It was a typical morning for my tribe. When I returned from the gym, it was still early. But my boys are ready to take on the day with zeal. We went for a walk around our peaceful neighborhood. The young warriors carried their sticks as a precautionary measure against wild creatures. As we leisurely strolled, we began singing through the Lord’s Prayer. “Deliver us from evil…” we roared. It’s a piece we sing every Lord’s Day and often at the dinner table, but this morning it took on a special significance.
Which Evil?
In our day, the natural evil in our minds is the Covid-19 with its aggressive demeanor towards the elderly and sometimes its fatal blow towards unexpected recipients. It’s all over ESPN at the gym, and it’s the featured article in any major newspaper. Its ubiquitous nature is obnoxious but expected. We live in an interconnected state of the human era. We may debate the hype or the unorthodox enthusiasm of the media, but the reality is we do not know what next week will look like for any community.
But is that truly the only evil of our day we sang against this morning in our casual adventure? I believe there is something more subtle than what this pandemic brings. It may take different shapes, but its root is the oft obligatory “social distancing” experts are encouraging. That’s a significant threat in this Corona Virus age. In the 14th century, there was a plague outbreak in Florence, Italy. Renaissance author Giovanni Boccaccio noted:
Florentines “dropped dead in open streets, both by day and by night, whilst a great many others, though dying in their own houses, drew their neighbours’ attention to the fact more by the smell of their rotting corpses.”a
We can safely say it was a deeper plague than anything we are currently experiencing and probably will experience. But the results of such destructive forces led to another epidemic, the one of isolation. Boccaccio goes on to argue for the importance of preserving social forces and traditions even when the higher forces wish to de-activate our social practices, or we might say, those things which make us human.
Social Distancing vs. Scriptural Sociology
At this moment, people of all evangelical persuasions are likely downplaying the self-quarantine incentive viewing it as a necessary step towards the eradication of this virus and self-preservation. There is a clear sense that in times of societal upheaval, we must do whatever it takes. But this shouldn’t close our eyes to the consequences of isolating ourselves from one another and our communities.
Should this pandemic force us into these isolated environments, we need to be thoughtful about this new sociological phase of history. The Scriptures are unwavering about the necessity of community and social gatherings. Social distancing is the antithesis of the Scriptural imperative. Even if necessary, we should grieve over it. Some appear to praise social distancing as a noble gesture in an enlightened culture. Church cancellations, colleges moving to on-line venues, sports events, and concerts are now entering into unchartered territory with indefinite postponements. Again, all good and necessary, but have we counted the cost of such actions?
In the Sars outbreak of 2003, a study revealed that “around 30 percent of people who isolated in Toronto subsequently suffered from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.”b These are natural outcomes of human beings created in the image of a God who treasures his eternal divine community. But in our day, colleges, as noted above, are canceling classes in favor of on-line courses to avoid further contamination. Again, necessary or not, like viruses, these decisions carry harsh consequences.
A Faceless Age
Rod Dreher stated that when he picked up his son from college due to cancellation, a few professors were gloomy about the prospect of moving to an online venue. One professor noted that he “expects the university to take advantage of this prolonged crisis to move its pedagogical model from classroom instruction to online teaching, which students will have gotten used to.c Churches known for the greeting of peace and the celebration of the eucharist are now moving away from the cherished and intimate interaction to a cold and distant approach. This trend should trouble us. Perhaps it will become required soon, but I wish to add extreme caution to these approaches. The Christian society is one that thrived from its earliest days in the glories of fellowship during persecution, famine, sword, and pestilences, but too many are quickly jumping into the social distancing wagon which may lead them to social cemeteries. Make no mistake: the trend is already present and an outbreak as this one can be the place of no return for many.
P. Andrew Sandlin soberly notes:
Let us not forget, however, how swift recourse to the “virtual” church simply reinforces the profoundly autonomous and Gnostic impulse in modern christianity to dilute and undermine the gathered community, marginalize the Lord’s Table and abandon ecclesial incarnation for wordly excarnation.
We are abandoning willingly and prematurely the only social environment that saves us, our bodies/souls and the world; the social gathering for which Christ died. And we are doing it without stopping to analyze the social and, most importantly the theological impact this will have on us as a people and followers of Messiah Jesus. Remember that our culture has already entered an isolated virtual existence. We view hospitality as an unnecessary intrusion; we communicate face-to-face only when expedient; large family gatherings are becoming rarer these days; we overwork in isolation only to come home to our preferred model of isolation.
Rituals in an Age of Separation
Anyone who may see this warning as naive has already missed the point. The point is not to dismiss the seriousness of our time. Anyone who does not take proper precaution is, in fact, naive, but I am speaking of the greater evil which is to adjust or acclimate to a life of distance when this is all over. Our low ecclesiology in the evangelical world is not far from such normative practices.
If we do enter into such a stage, and it seems wise that some do so now due to older age and pre-existing conditions, Christians should continue to treasure the life of the body and to inhabit in such practices that enliven and enlighten the Christian corpus in times of crisis. We should actively express our sorrow over the staggering loss of Christian rituals in our day. A Christian community cannot exist without established habits. We do not have a spirit of fear but it seems many of us willingly embrace it with ample excuses for such measures.
God chose us for such a time as this and our attitudes must be shining examples against the tide of the day. We cannot willingly allow Corona or any other virus to assume the posture of lord over our biblical imperative. We need bold spirits that recognize the need for even greater social bonds in an age of separation and wills to act on what we know to be true.
The Church needs a shared commitment to stories, liturgy, and play in our day. We must unite as often as possible to communicate our vows of mutual love, to play games, read stories, and sing hymns. Nothing on earth, including viruses, will keep us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, but my fear is we have forgotten that Jesus loves us through his body. And I am afraid we are too eager to forsake the assembly for the supposed safety of our bodies. And so, deliver us from evil, O Lord, especially the evil that we can justify life apart from one another and be fine distant from the communion of saints.
- https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/03/coronavirus-survive-italy-wellbeing-stories-decameron (back)
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3320475/ (back)
- https://twitter.com/roddreher (back)
A good start on the issues arising. I am particularly amazed at the ‘virtue signing’ involved in people ‘self-isolating’ in my own community – when there has not been a single case. One unbelieving couple got in touch with me yesterday to let me know that an old person was in need – but since they were nobly self-isolating, the Church would have to help her! (i.e. we were the ones dumb enough and irresponsible enough to help another human being). Hoorah, I say! I seem to recall that a 2nd C plague in Alexandria was the cause of much self-sacrificing nursing by the Early Church – and the first recognition of the Church by the Roman state as a result -in other words the end to local persecution.