent in our messaging.   FASKIANOS:  We've seen that a lot of the states are lifting their mask mandates. And obviously, the CDC came out, CDC director, and said, "Please wear your masks." I mean, rolling out vaccines is important. But wearing masks and socially distancing, washing hands, all of that we need to continue. So do you feel both of you feel that it is upon the faith leaders to also carry that message? Because again, is that message stronger coming from religious leaders than from the state and at the national level?   HAUER:  I think we have to lead on all fronts in terms of public health and public safety and trying to encourage wise and practical adherence to guidelines. There's a public health balance, which has been being struggled with on a day to day basis and figuring out how to navigate this, to give people the right amounts of guidance to be careful. And at the same time to give them the horizon, that their efforts are actually producing results to be reassuring. Sometimes we are concerned about the abundance of caution that is there. This is not a concern reserved for religious leaders that has been written about extensively in the press, you know, the abundance of caution that sometimes make people wonder "Well, if I'm still going to have to do all of this, what have I really gained by taking the vaccine?" And, you know, we're trying to responsibly make sure in concert with with government guidelines that we give people a sense of things, opening up for them as a result of the efforts that they are making, but not to declare victory before it is there. And that we should exemplify in our in our communal life, proper responsibility, our responsibility to the best we can it's a tightrope this whole thing has been such a such a complex, complex area to navigate and it's been a responsibility and an opportunity for us to try to lead our communities in these ways.   SALGUERO:  I think that's precisely it. This is a initiative that has to be fought on all fronts, faith communities, medical experts, educators, mental health experts, press, government, both local, state, national and federal government, I think all hands on deck for this global pandemic. I do think the rabbi is quite right in that I was on a call earlier today, where one of the questions is how do we tell people to stay vigilant but also talk about the advances, right? So if you've been vaccinated, fully vaccinated, and you and you've waited, the timespan that the CDC has had, now maybe you can at least meet with other fully vaccinated people. So there has been some advances, but at the same time, we have to remain vigilant. And I think that is the kind of delicate balance and message that we have to bring, I should also say their messages have to be culturally and religiously contextualized. And I think that sometimes, when we miss the contextualization, we miss the opportunity to be able to communicate in persuasive ways to communities who really need the message most urgently. And so that is why these kinds of partnerships are, are critically important because the contextualization of the message contributes to the efficaciousness of the message.   FASKIANOS:  Right. I will stop now. And I'm going to go to everybody on the webinar, you can either raise your hand or type of question in the Q&A box. There are already a couple there. And I'm just going to ask you to ask the question yourself, I know you all well enough, Paul De Vries, if you're in a position to unmute yourself and ask your question, that would be fantastic. And also identify who you are your affiliation, please.   DE VRIES:  Paul De Vries in New York City, and New York City has not been the same since you left Gabriel. Gabriel and I worked together a few years, way back. I was watching as the vaccines were made available, just kind of getting the big picture. And also personally, I live near the Bronx and noted that the other four boroughs had places receiving vaccine long before the Bronx had any place. And then, when it was set up at Yankee Stadium, which I think was the first place in the Bronx, the promotion was, especially the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is not nearly as effective as the other two. I have a hard time seeing all this without feeling there's a huge bias. Yeah, ignoring the Bronx in the first place, which is for everyone else on the call, primarily Black and brown communities, and then pushing for Johnson and Johnson, which is only 65% effective. So I think it stinks to high heaven. Is there something we can do about it? Or am I wrong?   SALGUERO:  Well, Dr. De Vries, thank you for your question. And your commitment to highlighting what is not a new phenomenon, which is health care inequities, or access to health care inequities and access to health care. Historically, communities of color have disproportionately had less access to quality health care. And so the COVID-19 has not presented a new reality, but has exacerbated existing realities, I think, is what we're seeing right? In our community, now I'm speaking about Latino communities, the high rates of diabetes, hypertension, what what are underlying conditions further complicate this, and historical distrust, right? So think about, in the African American communities, and I was talking to Dr. Barbara William Skinner, who is an African American clergy leader, and others who remember Tuskegee, and those experiments, and in the Latino community, there were challenges with sterilization of Latina women in the '60s and the '70s. And so that memory, for some may be a long distance away, but for some of us is quite recent. And so what we have to do is continue to work to level out and to provide equity in the entire healthcare system. But in this case, now, we're talking about this global pandemic, which is really urgent, maybe double and triple our efforts to ensure that everyone is getting not just equal access but correct information. I think that, as we know, the efficaciousness of all three vaccines, whether it's Moderna, Pfizer, or Johnson and Johnson, are not just commendable at the speed at which they are been delivered, I think and now with the intentionality of the present administration. I think we've come a long way. But you're quite right that we still have a lot of work to do. But this is a larger problem of health care access inequity in these communities.   