Tag: coronavirus

Why Wearing a Mask is Important

A quick response to the “meltdown” of R.R. Reno on Twitter this week, and the overall meltdown of many on the conservative end of the political spectrum this week:

Wearing a mask in public is not cowardice. It is not socialist. It is not tyranny. It is not the destruction of your freedom or autonomy.

Wearing a mask in public is the responsible thing to do, not in order to save yourself, but in order to keep those around you safe. It’s about a disease that lays dormant for two weeks, and even after that can be asymptomatic, but which still spreads via liquid particles from the mouth and nose. You should wear a mask to keep those around you safe from getting a disease you may or may not be carrying. It’s about thinking about others and doing our part to help everyone around us stay safe and healthy. It’s about protecting vulnerable populations like the elderly, the immuno-compromised or the pregnant.

The real coward is the one who can see no further than the end of their own nose, and thus cannot conceive of doing the radical, dangerous work of loving others by caring for our neighbors. That is the work of Christ, not of cowards.

(Never mind that Jesus blesses the meek and the peacekeepers, not the brave or the strong. But that’s a Sermon on a Mount for another day.)

Wear your mask. Help keep those around you safe.

Social Distancing Isn’t About Fear

One thing I keep reading and hearing from critics and opponents of social distancing and lockdown orders is that those of us taking those things seriously are “living our lives in fear” or “being afraid” of the virus. According to this line of thinking, those of us following the guidance from governmental and scientific authorities to practice social distancing and obey lockdown orders are giving into a paralyzing fear of getting a disease that has a low mortality rate compared to other viruses. Christianity Today did a good job of documenting the spurring of any type of fear by conservative Protestants recently. In the piece, they captured well the attitude I am talking about:

In some evangelical Protestant traditions, fear can also be seen as a betrayal of faith. A group out of Bethel Church—including aspiring politician Sean Feucht, who led worship in the Trump White House last year—is releasing messages online in response to the spread of coronavirus, aiming to “silence voices of fear.” Bethel leader Bill Johnson told followers, “This whole maneuvering in fear is crazy. I’ve never seen the spirit of fear spread so quickly. Internationally, things were many, many, many, times worse.”

This attitude, that we must not “act in fear”, has spurred many of the irresponsible actions taken by those who dismiss the severity of the crisis we face. One need only look as far as the news yesterday, when Vice President Mike Pence visited people recovering from Covid-19 at the Mayo Clinic, and was the only person in the building to not follow the protocols of the hospital and wear a mask. The Vice President wanted us to see he isn’t afraid, he isn’t going to be intimidated by this virus, an attitude consistent with that of the rest of the Administration he is currently a part of.

But here’s the thing: wearing masks, washing our hands, self-quarantining, social distancing, taking part in lockdown orders: none of this is about fear. We aren’t being called on to do these things, to do our part in the face of coronavirus, because we are scared. No one is sitting huddled in their house, shivering fear, jumping at the slightest sound of other human beings.

We do these things because we know that to not do so could cause sickness and death, not necessarily for ourselves, but for our neighbors, for our families, for those around us. We do it because we don’t know the comprehensive medical history of everyone around us. You don’t know if that old man you walked a little too close to at the supermarket has a compromised immune system. You don’t know if that lady at the gas station recently battled cancer and still feels the effects of chemo sickness. And unless you’ve been tested, you don’t know if you are a carrier of coronavirus, and just not showing symptoms.

(Even if you have been tested, you don’t know either; as experts have pointed out, we don’t have an accurate test developed yet.)

Being cautious, taking responsibility for how much we go out, making sacrifices in order to stay safe: none of this is about “living in fear.” Instead, taking these things seriously is to practice that most Christ-like of things: love of neighbor. We do these things because we care about those around us, even those we don’t know or have never met. We are staying safe because we don’t want to put others at risk through our own carelessness and thoughtlessness.

That’s why these defiant reactions against social distancing guidelines are so infuriating. To see people blatantly, and sometimes purposely, disregarding the recommendations of experts and leaders is to see a particularly dangerous and odious form of selfishness at work. Watching people so obviously put their own passing desires and need to consume or buy or gain attention ahead of the safety of those around them is sickening, and to do so is profoundly immoral. It goes against every idea of being your brother or sister’s keeper, of loving your neighbor as yourself, or of treating others as you want to be treated. It is, in short, inhumane.

By flouting social distancing rule, you aren’t proving to us how brave you are. You aren’t being couragoues. You aren’t “sticking it to the man” or exercising your God-given rights or liberties. You aren’t being Christlike. Instead, you are being selfish. You are being childlike and petulant. You are hurting others. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but this is apparently what some people need to hear right now.

Stay home. Wash your hands. Take care of one another. We will get through this, not by asserting our rights or being defiant, but by sacrificing our own needs and giving our hospitals and health care workers and supply chains the time they need to catch up and have the capacity they need to meet the need. It’s the only way to beat this.

