What Is God Saying in This Pandemic? Podcast by John Stonestreet Roberto Rivera for Break Point
A recent poll conducted by the University of Chicago and the Associated Press concluded that “the coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives.” For Christians, who know from Scripture that God has revealed Himself as the ultimate and consistent communicator, the question isn’t if He’s speaking in the events of the last few months. He is. But what is He saying?
Over these past two months, I’ve concluded that none of the most important issues we face today as a culture were created by this virus. Rather, the virus exposed and accelerated issues that already mattered. For example, the utopian aspirations of Western culture, like the embarrassing video of celebrities singing John Lennon’s “Imagine,” have been tested, found wanting, and should be abandoned. Both our self-centered delusions of “living for today” and our technocratic fantasies of controlling nature have proved inadequate for the challenges of coronavirus.
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We’ve also seen that ours is a culture lost on the dignity of human life. With the threat of hospitals being overrun, how do we even approach the question of rationing treatment and care? When hospitals weren’t overrun in much of the country, one-size-fits-all visitation policies became dehumanizing barriers to healing, which harmed patients and family members unnecessarily. Part of the Church’s task, in bearing witness to the sanctity of each and every life, is to ensure that people are never sacrificed on the various altars of “efficiency.”
The confusing relationship between science and American culture was complicated long before COVID-19. For years now, the phrase “the science is settled,” has been used as a sort of secular equivalent for “Thus saith the Lord.” Yet, the ever-changing “findings” and “warnings” of the virus experts revealed, again, that a lot of science isn’t as “settled” as many would have us believed. Even dismissing cranks and conspiracy theorists, the overwhelming amount of contradictory information continues to fuel growing distrust in our national “experts.”
