I have read a number of employee “religious exemption” vaccination opt-out letters online. Any religious exemption letter must take into account the fact that 50 percent of an urban jury in America today might be atheist, agnostic, or anti-Christian. Because I don’t find anything that I have read very persuasive, I am posting this. I believe what I have posted below is both persuasive and an effective Christian apologetic.
Whenever one’s communication could be as “Exhibit A” in a lawsuit it is very important to be persuasive. Persuasiveness requires FIRST connecting with the reader/jury on a visceral level that is non-ideological. Once this connection is made, only then can we communicate what we “see.” First, connection. Second, communicate view/picture. Third, lead into the light. Beginning with ideology or polemic statements is a recipe for failure. This is persuasion 101. Although the letter below may not save your job, it is both persuasive and authentic. If you sue, it will be an excellent and very persuasive Exhibit A. It does not pound the reader over the head with Bible verses and does not mention abortion or fetal tissue. Yet at the same time is is uncompromising, epistemologically sound, and truthful.
That makes it a winner.
Dear Sir or Madam:
Thank you for your suggestion that I get vaccinated. For the reasons outlined below, I cannot receive the vaccination that you suggest. Based on the contents of this letter I respectfully request that you make your best efforts to accommodate me and retain me as an employee as together we now enter the process of determining what is a reasonable accommodation going forward (the “Accommodation Process”).
The reasons that I cannot receive the vaccination you suggest are:
1. Authority and Risk. I find no legal or moral authority that would allow you, as an employer, to require me to submit to an experimental drug treatment as a condition of my employment. If you are aware of authority that allows you and/or any goverment to require me to submit to a request to allow an invasion of my body with a drug treatment and experimental drug product for which I bear all the risk and the seller/purveyor of the product bears no risk and has legal immunity, please provide this authority. If you are unwilling to assume the risk that the vaccine sellers refuse to accept, please explain why you will not accept this risk.
If you are able to provide some authority for your vaccine request, in your response also please explain how and why your authority applies to the present situation. All data that I have seen indicates that the mortality risk–the IFR, the Infection to Fatality Ratio–relative to the 2020 seasonal flu (aka Covid-19) is no different than any other prior seasonal flu.