Being the Church in the Time of Coronavirus

Christians have no greater task in the world than to be the church. This is a rather innocuous sounding claim that is actually rather radical when the implications are thought through completely. For what it means is that the task of Christians in the face of world events is not to analyze the best political or social action strategy, and then pursue that with technocratic efficiency. Instead, it is to see what is happening in the world, and then ask themselves, “what should I do about this in light of the death and resurrection of Christ?”

This is as true now, in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, as it ever was. So, what does the work of the church look like right now? How can we Christians be the church during a pandemic? Over at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher draws our attention to how Christians of the past were the church during a time of pandemic. He quotes at length the historian Tom Holland, who writes:

First, at the end of the second century, and then again in the middle of the third, bowls of wrath were poured out on the Roman empire. Of the second pandemic, a historian would subsequently record that “there was almost no province of Rome, no city, no house, which was not attacked and emptied by this general pestilence”.

Did it mark, then, the breaking of the cities of the world foretold by St John? Many Christians believed so. Fatefully, however, it was not as worshippers of a God of wrath that they would come to be viewed by many of their fellow citizens, but as worshippers of a God of love: for it was observed by many in plague-ravaged cities how, “heedless of the danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ”. Obedient to the commands of their Saviour, who had told them that to care for the least of their brothers and sisters was to care for him, and confident in the promise of eternal life, large numbers of them were able to stand firm against dread of the plague, and tend to those afflicted by it.

The compassion they showed to the sick – and not just to the Christian sick – was widely noted, and would have enduring consequences. Emerging from the terrible years of plague, the Church found itself steeled in its sense of mission. For the first time in history, an institution existed that believed itself called to provide compassion and medical care to every level of society.

The revolutionary implications of this, in a world where it had always been taken for granted that doctors were yet another perk of the rich, could hardly be overstated. The sick, rather than disgusting and repelling Christians, provided them with something they saw as infinitely precious: an opportunity to demonstrate their love of Christ.

Jesus himself, asked by a centurion to heal his servant of a mortal illness, had marvelled that a Roman should place such confidence in him – and duly healed the officer’s servant. By the beginning of the fourth century, not even their bitterest enemies could deny Christians success when it came to tending the sick. In Armenia, the Zoroastrian priests who marked down the Krestayne as purveyors of witchcraft were at the same time paying them a compliment. When the Armenian king became the first ruler to proclaim his realm a Christian land in 301, his conversion followed the success of a Christian holy man in curing him of insanity – and specifically of the conviction that he was a wild boar.

Then, just over a decade later, an even greater ruler was brought to Christ. Constantine embraced Christianity, not out of any concern for the unfortunate, but out of the far more traditional desire for a divine patron who would bring him victory in battle; but this did not mean, once the successful establishment of his regime had served to legitimate Christianity, that Christians among the ranks of the Roman elite turned a blind eye to their responsibility towards the sick.

Quite the opposite: “Do not despise these people in their abjection; do not think they merit no respect.” So urged Gregory, an aristocrat from Cappadocia who in 372, 60 years after Constantine’s conversion, became the bishop of a small town named Nyssa. “Reflect on who they are, and you will understand their dignity; they have taken upon them the person of our Saviour. For he, the compassionate, has given them his own person.”

This is a wonderful example of what being the church looks like in the world. Christians in the first centuries were different from the world, in that they did the kind of work (like healing all during the plague) that made the world take notice and look on in wonder. And in doing so, they exemplified the moral character of Christ, exhibiting love, mercy, kindness, compassion, and joy.

Which is really the point. Christians, as the church, are different from the world not for the sake of being different, but for the sake of living into the character of Christ. Some Christians today take pride in “not being of the world” in a showy sense, in that it is in obvious in a very deliberate and manufactured way. But, what they fail to realize is that if they aren’t acting from love, from a concern for the needy and the poor, from a place of humility and regard for the Other, then they are just loud people doing weird, not very impactful things.

That is especially true right now, during this pandemic. As I wrote about yesterday, a very loud group of people, many of whom (based on their political persuasion) would almost certainly claim the title “Christian”, think they are being the “Church” just by being contrary, for the sake of contrarianism, not for the sake of Christ. But right now, being the church doesn’t look like defying science and public health guidelines. Right now, being the church looks like it always does: a community of faith, built on love for our neighbors, concern for the weak, a desire for righteousness, and practices of mercy and compassion.

Now, does that necessarily mean we all run out and throw ourselves on the frontlines of the outbreak, a la the second century Christians Holland describes? I don’t think so. We have medical professionals in today’s world, who don’t need us getting in the way of doing the work they have trained their whole lives to do. So what does it look like?

I don’t have the answers to that question. Perhaps it looks like, if you are young and healthy, going to the grocery store for your elderly neighbors, so they can stay in and stay safe. Perhaps it means sitting on the front lawn of the lonely old man down the street and chatting with him. I know it definitely looks like doing everything we can to keep people safe and healthy, even at the expense of our own comfort or routines. Its like the old church camp song says: “And they will know we are Christians by our love.”