As we move, hopefully, to the end of the first phase of our encounter with the coronavirus, it is worth reflecting on the issues it has raised for evangelism and apologetics.
Numerous good books and podcasts have been released offering a Christian response to any suggestion that the existence of Covid-19 undermines faith in a benevolent God. One top pick is John Lennox’s Where is God in a Coronavirus World? which shows the power of the Christian world view to make sense of suffering. Other thoughtful books include N. T. Wright’s God and the Pandemic, and Walter Brueggemann’s Virus as a Summons to Faith.
Nothing new
Some of this literature was quick to be released, and that partly reflects the fact that there is nothing new under the sun. Whether we are challenged by cancer, pneumonia, earthquake or asteroid we face the same underlying question: how can a good God allow such apparently random suffering? It is clearly a different issue than that raised by murder or war – people are clearly responsible for those. Many Christians would resort to something like the free will defence regarding those challenges. God has created us with responsibility for our actions – to create human beings is to permit the possibility of evil.
Eating bats
Virus, plague and cancer only loosely relate to human behaviour. Our misuse of resources plays a part. And unhealthy diets can clearly lead to suffering. No doubt Old Testament laws prohibited eating bats for a variety of reasons, but for many of us there is an instinctive sense that there are creatures we are ill-advised to eat. We still wait for clarity on the source of the present virus and the wet markets of China. However, these connections between human behaviour and suffering are loose and far from the complete picture.
C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain provided a helpful focus on the issue of pain rather than suffering in more general terms. After all, a plague that had no ill effect on human beings would be of as much concern as an earthquake in an unoccupied region of the world. Perhaps viruses in biology and earthquakes in geology serve some useful natural function. It is the pain and misery caused to us that usually raises questions for faith in a good and loving God. Lewis’ famous observation still rings true: ‘Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’
Plagues
The image of God’s megaphone sounds down through the ages. Among the Biblical writers there was a recognition that some plagues were the direct judgement of God (Lev. 26:25; Ezek. 6:11). Plagues are referred to at least 100 times in the Bible and normally in relation to God’s sovereign purposes. This is not only an Old Testament concern, but part of John’s apocalyptic vision in Revelation 6:8. Recent events have probably helped us to take note of these references in the Bible, but plagues and viruses have always been a part of fallen existence (estimates place pandemics as occurring about twice a century – there were three in the 19th century). Whether a judgement from God or part of existence in a fallen creation, the effect of a pandemic should remind us of God’s megaphone to a deaf world.
Speaking boldly
This is perhaps where Christian leadership and church witness needs to be heard most clearly. We are not to be confused or surprised that bad things happen. We should not be quick to claim we know why particular bad things happen. But we should be able to speak boldly and clearly about the things that matter most. Death has lost its sting. People matter more than possessions. Justice is more valuable to a nation than GDP. Life is temporary and we will all face judgement one day. From the book of Job to the sermons of Martin Luther we find the same confident faith in the midst of astonishing pain, suffering and uncertainty. In his sermon, ‘A Happy Christian’, C.H. Spurgeon pointed out that anyone can thank God when He gives him plenty, ‘but the Christian blesses Him when He smites him: he believes Him to be too wise to err and too good to be unkind; he trusts Him where he cannot trace Him, looks up to Him in the darkest hour, and believes that all is well.’ Confident faith and loving ministry are part of God’s megaphone to a deaf world.
