Perspectives

The Christian ethic amidst the coronavirus

By David Pool
Posted 5/21/20

At a small group event this week, someone commented to my wife that they thought the coronavirus would draw people together. Instead, they said it has driven us apart.

One of the remarkable …

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Perspectives

The Christian ethic amidst the coronavirus

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At a small group event this week, someone commented to my wife that they thought the coronavirus would draw people together. Instead, they said it has driven us apart.

One of the remarkable positives of the horrible 9/11 tragedy was that, in a palpable way, it drew our nation together. People from different backgrounds and regions came alongside one another to help others and stand in unity against the evil that had struck. But today, in the midst of a new tragedy that has already claimed far more lives, our society is proving incapable of putting aside political divides and addressing this challenge with unity and mutual respect. Maybe it’s because our age has adopted the maxim, “Every problem, every issue has a political solution.”

But that was not the way of Jesus. He never looked to Rome for solutions to the big problems. Instead he brought a kingdom, a reign, that was altogether different from the spirit of the age. That reign, which relied on neither political power nor military might, changed the world, as history so clearly shows. 

God himself is at the center of this kingdom, and the primary ethic of God’s kingdom is love. What are the greatest commandments? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:38-39).

It is both surprising and concerning, then, that the COVID-19 response has surfaced deep divides among Christians. These divides have been intensified as churches consider how to “re-open.”

Some believe the response has been an overreaction and that life needs to get back to normal immediately. The economic concerns are real. 

But there are other Christians who also have valid reasons for facing this with a very sober mind. These are people among us who have health conditions or who may have even lost friends or relatives to the virus.

In the first century, the Corinthian church struggled with divisiveness and factions. One of the problems was that they demanded their rights over and against loving their brother or sister in Christ. The Apostle Paul counseled, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” (1 Corinthians 8:9) In fact, a main point of 1 Corinthians 8-11 is that brotherly love is of greater importance than one’s personal rights. 

My purpose isn’t to discount either perspective, or to say that political involvement isn’t needed. Rather, it is to remind us that the Christian community is called to demonstrate a marked difference from the response seen in our society at large. We must not mimic the world. And we must not hold our political views higher than our allegiance to Jesus Christ. 

The truth is that those who trust in Christ have the spirit of God living within them. And the spirit of God brings a new power, new values, and new ways to our lives. 

Galatians 5:22-23 says, “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control ...” Let us evaluate our hearts and words according to these markers. Doing so will help us know whether we are living by the spirit of the age or the spirit of God.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” (1 John 3:16)

 

(David Pool is the senior pastor of Grace Point in Powell.)

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