Worldview Wednesday

COVID-19 and Repentance

This is the third time I have written on the development and spread of COVID-19.

My first two contributions to understanding and responding to this novel coronavirus contained naive statements.

Since the writings of both posts, it has become public knowledge that:

1- “The primary mechanism for transmission is the respiratory route. It’s just breathing.” (Michael Olsterman — Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy)

2- People can have the virus for 4–5 days without displaying any symptoms, all the while unwittingly spreading it easily to others. This is what makes COVID-19 so dangerous. (Olsterman)

3-For this reason, social distancing is the most effective way to limit the spread of a virus that is multiplying within the population at an unprecedented rate.

Those who are elderly and immunocompromised are especially susceptible to this respiratory illness and could easily contract it from someone who doesn’t even know they are carrying the virus.

I regretfully acknowledge that my last two blogs included advice that was simply unhelpful and even dangerous. That is why I removed them both from my feed.

For this, only one posture is acceptable:

I was wrong. I did not have all the facts, and yet sought to teach. I violated perhaps the most important aspect of teaching…to teach, you first have to learn. I had not learned enough about this virus to adequately teach on it.

In the book of James, the following exhortation was offered to the dispersed church:

This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. (James 1:19–20 NASB)

I cannot help but be amazed at the fact that this was written to a church dispersed (even as many Christians in America find themselves in a similar position today) and that it addresses the proclivity to react too quickly.

I absolutely contributed to this phenomenon.

I can only hope and pray that my advice was not heeded. Lives could be at stake, otherwise. My wife and I have held our breaths, and watched the calendar days flip as we did the math on where we might have contracted the virus prior to distancing our family, and hoping we hadn’t inadvertently spread it. Fortunately, we have not.

Nevertheless, armed with too little information, we made assumptions that could have harmed people; or even killed them. For this, I recognize the need to repent.

If you haven’t begun to practice social distancing, I beg you to do so now. We have no idea how easy this virus is to contract, and how effective we are in spreading it.

It is the perfect time to practice love for one’s neighbor and begin the discipline of distancing as much as we can manage; especially if you have elderly or immunocompromised people in your life.

If you live in a county/town like mine where COVID-19 has not yet spread…

— [Update] my county in Florida actually confirmed its first case of COVID-19 yesterday, Tuesday March 17 —

GREAT. This is why social distancing is so important. If we will commit to this practice for these critical weeks ahead, we can do our part in not helping this virus to multiply in compounding fashion; over-filling our local hospitals in the process.

The Puritans had an interesting approach to the plagues of their time. They did not teach principles such as faith over fear, or peace over panic. They did not dismiss plagues as nonsense, and they also did not overreact to them. They lived in ignorance to the scientific realities of the plague. They could not possibly know what was actually befalling them. So, what did they do?

They taught repentance.

The Puritans approached the plagues as opportunities to humbly approach God and to offer forgiveness for their sins. For the Puritans, the issue was not how the people responded to the plague. For the Puritans, the issue was how the people responded to their sovereign God. Consider an excerpt from John Bunyan’s sermon The Barren Fig Tree. Consider the relevance of the language Bunyan uses:

I wonder if COVID-19 is not the perfect time for us to follow the Puritans lead, and exercise earnest repentance.

I, for one, am sorry for the steps I took to ignorantly spread the wrong advice.

This does not mean I am subscribing to an ideology of fear or panic… far from it. I don’t fear the future, not one bit. There is no reason to panic, for ‘who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life’? (Matthew 6:27)

I do believe I have a responsibility, however, to do my part not to spread this virus or false information along with it.

From here on out, my intent is to listen a lot more than speak as it pertains to the COVID-19 pandemic; and to repent for the sins Christ has died for on my behalf. I remain a sinner saved by grace. This grace allows me to willingly admit fault.

Now is the time to do so, and to do better moving forward.

To such work, I aspire toward.

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