FASKIANOS:  Thank you. Let's go to Katherine Marshall. And Katherine, if you want to just ask your question, it would be great.   MARSHALL:  All right. I'm Katherine Marshall. I'm at Georgetown University at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Clearly, there's an enormous amount of energy and activity on focusing on religious communities in the US. But Reverend Salguero, I'd be very interested in how you see this beyond the United States and evangelical communities in other parts of the world, and particularly in the Northern Triangle countries, which are so much focus these days and where there are so many communities.   SALGUERO:  Well, professor Marshall, thank you for that question. Look, I think that when these these twin crises, both the kind of the migration from the Northern Triangle countries because of hurricanes that have occurred in the last year, natural disasters, continued violence, you know? Well, Dr. Marshall, many of the realities are now also being further exacerbated by the coronavirus, or the COVID-19 global pandemic, you could imagine how the Latin American evangelical there is a Latin American Evangelical Alliance, I'm on the actual on the executive committee response representing North America. And there is-I got a call from the president of the Evangelical Alliance of Paraguay, where there's real concern about how some of the the countries who have not had the same amount of distribution or access are going to respond to this. We live in an increasingly globalized world, and what happens in Latin America is certainly going to impact North America. What happens in the Caribbean is impacting Africans in Asia, and Africa. and Europe is impacting us. And so there is a real concern. And I want to say that the myths that are happening in the Latino evangelical community are also happening in Latin America There is a WhatsApp chat of the 22 evangelical alliances of Latin America, where there's intentional efforts, press releases, there was actually a virtual press conference by I think, at least twenty of those presidents to talk about the necessity of being vaccinated. But equally as important to making sure that those countries that have great access to vaccines as part of their diplomacy, and as part of their kind of global citizenship, are sharing that with those countries who have less access and that that is a real crisis and concern as you could imagine.   FASKIANOS:  I'm going to go next to Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta, who has raised her hand.   ADENEY-RISAKOTTA:  Hello, good. afternoon, everybody. Thank you, Dr. Salguero, and Rabbi Moshe. I like to now little bit about how do you contextualize your method, because you mentioned about very important to content, contextualize the message in the in the situation where all messages are not set up as true, especially in the post-truth era. Thank you.   FASKIANOS:  Who wants to take that?   HAUER:  I could start or have the very capable Reverend continue. I think that to a great degree, each of us has to come at it with an effort to understand without, starting with an effort to understand the context of those who are listening to our messages, the context of our own faith community, what works, what are what are the concerns that they themselves face or may harbor. We have to be aware of the rumor mill, of the kinds of messages which are going out to them and around them. And in that framework, see that as the context within which we have to respond with understanding, as the Reverend said before, dismissiveness is not what, you know, what will do the trick, trying to speak with with with the authority of thoughtful, thoughtful science, thoughtful research, of understanding of the issues and trying to dispel them with the right voices, finding the right voices, that will be able to address our particular community. in our framework, we have, like I think every faith community, certain, perhaps more recognized and appreciated voices, they didn't come together as one. I mean, organizationally, we made a statement early on trying to address the concerns which people had, remember that there are, there's a general issue of vaccine hesitancy in the world, and in the United States, that the corona vaccine had its own layer, even people who are doing the MMR and doing all of those vaccines that have been out there for, for decades, when it came to a vaccine, which was brought out to market that is absolutely not just record-breaking, but record-smashing pace, and using an entirely new technology, which starts to speak about genetics, it raised entirely new concerns amongst people who hadn't been concerned before. And trying to understand that, and trying to address the fair concerns that people have, but at the same time being able to dispel the really the imagined consequences of these changes, by speaking with authority, by making clear that we're not just reflexively saying "Okay, you should do it, everybody go out there and do it." But we had our own questions. And we asked them, and we explored it with the scientific community, and we came to understand and to appreciate, and this is why we are encouraging it. And this is why we are doing it ourselves for ourselves and our families. Again, every community has its trusted voices, and every community has its language. And we have to find that in all the work that we do, and certainly as well, and addressing vaccine hesitancy.   