Fatalism vs. Faith and COVID-19

A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help. Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.” The stranded fellow shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.” So the rowboat went on.

Then a motorboat came by. “The fellow in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.” To this the stranded man said, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the motorboat went on.

Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, “Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.” To this the stranded man again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the helicopter reluctantly flew away.

Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, “I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!”

To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”

* * * * *

I continue to see lots of memes posted that say something like, “I don't fear Covid, because God decides when it's my time to die.”

At its best reading, this kind of meme could be trying to say that in the midst of all kinds of things in life that have the potential to kill us, we Christians still go about our life without constantly worrying about it because a) we believe that God oversees history and at minimum permits life to unfold as it does, and b) the Christian hope of life everlasting doesn’t put all our life eggs in this present basket. As far as Christian theology goes, fair enough. I’m tracking. Death is really hard on those who remain, but not on those who move on into a heavenly eternity.

However, it often seems to means that someone is not willing to take any steps to avoid getting COVID (or to help other people not get it) because in some sense it just doesn't matter. If God controls the start and stop point of our lives, we have 0% control over either incident. Therefore, no action we take or choice we make will change anything. Que sera, sera.

Living In Fear Or Faith? COVID-19 Edition

Person A wears a mask all the time, social distances, and sanitizes because they do not want to get the coronavirus. 

Person B takes Vitamin D, some herbs, essential oils, and works on building their immune system naturally because they do not want to get the coronavirus. 

 

1. A is living in fear.

2. B is living in fear.

3. A and B are both living in fear.

4. Neither A nor B are living in fear.

 

If #1 or #2, what distinguishes the two?

If #4, what word would you use to describe them: “They are living in _______”

Living With Wisdom In A Time Of Fear

If you google “bible verses about fear,” you will find a lot. The Bible is full of admonitions to Christians not to give in to fear, but to be filled with the kind of peace and hope God gives. I think all Christians agree on this. This is pretty standard Biblical Principles 101.

But we’ve been tripping up over how to define unbiblical fear, and what it looks like, and what counts during this coronavirus storm. That’s what I want to address today. There can be a fine line between prudent wisdom that orders our life – which is good – and a stunting fear that controls our life – which is obviously not. There is also a fine line between graciously admonishing one another to live free of unbiblical fear and shaming one another for what we perceive as succumbing to it.

I get it – there is a HUGE range of opinion about which voices to listen to, what kind of protocols to observe (and which ones even work) and how to respond reasonably in a way that simultaneously balances the importance of personal health, constitutional freedom, and economic stability, let alone just how closely churches should follow state mandates or recommendations for services.   

Those are discussions for a different day. This is about our internal state, our attitudes, our mindset, no matter where we stand on these issues.

So, Christian friends, let’s chat. This is food for thought, and nothing more. I welcome thoughtful comments that further the discussion.

Church In The Time Of The Virus: Fearless, Not Fearful (Episode 2)

When churches suspended their weekly brick and mortar meetings, I decided to take some time to address online what it looks like for the church to be the church in times like this. Thus, The Church In The Time Of The Virus. I began posting this on my church's Facebook page several weeks ago; since then, I have had some thoughtful conversations sparked by some of the issues I addressed. Because of that - and because I like wrestling with important ideas - each post is going to follow this format:

• Video
• Transcript
• Reflections

The beautiful thing about the reflections part is that I can constantly update it, so the conversation can continue! You are welcome to offer helpful comments in the comment section and be a part of this conversation/archival record (as local and modest as it is).

(Read and Watch Episode 1: Introduction)
(Read and Watch Episode 3: Bold, But Not Foolhardy)
(Read and Watch Episode 4: Sacrificial Of Self, and Not Others)
(Read and Watch Episode 5: Faith-fullness Involves Trust)
(Watch and Read Episode 6: Faith-fullness Requires Humble Obedience)
(Read and Watch Episode 7: The Church's History During Plagues)
(Read and Watch Episode 8: Thinking With Both Hands)
(Read and Watch Episode 9: Spurgeon And The Plague Of London)
(Read and Watch Episode 10: Thinking With Both Hands)
(Read and Watch Episode 11: A Few Thoughts Have Been Brewing)
(Read and Watch Episode 12: Is COVID -19 A Judgment From God)
(Read and Watch Episode 13: Romans 12-14 - Coronavirus Version)
(Episode 14: Dear American Christian)
(Episode 15: Civil (Dis)Obedience)

Episode 2: Fearless, Not Fearful.

The Sky Is Not Falling: Truth, Peace, And Integrity In Times Of Distortion And Fear

A popular online news source recently posted an article that asked how long we will be allowed to remain Christians.  It was a serious question the author had received from a friend. I don't question his friend's sincerity, but I do wonder what has led him to believe there is a legitimate reason to fear that Christian faith will be outlawed. We will get to some particular cases that have been in the news, but first the big picture.

