Covid-19 and Religion: The Devil’s in the Details

By Mildred Robertson

Churches and Synagogues across the nation have closed their doors, trying to keep out Covid-19. Well, most of them have. But there are some religious zealots who declare that the Lord will deliver them from this rampant disease and refuse to shut the doors to the temple. That sounds valiant…devout…holy, right?

The problem is, God apparently does not view this supposedly pious act the same way the zealots do. Many of the churches that refused to adhere to social distancing are experiencing rising cases of Covid-19 among their memberships; and many of those attendees have died.

Although I do not profess to be a bible scholar, religious teachings I have received throughout my life tell me that God does not do for us what we can do for ourselves. It is a sensible act to practice social distancing during a highly contagious epidemic. Where faith and religion come into it is that when we have done all that we can to protect ourselves, God steps in to do the rest. He protects us as we go to the grocery store, or the pharmacy or to deliver food to a shut-in neighbor. Those are the kinds of instances where he inserts his grace and mercy in our lives.

While I find it unfortunate and sometimes disquieting to have been cut off from my religious fellowship for the last several weeks, I have also seen an amazing spread of the Word in places that it has seldom been. My Facebook feed, once filled with hateful memes about political rivals is now filled with folks singing their favorite hymns and quoting their favorite scriptures.

As a child, when I found myself faced with adversity in life, my mother would tell me that everything would be alright, because what the Devil meant to defeat me, God meant for my good. Instead of attending one Sunday worship service, now I can listen to my pastor, and the pastor of the church where I grew up as a child. I can listen to the sermon preached by my cousin in Ohio or my nephew in Mississippi. While this epidemic has raced across the face of the world wreaking havoc, it has caused an equally sweeping transmission of the Word of God across the country.

 I recently spoke to a friend whose wife decided to teach her Sunday school class online. What had been a class of 20 has since become a class of hundreds. That kind of spread has been replicated all over the internet. It is as though someone has thrown a brick in the middle of flaming embers, only to disperse them out to inflame a wider area.

That is not to say that this is an ideal situation. Neither does it imply that this manner of worship should become our new normal. But it is important to remember that it is not good to tempt God. We know that he is all powerful and that he can deliver us from Covid-19. But we should not be so vain as to expect him to manipulate the laws of nature to prove our piety. Our actions during this pandemic may be judged by man, but also, I believe, by God. The devil truly is in the details of how and why we make the decisions we make during this trying time.

Donald Trump's Trouble with Covid-19

By Mildred Robertson

Donald Trump has a successful formula he uses to defeat his adversaries. He taunts. He misinforms. He intimidates. He gaslights. He fear-mongers and he name calls.  These tactics have worked against his republican and democrat opponents, the media and various individuals and ethnic groups. But Trump has a problem. You see, Covid-19 doesn't care about any of these tactics. 

He can call Covid-19 the "Chinese" virus. Covid-19 doesn't care. It soldiers on, increasing it's daily body count. He can lie about its spread, but Covid-19 continues it march across the continental USA, taking the lives of those it pleases.  He can blame the lack of preparedness for this epidemic on previous administrations, but Covid-19's accelerating spread continues to highlight the Trump administration's lack of strategy and leadership in the fight to stop its onslaught. He can have doctors, nurses and government officials fired who point out that vulnerable populations are being left without support in the fight against the disease, but Covid-19 continues to swallow up those vulnerable communities. 

As of this publication more than 300,000 have been infected and close to 8,000 have died. You see, Covid-19 just doesn't care. But more importantly, this disease has made it evident to Americans from coast to coast that neither does Donald Trump.

While experts warned him months ago of the deadly threat this disease held for our nation, he did nothing. When the disease finally made its way to our shores he promised that it would quickly go from 15 infected to zero in a matter of weeks. When the disease began to spread, he did nothing and called it a hoax created by democrats. He held daily press briefings to replace the now-impossible political rallies and gave the American people misinformation. Finally, when the daily death count soared, he declared himself a "War President" and his administration began to make meager attempts to combat the fast-paced disease. It has been too little too late. 

Even though he has capitulated to the experts, agreeing that Covid-19 represents a national threat, he has still failed to marshal national resources to combat the epidemic. He says, instead, that it is the responsibility of state government to safeguard its citizens. 

This epidemic has made it startlingly clear that there is a vacuum in leadership in the White House.  Covid-19 illustrates the folly of republicans who elected a buffoon as president in order to prop up big business, capture the Supreme Court and pack conservative judges in federal courts across the country. They could accept his ineptitude as long as they got what they wanted. But then Covid-19 came along. The problem with Covid-19 is, it doesn't care about politics. It doesn't care about Donald Trump's aspirations, and it doesn't care about the hundreds of thousands of lives it will snuff out. 

Donald Trump's trouble with Covid-19 is that it makes it clear that America needs a president who cares. Covid-19 shows us that Donald Trump is not the one.