SALGUERO:  That was extremely well said, and I want to affirm that, I think there are three plumb lines that I think we are learning as faith leaders, or at least I have learned, number one, informed clergy are better messengers. So we have to be informed and ask the questions on behalf of the people we serve. The second thing, empathy is a great tool for getting in a hearing people need to feel that that their questions are being heard with empathy. And then, of course, the third thing that I keep saying is repetition, repetition, repetition. The questions that are being asked about the vaccines, its speed, and all of that those are legitimate questions, and there are scientific responses that I think can help people wrestle with that in honest ways, but also in ways that lower anxiety. And so if we use those tools, finally, I should say we all drink deeply from our own wells, in all of our traditions, or sacred texts, or however it is that that our moral worldview is being formed a religious worldview, there are stories about healing, and more responsibility that can lay ethical frameworks on how to respond from our tradition to this global and shared crisis.   FASKIANOS:  Great. Just a couple of points of clarification. You know, obviously, we have been seeing this incredible rollout of the vaccines, but they were based on a lot of the research and the testing that they were drinking the SARS virus so the scientific community was able to deploy that research, or turn it, to address COVID-19. Laura Alexander put in the chat, and I think it is worth mentioning, about just talking about the efficacy of the J and J vaccine, and since we really want to have good information, the stats are it's 100%, seems to be 100% effective, at preventing harmful hospitalizations and deaths. It's 85% effective in preventing severe disease, and about 65%, which was was stated before, in preventing mild to moderate disease. So it is quite effective. And I think that in terms of which vaccine you should take, any vaccine is better than no vaccine. And then Chloe Aldridge also put in the chat from about is there some benefit in promoting the J and J vaccine in certain communities, if that makes a difference between people getting vaccinated or not? That it's traditional, familiar technology to most who get vaccines. And again, this idea of it's only one injection than two, so it might be easier to organize, as well as the whole refrigeration. The J and J vaccine does not need to be stored in the the refrigeration temperatures that a lot of places do not have, especially in rural communities. So if you could maybe talk about those challenges that might be useful for the group?   HAUER:  Yeah, I would echo that. I mean, I think it's very important that we have we have a good perspective on that vaccine offering as well. The issues of access, ease of access that J and J presents because of the lack of refrigeration, you know, the normal refrigeration needs, not the exceptional refrigeration needs, which was one of the main issues which was presented us early on, how are you going to be able to, to have have your synagogue or your church function as a vaccine site without the ability to store according to the requirements?  And there are many, in our experience, who were disappointed when they drive by the mass vaccine sites, and they say "Today we're offering Pfizer," and they say that means today, they're offering Pfizer and has to come back in three weeks for another offering of Pfizer, and the J and J, which is a single dose, and is essentially completely effective against death, and almost completely with with severe disease, and with the single dose. I think that many people would view it as an opportunity, as an opportunity, not as being as being deprived of it. I'm sure there are different perspectives. But part of our of our building confidence will be will be to recognize the that it's a really good alternative. It's a really, really, really good alternative.   FASKIANOS:  Gabriel, anything to offer on that front?   SALGUERO:  I think that we have to look at this from the real lives of people who may be having to go to work. And it may be a challenge. I mean, this is a very sometimes it's a day to day thing that we don't take note of, they may need childcare to get to the vaccine. So some of them may see the one dose as an option because of their particular reality. The reality is that whether it's Moderna or Pfizer, or J and J, these vaccines are saving lives. And that is the message that we as faith leaders are saying, whether you take two shots from Moderna, two shots from Pfizer, or you take the one shot from J and J, the goal here is to get as many people vaccinated as possible so that we can save lives. And I think that healthcare is a very personal decision. And some people may and we have to respect the kind of, that's why there are so many HIPAA laws and things like that, because it's a very, you know, personal health is so, for so many people, such a private thing, although it has very public implications. And so we have to, as pastors, we can't mandate people what to do, but we can journey with them, and tell them the implications of making wise and responsible health decisions for them, their families, and their communities. And it's not just their religious community, but the larger community of every faith of people who have who don't claim any faith. All these people are of value and have human dignity, and the vaccinations are a way to save lives.   FASKIANOS:  Wonderful. Tom Walsh has written a question Tom, do you had that this is on my mind too. Do you want to ask it yourself? If you want to unmute?   WALSH:  Sure. Can you hear me okay?   FASKIANOS:  We can.   