• Every president has claimed to be Christian (or at least to have a belief in God)
• Over 70% of Americans claim to be Christians
• There are churches everywhere - literally, everywhere
• Christian colleges, schools, and non-profits flourish
• The "prophets" of the NAR have the President's ear 
• The evangelical voting block flexed its political muscle this past election 
• We open sessions of Congress with prayer, and Presidents - even Obama! - issue Easter and Christmas proclamations that are blatantly Christian
• Presidents - even Obama! - issue proclamations for the National Day Of Prayer
•  Congress claims to be 91% Christian, which has been pretty steady for about 60 years 
• Check out Wikipedia's list of Christian charity groups 
• Google "Christian schools" or "Christian companies in the United States." There's a lot. (Did you know Forever 21 was a Christian business? And that Chick-Fil-A is delicious?)
• "A 2014 Pew Research Center survey asked Americans to rate groups on a 'feeling thermometer' from zero (as cold and negative as possible) to 100 (the warmest, most positive possible rating). U.S. adults gave atheists an average rating of 41, comparable to the rating they gave Muslims (40) and far colder than the average given to Jews (63), Catholics (62) and evangelical Christians (61)." (Worth noting: the configuration shifts dramatically across age groups.)

In spite of this, you would think the sky is falling on the church and on Christians in the United States depending what news sources you have been reading. It's not - I'll get to that in a moment - but what if it was?

A Monster Calls

I read Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls a year ago. I chose not to write about it because it was too personal, too magnificently beautiful to risk messing with the way it lingered. Now that the movie is out, I think I’m ready.

SPOILERS WILL ABOUND!!

As a young boy struggles to navigate the reality of his mother’s cancer and the increasingly futile treatments, a monster calls. This monster, an ancient tree that comes to life, insists the boy called him. Now that he is there, he will tell the boy three stories and the boy will tell him the fourth. These storytelling episodes are interspersed with real world challenges: he is being bullied at school; his estranged father is visiting again; his relationally distant grandmother is being forced to play an increasing role in his life; his mother is steadily succumbing to the cancer she is trying to hard to defeat.

The monster’s stories are meant to prepare the boy for what is inevitable. When I first read the book, the stories confused me, but as I watched the movie’s depiction some pieces fell into place. Here’s my theory for what it's worth. The stories are about some of the greatest fears in universal human experience: Life is unfair (the first story), hope and faith can be lost (the second story); and we will never matter (the third story). [1]

The Importance of Fear

Bruce Feiler, who is neither Christian nor a practicing Jew, decided to read the first five books of the Old Testament as he traveled to the stories' historical locations in the Middle East. Among other things, he kept revisiting the impact of the geography in his understanding of events in the Bible. He offers the following perspective on the Desert in Walking The Bible: 

"The first lesson of the desert: By feeling uneasy and unsure, by fearing that you're out of your depth and therefore might falter, by feeling small, and alone, you begin - slowly, reluctantly, maybe even for the first time in your life - to consider turning somewhere else.... You eventually grow wary of the flat and easy, the commonplace and self-reliant. You begin to crave the depth, the height, the extremes. You begin to crave the fear."

I have experienced the "deserts" of my life - hard times in marriage, fears that came with a childhood diagnosis in my youngest son, my father's death, my DVT's, my recent heart attack. I like Mr. Feiler's description of his experience of the desert. It resonates. Those are the places where I was small, alone, and forced to turn to God in the midst of situation where I faltered. I find his assessment to be true: "When your god is self-reliance, and you let yourself down, there is nowhere else to turn."

As odd as it sounds, there is something to be said for the fear that is found in these places. Perhaps 'crave' is too strong of a word, but it's when the stakes are high that life matters in ways it does not when the way is flat and easy. There's a refinement of character that cannot happen in the safety of the common place. Often we don't realize how much ground we have covered until we look back. 

And then we begin to miss the fear again - not because we want to be afraid, but because those situations reminded us of that life is meaningful and important. I don't fear falling off my couch or stubbing my toe. I do fear falling off the roof, cutting more toes off in a lawn mower or having another heart attack. Why? Because the former are trivial, but the latter can potentially be profound. Fear reminds us of the parts of life that matter, and that is important in a culture where we are so distracted by triviality that the profound depth of life is too easily ignored. 

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has been a commercial success ($73 million the opening weekend) as well as a critical success (91% critics approval at Rotten Tomatoes and 79% at Metacritic). I will leave it to others to highlight the acting, directing, special effects, and overall plot. I am going to focus on why this story resonates with us. 

Think of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as a modern allegory similar to District 9.  D9 used aliens and humans to tell a story about apartheid; Dawn uses apes and humans to tell a story about how fear and hate lead to war (think of the troubles in Northern Ireland, or how  the Arab/Israeli conflict is escalating again as I write this). The story is clearly fiction, but the situations are all too real.*

Everyone had a logical reason for his or her actions. Koba spent his life being tortured by humans. When Caesar tells him he wants to wait for the “human work” to finish (in this case, fixing the dam), Koba points at scars on his body and growls, “Human work.”  Humanity has certainly earned his wrath and distrust.

From the human perspective, the simian flu brought humanity to the edge of extinction. Their fear of the apes is justified as well. One man noted he couldn't look at an ape without getting physically ill. His hatred was illogical, of course. Humans created the virus that the apes spread. But fear and hatred blind people to the truth; the mind will justify what the heart desires.