Last week, Texas Pastor Landon Schott posted a video to celebrate that his Fort Worth church’s private school, Mercy Culture Preparatory (MCP), has the lowest vaccination rate in the state. That is leading to lots of pushback, especially with Texas at the center of a measles outbreak.
Schott, pastor of the multi-campus Mercy Culture Church, indicated that reporters “were trying to spin [the low vaccination rate] like it was some awful thing.” But he said he wanted to “congratulate” all the school families who “embrace freedom of health” and aren’t “allowing government or science projects to affect how you live and lead your life.”
In the caption of his March 6 video, Schott wrote, “We value our HEALTH & FREEDOM!” His Christian school has an MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination rate of 14.3%, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Medical experts say a rate of 95% is necessary in a community to curb measles cases.
After some people called the pastor’s celebratory words insensitive and tone deaf, Schott posted another video two days later. In the March 8 post, he emphasized that he gives “spiritual advice,” not medical advice. The pastor also indicated that his critics often have an agenda, including many who self-identify as LGBTQ+ and witches.
Despite vitriol directed his way—including “hundreds of death wishes against me, my family, and the children of MC Prep”—Schott doubled-down on his beliefs. “Parents should have the liberty to give or not give their children whatever legal medications they want,” he wrote on March 8.
Schott referred to the “insanity” of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought much of the world to a halt five years ago this week. Some people were fired from their jobs for refusing to received “forced vaccinations,” the pastor noted.
Vaccine Comments by Texas Pastor Landon Schott Spark Debate
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Texas now has 223 cases of the measles, including 29 hospitalizations. Fifteen other states have reported cases of the highly contagious disease, including New Mexico and Oklahoma. Last month, a school-age child in Texas died from measles-related complications, and last week New Mexico reported the measles-related death of an adult.
In response to Schott’s March 6 celebration video, social media users criticized the pastor for praising vaccine refusal. “I am a pediatric nurse practitioner and Christian,” one person wrote. “Getting vaccinated is loving to my neighbor. To the child with cancer who is immunocompromised, to the very young who cannot yet get vaccinated. Without love, your speech is a clanging gong.”
Another comment read:
I’m an outspoken Christian and also a medical student. Respectfully, this is a horrible thing to be celebrating. This is a disgrace to the name of Christ. Jesus loves the children, and advocating for them to be exposed to preventable sickness and death defies every tenet of Jesus loving the little children. Please, please, reconsider this.
Someone else lamented that a child of God had just died from a “completely avoidable illness,” saying that God would want us to “use the tools HE GAVE US to save [kids].”
Another person wrote, “I see why [Schott is] so excited. Child funerals must be lucrative business for a pastor.” Others noted that today’s generation of parents likely has immunity against measles, thanks to shots, yet their anti-vaccine stance is jeopardizing the health of their kids.
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