IMB vaccine policy draws scrutiny as Southern Baptist missionaries report being removed from the field for non-compliance

A detailed June 12 Substack article by writer and former missionary Nathaniel Hillmer is igniting debate within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) over the International Mission Board’s (IMB) vaccine requirements for missionary families.

The post, titled Sent Home, argues that the IMB’s current medical clearance policies, particularly its mandatory childhood vaccine schedule, are binding missionary consciences, contradicting Baptist principles, and in some cases forcing families off the field. A June 19 follow-up article by Hillmer, titled No Ethical Alternative: Three IMB-Mandated Vaccines that Leave the Pro-Life Conscience No Way Out, is also an enlightening read.

Hillmer’s original article centers on the experience of “James and Rachel Collins,” pseudonyms for a missionary couple serving in a closed Muslim country. Their removal from service, he argues, illustrates a broader institutional pattern: a rigid, top‑down medical policy that leaves little room for parental judgment, physician counsel, or the Baptist commitment to liberty of conscience.

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Policy Determines Who Can Serve

The Collins family’s conflict with the IMB began after the birth of their daughter, Emma. Concerned about adverse reactions, they delayed several early childhood vaccines. But the IMB requires children of field personnel to follow a schedule of 32 doses across 11 vaccine series—a schedule stricter than the CDC’s updated 2026 recommendations. Because the Collinses could not comply in good conscience, they were denied medical clearance and removed from service.

Hillmer notes that the family is not anti‑vaccine. Instead, they sought clarity on what the IMB considered “core vaccines,” only to receive shifting explanations. At different times, they were told the standard depended on the host country, that delayed schedules might be allowed, and that the CDC schedule was the baseline. The inconsistency, Hillmer argues, revealed a deeper problem: “The policy stayed fixed, but the justification moved.”

The most contentious requirement involved a catch‑up schedule demanding Emma receive roughly 14 doses in eight weeks. While technically permissible under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, Hillmer notes that such compressed dosing lacks cumulative safety data. The IMB, he writes, treated the maximum allowable schedule as a mandatory one.

A Uniform Mandate, Regardless of Context

One of Hillmer’s central critiques is that the IMB applies a single global vaccine schedule to all missionaries, regardless of their country’s actual disease risk. This is an ironic approach considering IMB’s stated strategy of engaging unreached people groups of the world with the gospel based on country and location.

For example, a family serving in Western Europe faces the same requirements as one serving in a high‑risk region. In the Collinses’ case, their host country did not require the vaccines the IMB mandated.

Hillmer argues this uniformity reflects an institutional preference for administrative simplicity over contextualized decision‑making. It also means that families who decline the schedule—even temporarily—are barred from service, regardless of their qualifications or calling.

Confessional Rather than Medical Issue

Hillmer frames the dispute not primarily as a medical disagreement but as a confessional one. Citing Article XVII of the Baptist Faith and Message—“God alone is Lord of the conscience”—he argues that the IMB has elevated a prudential medical judgment into a binding condition of service.

Vaccination timing and selection, he notes, are not matters of biblical command. They are medical decisions on which faithful Christians may disagree. Yet the IMB’s policy leaves no room for parental discretion, even when guided by a licensed physician. As one line from the document states, “The Company respects individual and parental rights,” but Hillmer argues that the policy contradicts this claim in practice.

The IMB’s defense is that service is voluntary and at‑will. Hillmer writes that this misses the ecclesiological point: the IMB is not a private employer but an SBC entity funded by churches. When it sets non‑negotiable conditions for missionary service, it is effectively determining which consciences may participate in the SBC’s missionary task.

IMB’s Shifting Justifications

Hillmer situates the current controversy within a broader pattern. In 2021, the IMB mandated COVID‑19 vaccination for all personnel, only to reverse the policy nine months later. The reversal, he notes, was attributed to changing country entry requirements—not to missionary conscience concerns raised throughout the mandate.

Similarly, when the CDC reduced its childhood vaccine recommendations in 2026, the IMB declined to adjust its requirements, citing its classification of all missionaries as “high‑risk.” Hillmer argues that these examples show the IMB following whichever external authority supports its preferred outcome, which is apparently maximum vaccine compliance.

At the recent 2026 SBC Annual Meeting, IMB President Paul Chitwood said that an outside medical review had affirmed its policy, with one change: making the HPV vaccine optional. Hillmer contends that this review addressed only the medical rationale, not the conscience issue at the heart of missionary objections.

Autism as a Disqualifier

Hillmer highlights another IMB policy that heightens the stakes: autism spectrum disorder is listed as a disqualifying condition for missionary children. Because the IMB mandates a vaccine schedule while also disqualifying families whose children develop autism—regardless of cause—he argues that the institution requires families to assume all vocational risk while bearing none itself.

Trustee Action Needed

Hillmer urges IMB trustees to reform the policy. Missionaries like the Collinses and the Mitchells, another couple he profiles, are not asking the IMB to abandon vaccines. They are asking that parents, in consultation with their physicians, retain the right to determine the timing and selection of their children’s immunizations.

Thankfully, two messengers, Michael Schneider and John Jones, both from Missouri, submitted motions at the 2026 annual meeting asking the IMB to revisit its vaccine policy and provide conscience‑based accommodations for missionaries and their children. Both motions were referred to the IMB for consideration by its trustees.

Hillmer argues that now the messengers must decide whether the IMB’s response and future approach align with Baptist convictions.

For Hillmer, the stakes are clear: every missionary removed over this policy represents a lost gospel opportunity. “The IMB was built to send Southern Baptists to the nations,” he writes. “It should not be in the business of sending qualified missionaries home.”