Tag: COVID-19

An Evaluation of Religious Exemptions from COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many deaths and much suffering. It has also created a number of acute challenges for churches, one of which is how to think about religious exemptions to vaccine requirements. These requirements are sometimes imposed by...

/ December 6, 2021

Covid-19, One Year On, Pt II: The Limits of Politics

One year ago today, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US passed 85,000, surpassing China where the virus had begun, and giving us the unenviable distinction of being #1 in the world. Today, America still holds that...

/ March 26, 2021

COVID-19, One Year On, Pt. I: Threnody for a Buried Nation

One year ago tonight, I sat in the bar of the Hotel George in downtown Washington, DC, waiting for my friend to arrive. The TV in the corner was tuned to ESPN, but for once there was no game on....

/ March 11, 2021

That Others May Live: Fetal Cell Lines and Vaccine Production

The world breathed a collective sigh of relief at news that multiple vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 were found to be effective. No sooner had this news reached us before there was a moral greaseball gumming up...

/ January 29, 2021

Contemplating the Covid-19 Classroom: Pandemic as Our Sacred Present

The county in which I teach just released its tentative plan for reopening schools in August 2020. Scanning it, I saw my previous daily routine of leading children through learning, singing, and creating replaced with a new routine—one of taking...

/ July 15, 2020

Be Fearful as Christ was Fearful

Be not afraid. Thus does Holy Scripture instruct the people of God time and again. In every manner of situation, God or Christ or an angel of the Lord disarms the fright of mere mortals overawed by divine glory or...

/ June 30, 2020

Economics Turn Homeward

COVID-19 uncertainties provide a cultural moment for re-evaluating what really constitutes the good life. While the mandatory homecoming of sorts drags on, it sheds fresh and favorable light on home economies of simplicity and some measure of self-sufficiency. Stay-at-home orders...

/ May 28, 2020

The Cross Amidst a Plague: Choosing Cruciformity Over Self-Interest

In the weeks leading to Easter, Americans found themselves, religious or not, on an enforced fast from normal life. The liturgical feelings associated with Lent became the daily realities of uneasiness, mourning, fear. There are the real personal fears, the...

/ May 27, 2020

The Politics of Mask-Wearing

As many parts of our country move away from lock-downs and Americans begin to go about our business, the question of whether to mask or not has moved nearer to the center of our national consciousness. While it might seem...

/ May 20, 2020

The Populists and the Pandemic

Recently the world commemorated VE day, celebrating the vast global effort to defeat fascism, an inhuman ideology which sacrificed life on the altar of materialism. The Queen gave a speech to her quarantined subjects: declaring that ‘our streets are not...

/ May 20, 2020