**5. Unity Protects Community**

Unity in public health response and the buy-in of the community are both needed to protect that community. In the present situation in which we find ourselves in the US, it is necessary to work creatively, like Urbino in the novel does, in order to bridge the divide between the communities of white Evangelical Christians who continue to reject the efficacy of policies and tools for fighting COVID-19 and the growing public who work with scientific tools and public health policy to reduce risk and death. As religion and science are so often framed as opposing systems in the United States, it may seem daunting, or even impossible, to reconcile the two. Some may argue that by increasing the visibility of religious identity in science, policy makers will turn to religious mores more often than scientific reasoning as the basis for their policy choices. Others may be concerned that scientists who affiliate themselves publicly with a religion would lose credibility, despite research that has shown

that highlighting medical professionals' religious identities increases trust by religious individuals least likely to get vaccinated (Chu et al. 2021). This is not to suggest that science pander to religious belief, or vice versa. Rather, by acknowledging the presence and effect of both institutions upon each other and finding common ground through honest and open dialogue without the interference of partisan politics, both might be able to adapt and better serve the general population.

Appealing to general religious values such as loving thy neighbor may not be enough to sway some individuals, including large swaths of WECs, toward vaccination. The change in communication needs to be more holistic. If the institution that is appealing to a value is perceived as not sharing that value, such an appeal will ultimately fall short. Instead, a shared set of values needs to be established and shared at both a public and individual level. A 2005 survey found that 89.5% of American doctors identify as religious, or with a particular religion, 38.8% of them identifying as Protestant. Furthermore, 58% of those doctors who identified themselves as religious said their religious beliefs inform their treatment of patients (Curlin et al. 2005). While increasing transparency is a long and difficult process and not without potential drawbacks, it is most likely to help us attain our short terms goals of containing COVID-19 and our aspiration of bridging the divide between public health policy informed by science and religious groups such as white Evangelic Christians. Health practitioners and officials who practice minoritized religions in the United States—religions that do not have as prominent a voice in contemporary American political discourse—may feel less comfortable in disclosing their religious identity. For members of already stigmatized communities within academia, science, and the nation, self-disclosure poses the risk of further discrimination, though further research would have to be done on outing oneself as a believer in a minority faith. In the case of white Evangelical Christians, whose beliefs are represented in mainstream political movements, transparency of health care professionals who identify as such could help to bolster the response of their religious community and encourage them to follow guidelines.

Beyond the self-identification of individual doctors, public health campaigns that feature experts with a variety of identities, including various faiths, will reach a wider public. This will also normalize a relationship between science and religion and bolster support of religious leaders who might also encourage behaviors beneficial to public health. The divide between religion and science in the United States is not as polarized as the current COVID-19 crisis and its politicization might lead us to believe. However, the communication of the connection between the two institutions is lacking, and when considering the overlap and interplay of additional facets of identity, such as political affiliation, the divide seems even greater. If public health campaigns shift from the tactic of targeting segmented portions of the population and focus on depicting common values between health, science and religious institutions, it could lead to less polarization, encouraging more of the American population to follow public health guidelines (Chittamuru et al. 2020).

#### **6. Conclusions**

Religious identity is an influential piece of culture knit inextricably into the fabric of national identity, which itself is indelibly tied to religious identity. As such, the cultural system of religions holds sway over much of American life. Thus, it has historically and continues to influence the behaviors of Americans currently. The communal identity of white Evangelical Christians proved to hinder their adoption of risk-mitigating behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, while much quantitative research has been done in the form of surveys that identify white Evangelical Christians as the group least likely to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, there does not seem to be a critical mass of primarily qualitative research that compiles their narratives regarding resistance. My inspiration draws from news interviews of such individuals. Furthermore, while there has been research on anti-vax rhetoric, the focus tends to be on the messages targeting specific groups, rather than on the beliefs and responses of those groups' members (Billauer 2022). It would be fruitful, as others have suggested, to explore the reasons and discourse behind

the resistance of white Evangelic Christian individuals to risking minimizing public health practices during COVID-19 in a wider variety of ways (Mylan and Hardman 2021). While Esposito's philosophy and Berlant's concept of cruel optimism are not the only lenses through which this phenomenon can be understood, they do provide insights that can be applied not just to religious identity, but other aspects of identity as well, reflecting the complex cultural systems that influence individual beliefs. Berlant's theory also provides a framework through which analysis can move from the present into the past through cultural texts such as Garcia Marquez's novel. It is this historic turn that gives cultural and behavioral insight beyond the quantitative analysis of a survey response. Yet, historical insight can only go so far, and future inquiry should continue to think through current and future pandemic responses in light of the past.

Despite the risk to their own well-being, as the pandemic became politicized, many white Evangelical Christians drew on their communal identity as an exclusive source of motivation and knowledge and thus rejected the recommendations of public health scientists and doctors to mask up and get vaccinated. However, health science and religious identity do not necessarily need to be at odds, and examining how tensions between the two have been resolved in the past can provide us a hopeful model for the future. As Garcia Marquez depicted and as is reflected in my analysis of *Love in the Time of Cholera*, the focus should be on the commonalities between medicine and religion rather than on the differences. As evidenced in the character of Dr. Urbino, medicine and religions can coexist in harmony and even strengthen each other. If we find a way to tamp down the partisanship and create a space for open dialogue between the scientific community and those skeptical because of their faith, perhaps then we will be ready for, to channel Galea, the contagion next time.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


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