God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath

by N.T. Wright

Faced with the rapid spread of the coronavirus, many people in churches have reached for ‘Christian’ equivalents of the ancient knee-jerk reactions. The world is full of conspiracy theories anyway: some in America think it’s all China’s fault, some in China have said it’s all America’s fault, and no doubt there are a thousand other ideas running around, spreading themselves as easily as the virus itself and in some ways just as dangerously. The blame game is easy – especially when it’s always someone else’s fault. Those who have become accustomed to seeing all issues in terms of today’s low-grade but powerful ‘culture wars’ will simply go for easy answers that reflect that irrelevant standoff. The COVID-19 crisis has, in fact, done to the whole world what Hurricane Katrina did in 2005 for New Orleans: in its devastating impact, it shows that the political and social timbers have already been rotting away. And then there are specifically (would-be) ‘Christian’ conspiracy theories. Some people think they know exactly what’s gone wrong and what God is trying to say through it all. Some are saying, eagerly, that this is the sign of the End. The ‘End-Times’ industry has been massive in America over the last couple of generations. Spin-off versions are popular in most other countries, too. Former highlights include Hal Lindsey’s famous The Late Great Planet Earth, and the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. They construct a horror-movie scenario out of bits and p...