Abstract
We dedicate this issue to Dr. Edith Blumhofer, who died on March 5, 2020. Edith joined the OMSC Board of Trustees in 2009 and was elected president in 2014. She served faithfully as president until her death, offering OMSC a steady hand as the board was faced with momentous decisions, including most recently the decision to sell its New Haven campus and enter into a covenant agreement with Princeton Theological Seminary. For more on Edith’s life and career, see Noteworthy (page 310).
No one knew that all of the human inhabitants of the planet would be facing a pandemic just as spring arrived in the Global North and fall in the Global South. If there ever was a way to remind us that we are all in this together, the arrival of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) generated a universal sense of our shared vulnerability and interdependence.
Sheltering in place, we were bombarded by daily reports of the alarming number of new infections and deaths. As of today, March 27, there were about 650,000 cases and 30,000 lives lost! There were moments of helplessness, anxiety, and panic, when it felt as if that pitiless rough beast Yeats had conjured up in the aftermath of World War I was again being “loosed upon the world.” 1 There were also moments of grace and wonder, as on one sunny Saturday toward the end of March when we were working in our backyard in New Haven. One result of our communal self-seclusion was a noticeable and welcomed reduction in traffic noise. A gentle breeze was stirring. For a few brief seconds, I tuned into an unfamiliar wall of sound being carried on the wind and soon realized it was a chorus of wind chimes. The wind was conducting not only the familiar-sounding chimes attached to the eaves of our garage but also all of our neighbors’ chimes into a strangely harmonious symphony. The sounds of resonating metal tubes, all calibrated to differing keys, pitches, and modes, filled my ears, fired my endorphins, and calmed my entire body. For this brief moment I felt confident that we were all one, that we belonged to each other, and that we were going to make it together through these tough days.
Such moments of descent and ascent were punctuated by another drama playing out in our shared national life through daily TV briefings led by our president, vice president, and members of the White House task force on the coronavirus. Part public service announcement and part reelection campaign rally, these briefings were for me a harsh reminder of the deep and enduring divisions in our society. They were not easy to sit through, but I felt that watching was my civic duty. What struck me was the huge gulf between the public-service and political functions of these briefings.
On the one hand, when the speakers at the podium focused on sharing the latest medical reports and scientific evidence, they exhibited varying degrees of humility and empathy. On the other hand, whenever the president’s attention turned toward his reelection, he became defensive and combative, making groundless claims (sometimes even on medical matters!), exaggerating his accomplishments, praising his abilities, and attacking his political enemies and even certain reporters in the immediate audience. Led by the vice president, every comment made by the supporting cast of actors in the political drama included the requisite flattery of the president. Evoking King Lear’s division of his kingdom between two obsequious and one honest daughter, the briefings were tragedy with a touch of comic irony. We were witnessing a classic struggle between virtue and vice, with humility and empathy on one side and pride and hostility on the other, and a president whose ego needed constant stroking playing the lead role.
Carefully orchestrated by our first reality-TV president (Reagan was an old-fashioned movie star), the briefings targeted three distinct audiences: (1) a traumatized nation facing the grave pandemic, (2) the immediate audience of the White House press corps, and (3) the president’s “base.” The public service portion of the briefing targeted the whole country, but the attacks, boasts, and tributes were all aimed at the base, which by every estimate accounts for a minority of the nation’s population. I was struck by the absurdity of this deliberate splitting of target audiences. Imagine for a moment Red Sox and Yankees fans assembled together in the same room to hear a lecture delivered by a renowned expert on baseball history. All is going very well until halfway through the lecture, the speaker suddenly declares himself a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool Red Sox fan and launches into a merciless tirade on Yankees history, teams, and managers. One would have to conclude that either the lecturer was a complete egomaniac or he was deliberately inciting a riot.
Likewise, after witnessing these daily briefings, it certainly seems that the president, even in the face of the worst global crisis since World War II, is more concerned about how the pandemic and the resultant economic downturn might hurt his chances for reelection than he is about comforting a traumatized nation and rallying us to fight the novel coronavirus together.
In my capacity as editor of the IBMR, I avoid making political statements as much as possible. It is no secret that the president enjoys the overwhelming support of white evangelicals and, in general, white Protestants, 2 some of whom are surely among the readers of the IBMR. My forbearance, however, is not based on the fear of offending certain readers. Rather, it is time to speak up when a leader manipulates Christian symbols and sympathies for political ends. I am not alone in thinking that this kind of manipulation is exactly what happened on Tuesday, March 24, when, in blatant contradiction to his task force and every other medical expert tracking the coronavirus, the president stated strongly that he wanted to see the country back to work by Easter and that he thought we would see the churches filled on “that beautiful day.”
Of course, I am in no position to judge the president’s faith or his commitment to the church. However, while his statement about Easter may have sounded to some like an innocent aspiration, we should be well aware by now that this president is a reality-TV media whiz. His self-praise, defensive remarks, and ad hominem attacks are all calculated to assure that he, for better or for worse, remains the subject of the conversation. In little more than three years in office, he has succeeded in capturing the attention and energy of both his supporters and his detractors, completely dominating the cable news channels that echo each side’s views. In this context of profound political divisions, I strongly commend and support this journal’s long tradition of ecumenical and evangelical concern for the whole church, participating with a sense of common cause in the one mission of the God of love and life, who has come to us in Jesus Christ, clothed in his gospel and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Though we would love to gather with our local congregation again, if doing so places a single person at risk of being exposed to the coronavirus, I will follow the advice of Dr. Fauci and his medical team, not that of the president. As we contemplate church buildings that we have temporarily emptied out of love for our neighbors, may we find ourselves gazing again on an empty tomb and finding in the crucified and risen One that we are all one, that we do belong to each other, and that we are going to make it through these tough days together.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue of the IBMR–our 175th issue since January 1977. As always, we look forward to hearing from you, our valued readers.
—Lent, March 27, 2020