WALSH:  Yeah. So anyway, thank you for very fine program and a lot of great insights, very helpful for me. But I'm wondering, you know, the pandemic has changed our lives and kind of put us into this virtual world increasingly, and social network platforms, and that has opened up many opportunities we've had to adapt or become irrelevant. I'm just wondering, how do you see how this leads, in other words, we're not necessarily going back to the old days when we're through this beyond let's say, the vaccine is successful, and we begin to create a new normal, what's that going to look like? And has this pandemic and the consequences that pushed us into these areas? Are they creating lasting effects, some of them very positive and hopeful, and others that are very disruptive of the way we understand faith communities and the way faith communities build their community and solidarity together?   HAUER:  Reverend, I don't know who wants to go first. But that's a subject for a really, really healthy discussion and separate and significant discussion. I'm happy to speak out for a couple of minutes. But I think I would like to defer let you go first, please.   SALGUERO:  Thank you, Rabbi. Mr. Walsh, your question is one that is reverberating across many religious communities. Even before the vaccines, when we had to reorganize when we had to, to limit shut our actual in person places of worship, many of us went to Zoom or Facebook Live, and so the law of double factors, Aristotle once said is that nothing prevents an action from having two consequences. At the same time, one good and one bad. And so there is a sense by many religious leaders, a sense of how do we how do we recreate or create new venues for people who are sheltered for people who cannot come over during the shutdown? And so there's been a lot of ingenuity, the truth is that many young people have helped in my community to lead that right, because they're their digital natives, as the Barner report would say, but at the same time, there's a real sense of isolation. And there's a real sense of despair, I have a son who's a sophomore in high school and a middle school. And I never thought I would hear the day when my sons would say "I really want to go back to school." And so even, they're Gen Z's, right, even that cry of kind of isolation, of not being connected in person, even though they've been connecting virtually, I think that's a real concern that faith leaders have had to address. And then it's further exacerbated by the digital divide that is often generational. What about people who can't connect to the synagogue, the mosque or the church via Zoom or Facebook Live, or they don't have those digital platforms, they too need a space and a place to worship. And so I think that there are we've had to do it, we've done it with varying degrees of success and failure, we've connected with some people, it is not the same, but we're trying to at least provide pastoral care, liturgical spaces, worship spaces, but it is been, quite frankly, a challenge. And the truth is that I have found that there have been people left because of the digital divide from the worship community. And then this is a theological question that as the rabbis it would take weeks and days for for our best scholars to talk about, what does it mean to be worshiping community in a time of isolation? And what are the instruments of technology? How do they hinder or how do they contribute? And those are those are conversations that are being had even now, and I imagine that many a theological dissertation is going to be written about that in the days and weeks to come.   HAUER:  I agree with everything the Reverend has said. I think that, I find it illustrative, there are a couple of four that are not worrying about being able to get everybody to come back. I don't think football stadiums are worrying about getting people to come back, you were always able to watch a football game more clearly and more comfortably in your living room It would be easier to get some food to eat, you know, than, you know, tailgating in a parking lot before the game. But people want to be, they want to be in a place with others, they want to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. They are present in in real life, people are waiting to get back, they're not worried about it, there was always the virtual substitute, and it was never going to be good enough. And our houses of faith need to have that feeling as well, of people coming to be part of something bigger than themselves. And the more elementarily really, I don't think grandmothers are like overly worried that their grandkids won't want to come back at the first chance that they have, you know, the hugs, the tastes of home, the sense of caring and belonging. Virtual community is a nice thing. It does a lot for people when there isn't an alternative. But there's something about the in person that we can't allow ourselves, I would daresay maybe perhaps a little bit more assertively. We need to layer on additional value which we've had from all of this access, incredible access that people have had through technology, to opportunities, whether in the faith community or just educationally and socially, that they haven't had before. But they're not going to be replacement. A caring community comes from seeing each other, being there for each other. The virtual community is a distant second, to a pastor, afaith leader, a faith community, the community of kindness, which we're supposed to be creating amongst neighbors and friends, that being there, being there, there is no substitute. I will tell you that in our network, [Orthodox] Union network of synagogues because of the particulars of Orthodox Jewish faith, both laws of the Sabbath which preclude the use of technology on the Sabbath, and because of the quorum requirements for full communal prayer, for