Review: The Covid Pandemic and the World’s Religions edited by George D. Chryssides and Dan Cohn-Sherbok

This book brings together 30 contributors, representing 14 religions, each writing about the pandemic and their faith. Each writer received the same questions as prompts: how their faith explained why the pandemic occurred, how it had changed their practice and what we had learned from it. Their answers are presented in full and without commentary, except for the foreword and a short summary chapter.

The number of contributors provides a breadth of representation, literally from A to Z, with African traditional to Zoroastrianism. We see more than one perspective both from the major world religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism) but also minority religions (Sikh, Judaism, Baha’i, Shinto, Jains). Within Christianity, Anglicanism, Conservative Protestantism, Unitarianism and universalism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Science are represented.

A particular highlight was the chapter from George Merchant Ballentyne, a member of the network, writing both from his perspective as a Baha’i but also his work engaging with faith communities in Leicester through his role in the City Council. I knew little about Baha’i faith and this chapter served as a thought-provoking introduction.

The editors excluded anyone espousing anti-vaccination conspiracies, not wanting to amplify harmful voices. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists are represented. Contrary to their reputation, 99% of the staff at the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been vaccinated and their organisation was quicker than the UK government to heed the experts to lockdown. Some Christian Scientists have been vaccinated, with an interesting reasoning. While they believe God will protect and heal from covid better than the vaccine, which they believe might be harmful, they also believe that God can heal from the harms of the vaccine, so they can go ahead and get it.

The downside to the breadth of the contributions is the sacrifice of depth. For example, almost all the contributors described adapting their activity to abide by restrictions in the number of attendees and adapting to use online video. While it’s interesting to see that such experiences were shared, and very familiar to us in the Network, it does lead to repetition when reading the entire book.

Less familiar to the network was the predicament faced by the Swazi religion. One of their national ceremonies usually climaxes with over 100,000 ‘maidens’ in colourful miniskirts doing a topless dance in front of the King and Queen. In 2020 and 2021 the ceremony was limited to only 200 maidens, still topless but wearing masks.

On a more serious note, reading this book did remind me of my own experience working in the Nightingale Hospital in London. I remember a discussing with the Catholic priest if blessings could be effective through a window, in order to save protective equipment as we still didn’t have enough for the doctors and nurses.

Contributors were asked why their God allowed the pandemic to occur, or in other words, their response to the problem of evil. I think many wriggled out of really grappling with the question, as the format didn’t include any challenge to their responses. In fairness, it isn’t the sort of question can be answered in a short format.  Of course, not all religions have this problem, if they don’t claim there is an omnipotent omnibenevolent God.

Dan Cohn-Sherbok summarises how contributors answered the problem of evil, highlighting that ‘in previous centuries it was common for religious thinkers to view plagues as caused by God … In this volume, however, no one has expressed such a view.’

I’m not so sure. Several of the responses talked about the pandemic as a ‘test from God’ or God ‘creating an opportunity’ for spiritual growth. Other responses suggested there was some justification outside our knowledge, ‘God’s ways are beyond human comprehension.’

I find these justifications abhorrent. They’re well-meant and often tactfully written but they reveal a failure to really grasp the severity of suffering in the world. Taking the harm from covid seriously of course means identifying human contributing factors. But it also means taking the very immediate and real pain felt by so many seriously. Answering it with such speculative answers as covid being a test or opportunity from a benevolent God, if you give some serious reflection to the very immediate and real pain felt so deeply by so many because of this virus.