Theological Reflections on COVID Anxiety

Yesterday, I spoke to 2 friends of mine who expressed their anxiety about the Coronavirus. I hesitate to write about things which has been a cause of sorrow and grief to many... death of loved ones to loss of livelihood for many, but this is also something that has had enormous cultural impact, which also affects our spiritual life. This blog is about developing a theological perspective on the culture as it relates to spirituality so I will write a few reflections.

Ernest Becker wrote a book called Denial of Death. In that book he says that the idea of death causes us much anxiety. In order to distract oneself from this fear of death, our modern society offers people hero projects, like say the American Dream. He calls this societal hero project a 'vital lie,' which helps people to forget the fact that they we will all die. 

The medieval world was the opposite. They thought the Remembrance of Death was a good thing, Memento Mori was the Latin phrase for it. In monasteries remembrance of death was considered a spiritual practice. Below is a 15th century painting of St. Jerome in which St. Jerome is holding a book in his hands and is pointing to a human skull. Remembrance of death may sound morbid and scary, but there is an upside to it. It us to focus on what we value most in life.

The historian Paul Johnson said, "nothing concentrates the mind like death." Death has a way of reminding us of the priorities of life. There was the shooting a while ago in Aurora, CO when the batman movie was released, when they were interviewing the survivor, one of the guys said he proposed to his girlfriend who was admitted to hospital. He said that the encounter with death helped him realize what was most important in his life. So he oriented himself to that. 

The problem with modernity is that we don't allow ourselves opportunities to be reminded about death. Back until the 19th century, in the West, when someone died, their body was displayed in the parlor for people to come and see and pay their last respects. But now in the west people tend to avoid our opportunities to encounter death. When we encounter death it is in news of people dying in some distant place, we observe in detached ways, as though it were a horror movie. So suddenly when something like corona virus puts death at our doorstep so to speak, it makes people anxious.

For the standpoint of Christian theology, death is not something we fear. Death merely is a departure into eternal life. If anything the corona virus threat reminds us Paul words in Phillipians that our citizenship is not of this world. Our citizenship is in the Kingdom of Christ, the new heavens and the new earth. So we do not have to let the anxiety over our limitedness to overwhelm us, rather we are hopeful that our eternal future is secure in Christ. Then we focus on what is most important to us in life, promoting the peace and love of Christ in this world in whichever way God has gifted us. 

The second aspect of the Corona virus phenomenon that comes to my mind, especially living in Houston now, is that most social engagements have been cancelled. Houston has a Rodeo event that draws about a 100,000 every day which has been cancelled. Coffee shops are sparsely populated. Most social events are cancelled. This means it gives people more time to rest at home, reminding me of the idea of Sabbath rest.

When God first instituted Sabbath, it was instituted as a time of rest. Not a time of going to Church. God also instituted Sabbath for Israel as something in which we learn to rest, Trusting that God is in control of things. We do not have to be people who compulsively work 7 days a week in order to get provisions to live. We have to diligently work 6 days, but on the 7th day we just rest doing nothing, trusting that our success not dependent on our work alone, ultimately God is in control. This rest gives us time to spend with people we truly love and care about. Due to this Corona virus scare, I had to cancel a monthly movie discussion group I do... initially I was anxious what people will think, will this cancellation result in loss of momentum of the regular meetups. But then I remembered that I needed to rest trusting that God will work it all for the good, whether or not momentum is lost. Instead of allowing these cancellation to make us anxious, let us take a Sabbath mindset and be in a place of trustful rest.

Thirdly, the corona virus phenomenon reminds me of history. Christianity started off as a small persecuted religion under the oppressive thumb of the Roman Empire, then in 3 centuries, became the most prominent religion of the Roman empire. That is because Christians always responded to moments of crisis with hope for futures and care for fellow human beings. In the Roman empire people feared plague - if plague would strike a village, without antibiotics, people would die. So people fled the villages, leaving behind the sick. The Christian Church would leave behind a few people to take care of the sick, which meant they would die. We have the sermon from the Bishops telling people to why it was important to leave people behind to take care of others - because people are made in God's image. Yes, those Christians who stayed behind died, but they had hope that their eternal future was in Christ and His kingdom. Christians today shouldn't withdraw form the world around us, instead we need to allow our hope for eternal life to be channeled into care for the other in this life. 

In Matt 6:28–34 where Jesus says do not worry, does not God clothe the flowers of the field, he does not merely stop there. He says “But” seek God’s kingdom and all things will be added to you — the way of not worrying is to seek God’s kingdom. Then we will be able to transcend out our preoccupation with self, into the bigger purposes of building God’s Kingdom of love and peace.

As we all have lots of down time with cancelled events, to deal with anxiety one of the ways to take time as a time of Sabbath rest trusting that God is in control of things. Use the disciple of remembrance of death to create clarity of intention about what you value. Speak and connect with people you love, people who you have not had a chance to talk to for a while, above all approach this crisis from a place of hope that our eternal citizenship is secure and care for the other.