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

by N.T. Wright

It was around this time that travelling prophets arrived in Antioch from Jerusalem. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and told the assembly what the Spirit had revealed to him. There would, he announced, be a great famine over the whole world. These things happened from time to time, as they had done nearly two millennia earlier, bringing Jacob and his family to Egypt. Luke comments that the famine actually took place in the reign of Claudius (i.e. AD 41–54). We know from other historical sources of more than one serious famine in that period. So what do the Antioch Jesus-followers say? They do not say either ‘This must be a sign that the Lord is coming back soon!’ or ‘This must mean that we have sinned and need to repent’ – or even ‘this will give us a great opportunity to tell the wider world that everyone has sinned and needs to repent’. Nor do they start a blame-game, looking around at the civic authorities in Syria, or the wider region, or even the Roman empire, to see whose ill-treatment of the eco-system, or whose tampering with food distribution networks, might have contributed to this dangerous situation. They ask three simple questions: Who is going to be at special risk when this happens? What can we do to help? And who shall we send?