God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath
Overview
Discover a different way of seeing and responding to the Coronavirus pandemic, an approach drawing on Scripture, Christian history, and the way of living, thinking, and praying revealed to us by Jesus.
What are we supposed to think about the Coronavirus crisis?
Some people think they know: “This is a sign of the End,” they say. “It’s all predicted in the book of Revelation.”
Others disagree but are equally clear: “This is a call to repent. God is judging the world and through this disease he’s telling us to change.”
Some join in the chorus of blame and condemnation: “It’s the fault of the Chinese, the government, the World Health Organization…”
N. T. Wright examines these reactions to the virus and finds them wanting. Instead, he shows that a careful reading of the Bible and Christian history offers simple though profound answers to our many questions, including:
- What should be the Christian response?
- How should we think about God?
- How do we live in the present?
- Why should we lament?
- What should we learn about ourselves?
- How do we recover?
Written by one of the world’s foremost New Testament scholars, God and the Pandemic will serve as your guide to read the events of today through the light of Jesus' death and resurrection.
- Guides readers in reading the events of today through the light of Jesus’ death and resurrection
- Offers simple though profound answers to our many questions
- Provides a careful reading of the Bible and Christian history
Top Highlights
“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?” (Page 32)
“The point is this. If you want to know what it means to talk about God being ‘in charge of’ the world, or being ‘in control’, or being ‘sovereign’, then Jesus himself instructs you to rethink the notion of ‘kingdom’, ‘control’ and ‘sovereignty’ themselves, around his death on the cross.” (Page 25)
“It means that, when the world is going through great convulsions, the followers of Jesus are called to be people of prayer at the place where the world is in pain.” (Page 42)
“That is our vocation: to be in prayer, perhaps wordless prayer, at the point where the world is in pain” (Page 45)
“The point is that God’s kingdom is being launched on earth as in heaven, and the way it will happen is by God working through people of this sort.” (Page 34)
- Title: God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath
- Author: N. T. Wright
- Publisher: Zondervan
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2020
- Pages: 76
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Coronavirus › Religious aspects
- ISBNs: 9780310120834, 9780310120827, 9780310120810, 9780310120803, 0310120837, 0310120829, 0310120810, 0310120802
- Resource ID: LLS:GODPANDEMIC
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:19:06Z
Nicholas Thomas “Tom” Wright (1948–) is a New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian, and Anglican bishop and currently Research Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Mary's College in the University of St Andrews and Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. Christianity Today named him one of today's top theologians.
Wright was born in Morpeth, Northumberland, and recounts an awareness of God's presence from a young age—and that relationship with God ever since is reflected in his life and work. He's a prolific author; one of his most popular books, Surprised by Hope, frames the resurrection of the dead as the appropriate hope for all believers rather than an overemphasis on just "going to heaven when you die." He's among the leading theologians in the New Perspective on Paul debate. Wright has several honorary doctoral degrees, and in 2014, the British Academy awarded him the Burkitt Medal "in recognition of special service to biblical studies." In 2015, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Wright served as chaplain at Cambridge from 1978 to 1981, then as assistant professor of New Testament language and literature at McGill University in Montreal. Before becoming a chaplain, tutor, lecturer, and fellow at Oxford in 1986, Wright served as dean of Lichfield Cathedral, canon theologian of Westminster Abbey, and the bishop of Durham from 2003–10. In addition to the entire New Testament for Everyone Series, some of N. T. Wright's books include The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians, Who Was Jesus, The New Testament and the People of God, God and the Pandemic, Evil and the Justice of God, Surprised by Hope, and Simply Christian. He coauthored Jesus the Final Days with Craig A. Evans.
Reviews
2 ratings
Deborah Crowe
8/1/2020
Glenn Crouch
7/6/2020
This is a good, short book that examines not only our current situation with the pandemic but also looks at the bigger questions such as “where do we see God in all this?” and “how as Christians should we respond”. Whilst I don’t always agree with Wright, I so enjoy reading him and he makes me think. I believe there is much of value in this little book for us today. I do think that through suffering we come to see Jesus clearer, and thus see God clearer - and this book makes a good case for this. I also appreciated the emphasis on lament, as we need to give more thought and time to this biblical practice.