How Does a Pandemic Shape Your Faith?

In his 2019 book, “Reappearing Church,” Mark Sayers offers a prophetic glimpse into what happens when a world-shaking event collides with the imagined stability of the “secularist script.” His words are incredibly prescient. And the questions he asks are the exact sort Christians–and the world–should be posing now. Such questions–about life and death, purpose and random chance, meaning and irrelevance–make room for the Covid-19 pandemic to point the world not to a universe of accidental terror or an evil or impersonal deity, but to a truth that is constant, a hope that is unshakable, and a gospel that really is good news.

The secularist life script, in which humans attempt to live without having to confront the great questions of life, creates insulation against faith. However, this insulation is not as secure as it may seem. For example, during the global financial crisis of 2008, the global banking system came terrifyingly close to a catastrophic worldwide great depression, which would have fundamentally changed the kind of lives we now live. If a major war broke out between great powers such as Russia, China, India, the US, and NATO forces—a threat that many experts agree is increasing—our world and our lives would be radically altered.

If we endured a global flu pandemic, like the one in the early part of the twentieth century that killed millions of people across the world, how we view and process our personal potentials and possibilities would be deeply shaken. Imagine if North Korea launched a devastating cyberattack that disabled most or large parts of the world’s internet for months or years. Think about how different your life would be. Consider how you would have to readjust your life and how you access community and relationships.

In Australia, after the attacks on 9/11, church attendance went up for a short period. This was in a country across the other side of the world from the attacks. Why? Because the Western secularist bubble of radical individualism and hyperconsumerism was pierced. Briefly, the mythology that it is possible to live a life without God or greater meaning for many people was rattled.

Your lifestyle, your freedom, your approach to faith and meaning are shaped by large-scale factors. Factors out of our control, which we assume to be stable and secure, but which in reality can change suddenly.

Mark Sayers, “Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture,” Ch. 2. (Bolding is mine.)