By Andy Hale

We have passed the two-month mark in the Coronavirus pandemic in America. In the United States alone, over 1.5 million have been infected with the virus, over 26 million people have lost their jobs, and nearly ninety-thousand people have died.

Sickness, job loss, death, depression, a crisis of identity, and despair—the coming months and years through this crisis will be some of the most challenging circumstances that many people have faced.

We are starting to come to terms with the impact COVID-19 has had on the world economically, socially, politically, and psychologically. But have we considered the theological implications?

With surmounting questions about human existence and God’s role in all of this, clergy and congregational leaders face the challenging task of coaching people to discover the answers.

“It is likely that every leader in a community of faith now faces an opportunity or a responsibility (or both) to comment on the current virus as it may be understood through the lens of critical faith. Or conversely, to comment on how critical faith may be more poignantly understood through the lens of the current virus,” said Walter Brueggemann on the CBF Podcast.

We sat down with Dr. Brueggemann, who wrote Virus As A Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty. The book invites readers to think and speak critically, theologically, and biblically about this current crisis so that the community of faith may maintain its missional identity with boldness and joy.

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This podcast episode is brought to you by Fuller Seminary, The Center for Congregational Health, and Baptist Seminary of Kentucky.

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Andy Hale created and hosts the podcast of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Hale is the senior pastor of University Baptist Church of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, following eight years as the founding pastor of Mosaic Church of Clayton and five years as CBF’s church start specialist. Follow on Twitter @haleandy