We in the modern West have split apart the doctrines of providence (God’s overall supervision of everything that happens) and atonement (God’s forgiveness of our sins through the death of Jesus). The New Testament refuses to do that. Jesus himself refused to do that. But this habit of mind has become so engrained that it is possible for theologians and popular Christian writers to talk about what we might or might not say about a major pandemic on one side of the room, as it were, and to assume on the other side of the room that this provides an occasion for us to say that Jesus died for our
...more
