A Review of N.T. Wright’s God and the Pandemic

N.T. Wright, God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and its Aftermath (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020)

A Review by The Rev. Doran Stambaugh, SSC, ’05

N.T. Wright seems to publish books at roughly the same pace as I sneeze. I don’t sneeze a lot — maybe two or three times in the course of a year — but, you know . . . I wish they were books! 

His latest work, God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath dropped online June 2, and in print June 19. Gesundheit!

Our parish has begun a virtual study of God and the Pandemic and its accompanying free online Study Guide. One parishioner, born and raised in the Episcopal Church, shared that she has never once encountered many of the foundational theological ideas N.T. Wright teaches. This book is not just a Christian reflection on a global pandemic, it is apostolic catechesis nestled in the context of a global crisis. In these tense times, it has been a great blessing to sit as a community at the feet of this wise, warm, and faithful bishop.

In my view, N.T. Wright’s body of work tends to fall into two general categories: booster seat-sized tomes for true academics, (or those who wish they were, like me), and more easily digestible books, which are, to use the title of his own New Testament Commentary series For Everyone. What I love about the latter category (aside from the fact that they are shorter), is that they are infused with the knowledge of the former: brief works, written in relatable style, filled with the riches of a lifetime of scholarship and faithful pastoral ministry. God and the Pandemic is just such a work.

He states up front that the aim of the book “is not to offer ‘solutions’ to the questions raised by the pandemic,” but in fact to do just the opposite; to pull back the reins on our well-warn go-to theological conclusions and “resist the knee-jerk reactions that come readily to mind.” This includes going down the presumptive road of the “‘End-Times’ industry.” He invites us not to use the pandemic as “a megaphone with which to say, more, loudly, what [we] were wanting to say anyway,” or to further “vilify our pet hates.”

Clearing the deck of our favorite prejudices — theological or otherwise — he proceeds to sweep through the whole of salvation history in just three chapters, and makes the case for some core Christian principles to ground us in these difficult days.

One such principle is an appeal to lament. We are not surprised when good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. But when the formula is reversed — when the righteous suffer and the wicked thrive — these circumstances disrupt and bewilder our inner moral compass. In the Old Testament, the dilemma of righteous suffering comes to a frustratingly and unresolved peak in the book of Job, who in the end “clung on to the fact that God is just, even though his own misery seems to deny it.” What more can a person do in the face of unjust suffering, but “state the case” before God with a heartfelt cry of lament? When we lament we are in good company — the best company even — when we consider our Lord’s own tears and lamentations.

The importance of lament for the Christian is often overlooked in favor of some amorphous obligation to perpetual optimism. N.T. Wright does not just give us pause to consider the biblical concept of lament, he gives us permission to do it! Lamentation is not just a theme from past episodes of salvation history; it is an essential ingredient for anyone living in the tension of that which is and that which is to come.

Wright supplies another principle to remind us to keep Our Lord Jesus Christ at the very center of every thought, word, and deed. Not just in times of crisis, but in all times and at all places. He is not just the Word, he is the final Word. His death and resurrection are God’s final sign. The call to repentance, the forgiveness of sins, the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom, the new creation, the redemption of the world, the redefining of God’s providence, and power, and authority are all accomplished by, with, in, and through our crucified and risen King. To look for spiritual meaning or divine purpose in a broken world outside of or beyond Our Lord Jesus Christ is a fruitless enterprise.

To follow Jesus to the cross is to walk a path of both “tears and trust.” This is the way of the Word made flesh, he has blazed this trail, and empowers us to follow Him by His Holy Spirit dwelling in us. 

N.T. Wright hovers over Romans 8 to make plain the point that the Spirit does not just “help us in our weakness . . . with sighs too deep for words,” but also calls us to work with God for good, according to His purpose.  St. Paul offers us, “a Jesus shaped picture of suffering, redeeming providence, in which God’s people are themselves not simply spectators, not simply beneficiaries, but active participants.”

Christians “may not have words to speak," but we “still have work to do.”

There is a great temptation to underestimate the importance of the work we are called to as Christians. Our insecurities, our sin, the overwhelming scope of brokenness, all tempt us down the path of “What’s the use?” But the importance of the work cannot be overestimated! We are not called to do all of it, just our piece; to be faithful in our particular vocations.

N.T. Wright invites us not to work backward to try to discern the mind of God, but rather to ask the forward-looking question of the New Testament church, “What can we do?” In the final chapter, Wright gives some concrete examples of the kinds of things Christians can (and in some cases should) be doing amidst this pandemic. Not surprisingly, they are the same kinds of Acts of the Apostles — works of compassion and mercy — that Christians have been doing from the beginning. Animated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, they are acts that further incarnate God the Father’s love for the world through His only-begotten Son, the one who gave himself for the sake of others. 

The Rev. Doran Stambaugh, SSC, graduated from Wheaton College in 1996 and graduated cum laude with a Master of Divinity from Nashotah House Theological Seminary in 2005. He was ordained to the priesthood on The Feast of the Transfiguration that same year at St. Michael’s-by-the-Sea, Carlsbad, California, and began his curacy there in July 2005. Fr. Doran began his tenure as St. Michael’s Priest-in-Charge in June 2010 and was inducted as rector on The Feast of the Holy Cross, 2013. Fr. Doran currently serves on the Nashotah House Board of Visitors. He and his wife Therese have three children.