us, we have a requirement of a minion where ten people come together in order to say certain of the prayers, we can't do it unless we have ten people in one place, the virtual doesn't do it. So we have come back, hundreds and hundreds of synagogues, thousands across the world, in a safe way. Some yeah, of course, some have done it without sufficient regard for safety. But we've done it with what we have, thousands that have done it with safety, with social distancing, with masking. And thank God we have no, people just aren't getting sick in those contexts, when the synagogues do it right, they're not getting sick. And they have such a good feeling of getting back to community. And we must be courageous and lead in that way, and that not simply accept the very, very second best world of the virtual world where human beings are supposed to be capable of in person care, connection, and community and it's not something we're willing to give up on.   FASKIANOS:  We have about four minutes left, so I'm going to just ask them together. The first is about the hostility developing against religious sects that refused mass vaccines, social distancing. How do we handle this? That was from Bruce Knotts, and then second, and we can end on this one is Bob Reynolds question. Reverend Salguero, you described responses to the current COVID-19 moment being services such thing as public service announcements, pastoral dialogue, etc. As the crisis of the current COVID reality passes, what commitments can be made to minimize health systems retreating to traditional inequitable access to general health care resources?   SALGUERO:  Go ahead Rabbi,   HAUER:  No, no, you please, please.   SALGUERO:  Okay well, the challenge of the inequitable distribution, right, when there were other global health crisis, the HIV/AIDS, right, there was a response by Black doctors, blackdoctors.org, who's talked about there needs to be a restructuring and reforming of healthcare system so that all of God's children and all people feel that they have equitable access, that is a long term commitment. And it may also need the creation of alternative venues of access, public-private partnerships, healthcare partnerships with communities of faith, with pharmacies with clinics with and so we really need to think we are dealing with 21st century health crises with 20th century health care modalities. And so we need to have a 21st century healthcare access reformation, so that all people-Dr. Marshall talked about the Global South. And so, if we expand this to globally, the health care access inequity, we're really talking about something that really needs attention, whether it's from the UN, whether it's from the global, the World Health Organization, or the global private partnerships, pharmacies, to rethink healthcare access. And so that is a long term challenge, in terms of responding to the second question, I want to yield to Rabbi so he can talk about that.   HAUER:  Thank you. Thank you. And I do want to express it's been a privilege to be on the call with everybody and to partner with Reverend Salguero in discussing these issues, a true privilege and honor, thank you for including us. The coronavirus pandemic has, besides, as we know for the health issues, has been a source of tremendous division in our country on so many fronts. People have strongly held views, and sometimes also there just seems to be unfortunately a little bit of a tendency towards division. And we find the views to create those divisions. We caricature communities or ethnic communities or political communities as doing certain things or following certain approaches that endanger the rest. And I think that this is one of the battles that all of us, as faith leaders have to be really, really taking on and that's the battle for a more peaceful country. A battle for less caricatures, a battle for seeing that people have different views. And it's okay for them to do that. And just to be always conscious of one another and, and to do no harm to one another. We have to be preachers of peace, brotherhood, sisterhood, and caring for everyone you know, even as we all strive towards equity and caring for each other, and making sure that everyone, every one of God's children, every member of humanity is given the proper and fair treatment. We're going to struggle for that in a way which which builds peace and which builds harmony and which builds that sense of care, instead of it being one which builds anger within our nation. We have far too much of that. And we hope that, God willing, our joint voices, as as a faith community will will have us all looking at each other more fairly, with more love more concern and to try to make our nation and our world more whole.   FASKIANOS:  Thank you both. With that, we need to end, it is 2:00, and really appreciate your being with us today and sharing your insights, as well as the work that you're doing. Thank you for all that you are doing in your communities and at the national level, we really appreciate it, to all of you for your comments. You can follow Reverend Salguero's work on twitter @PastorsSalguero or @NalecNews, did I get your Twitter handles right? Yes. And to learn more about Rabbi Hauer's work, please go to the rabbihauer.org or follow him @OrthodoxUnion, which is also on Twitter. So we hope you will find their work there. And obviously, they're doing a lot of interviews, getting the word out about how to be a resource in their communities. You can follow us on Twitter @CFR_Religion. And please go to cfr.org for information and analysis on COVID-19 and other topics in the international arena, and email us at [email protected] with ideas and suggestions of future webinars that we can host for all of you. So thank you again for today's really wonderful conversation.  For more event audio, subscribe on iTunes or visit us cfr.org.