Where is God in Covid-19? Did He cause it? If not, why does He permit it? These are questions theologians and philosophers have wrestled with through the ages. Of course, the name of the disaster changes, but the questions remain the same.
Philosophers have given lots of different answers to the questions posed by evil, suffering, and disasters (manmade or natural). Some point out that God has created free beings who choose to do evil things. Others say that natural evils are necessary in a world in which humans can have morally significant free will, or perhaps that such evils are part of the necessary environment for humans to grow towards a God-centred life through developing certain character traits that they could not otherwise develop. Alternatively, maybe the world we live in is a necessary environment for God to fix our wills and make us fit for an eternity of union with God (which is an incommensurable good far exceeding the happiness of earthly comforts).
Others, being more cautious, argue that God’s intellect is exceedingly greater than ours, such that if He has a purpose in evil there’s no reason to suppose we would be aware of it, and that our knowledge of the goods and evils in the world and the interconnections between things and events is extremely limited. Moreover, they remind us that our grasp of the divine nature and purposes is naturally riddled with enormous deficiencies, given the existential gap between divine being and human nature. A few others have chosen to bite the bullet, acknowledging that many of the world’s evils are simply gratuitous, resulting from life in a fallen world. In the latter case all there is to do is lament.
There are many variations on such themes, but in a recent article for Premier Christianity RT Kendall, a popular and influential Christian teacher, pastor, & author, asked the question: is Covid-19 a punishment from God? Well, he more than just asked it. He stated his own position fairly clearly:
“It is my view that America is under judgement…I do believe America has received a double whammy in 2020: coronavirus and violence…Never in my lifetime have I seen anything like it.”
Kendall goes much further and stakes out why he thinks America is under judgment:
“America is under judgement for four things: racism, legalised abortions for any reason, approval of same-sex marriage and theological liberalism in pulpits. God is fed up. He has stepped in.”
These certainly are bold claims (though towards the end of the article he backtracks on them a bit and calls for caution, as we will see). So, what is Kendall’s evidence for them? Nothing. Not a single scrap of evidence is presented for any of it. Nothing for the idea that Covid-19 is part of some divine punishment on America, much less for the notion that this punishment is specifically for the things Kendall claims it is. The best he does is some hand gesturing in the direction of there being biblical examples where God punishes people – and even nations – for some sin or other.
Now, most Christians will certainly agree with Kendall on a number of points. For instance, God reigns supreme over the universe, and there is nothing that happens without His authoring or permitting it to happen. Covid-19 did not take God by surprise. Further, few will dispute Kendall’s assertion that “If we really believe in the God of the Bible, then we must concede he is a God who can bring judgement, and we must not dismiss this option out of hand.” True enough, and Kendall reminds us of several biblical examples of this very thing.
However, that’s just part of the story, and in fact towards the end of his article Kendall retreats somewhat from his earlier (careless?) claims: “it could be dangerous to claim Covid-19 is God’s judgement…Who is truly qualified to say this? Caution is required.” It certainly is, not least of all because there are numerous contrary examples in scripture that Kendall doesn’t mention. The entire book of Job is surely a foil to the whole enterprise of trying to pin suffering on unrighteousness of some sort. Or take the man born blind in John chapter 9. When asked by his disciples, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus responds “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…” Consider also Jesus’ rhetorical question in Luke chapter 13 “Or those 18 who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?”
The idea that Covid-19 is some kind of punishment on America is problematic on a number of fronts. Firstly, Covid-19 has affected most of the globe – not just the apparent centre of the universe that is the good old US of A. It seems odd that God would inflict Covid-19 on the entire world because some churches in the USA have liberals in their pulpits conducting gay weddings. Indeed, the spread of Covid-19 appears fairly random rather than the measured dishing out of perfect justice. If God wished to punish the things Kendall mentions, might it not be better to target abortion doctors, Klan members, homosexuals, and liberal ministers in particular? The idea of indiscriminate punishment doesn’t seem consistent with the character of a perfectly just God. In addition, it seems crucial to the notion of punishment and justice that those on the receiving end know why they are being punished. The lack of such an explanation is what makes us recoil in moral indignation when we hear of prisoners held without knowing what charges are being leveled against them. In some of the biblical examples Kendall alludes to, God communicates his rationale for punishment, either directly or through prophets. People aren’t left to guess or speculate. In the case of Covid-19, God hasn’t communicated anything – unless, perhaps, Kendall is claiming some sort of hotline to heaven?
I doubt he is. So, what is Kendall really doing? Sadly, I suspect he’s doing what far too many Christians throughout history have done in the face of disasters: blamed it on society’s failure to abide by whatever their pet theological/ethical hobby-horses happen to be at the time. So, famine in Africa becomes the result of witchcraft, AIDS is a judgment on homosexuality, hurricanes are due to gay marriage, and Covid-19 becomes the result of “racism, legalised abortions for any reason, approval of same-sex marriage and theological liberalism in pulpits.”
Ironically, Kendall cites Ludwig Feuerbach’s notion that God is just a psychological projection, that people create God in their own image, with that image typically of a kindly being who takes us all to heaven when we die. I wonder, though, if Kendall might be engaging in a smidgen of projection himself: God as sharing his own theological and ethical viewpoints and willing to pour the bowls of wrath onto those who dare think otherwise. Frankly, such manoeuvres are downright abusive. It’s little better than saying “agree with me and do as I want you to do or God – who agrees with me about all this – will cast burning coals on your head!”
To rephrase Kendall, it could be dangerous to claim he’s engaging in psychological projection. Who is truly qualified to say this? Caution is required. But it seems to me there’s at least as much reason to argue that as to accept Kendall’s crass Covid speculations.
Stephen J. Graham
stephenjgraham 