Gratitude
Amidst Daily Challenges of
Living with
the Coronavirus Pandemic
in the
Greater New York City Area – Part III
I smirk when I hear calls for return to
normality. The coronavirus forces us to create “a new normal.” We must take a sledgehammer and smash
outmoded paradigm for education, worship, business, banking, government, socializing
and entertainment among other societal activities. I am grateful that we have a
singular opportunity to rethink how we do everything. We can permanently fold
technology into the creases of our lives. School districts throughout the
country have transitioned to e-learning. Through Zoom and other software,
students attend classes as if they were in school buildings. How marvelous! We
will no longer have snow days in winter. Should the weather become dangerous,
school officials will designate e-learning days. Educators and administrators put
plans, protocols, and infrastructure in place to ensure the that school is
always in session regardless of the weather. In time, e-learning will shrink
pedagogical, cultural, linguistic, and geographical distances within countries
and the world. Educators will assess the performance of students in their
regions in comparison with counterparts who reside elsewhere. We can develop an
intellectual and instructional cross fertilization as middle and high school
students could take classes with schoolteachers throughout the nation. Could we
finally define national standards that recognize each state’s constitutional
prerogative to administer education within its borders but ensures a
fifty-state standard of minimum knowledge acquisition and methodological proficiency
in each subject. Whether core curricula, International Baccalaureate, or some
other framework, can we determine what knowledge each high school graduate in
the United States will possess? This question assumes college readiness which
translates into the ability to earn a bachelor’s degree within four years
without any remedial courses.
To no one’s chagrin, the ghastly ghost
of inequity raises its ugly head yet again. The immediate transition to
e-learning unveiled a deep digital divide in American households. Everyone does
not have a laptop computer or tablet capable of successful e-learning. The U S
Census Bureau posits fifteen percent of the population lives in poverty;
equating with 46.2 million citizens of which 16.4 million persons are children.
I grew up in a household that would not have a computer. We did not even have
fifty books in the house. I will not belabor this point with a vivid
autobiographical description. Suffice it to say, the continuation of American
competitiveness in education and other sectors of international commerce
depends greatly upon investing in the future workforce. There are market driven
and non-taxable options available. We should err on the precautionary side of
giving an individual the opportunity to achieve to the height of his or her
abilities and endowments within the marketplace of ideas, trade, and human
interaction. E-learning further affords the chance to bridge geopolitical
chasms as middle and high school classrooms can interact and study together
across the globe. Imagine a group of Ghanaians, Vietnamese, Hungarian,
Aborigine, Brazilian, Honduran, or Sicilian high school students taking an
American history class from a teacher in Burke, Virginia. Consider a group of
American students doing the reverse. E-learning could corrode old prejudices
and misinformation that students in grades Pre-K-12 uncritically accept from
their parents and grandparents. It removes artificial and geographical
boundaries thereby encouraging all peoples to accept that human survival
depends upon improvement in geopolitical relationships on local levels.
How do we “do church” and worship
within social distancing? As senior citizens still comprise large percentages
of many local congregations and they are amongst the most vulnerable citizens
relating to coronavirus, it is very unfair and unjust to ask them to attend
services. Their susceptibility to the disease and dying from it means they are
literally risking their lives to attend church services. We, however, cannot
underestimate the significance of religious services in their lives.
Consequently, we have a chance to redesign worship and the ways in which faith
communities serve adherents. As e-learning will eliminate snow days in school
systems, e-worship will allow Bible study and similar functions to occur
regardless of weather. Lay leadership meetings, choir rehearsals and auxiliary
meetings can occur electronically. In two pastoral charges where I served
between 2000 and 2016 with two years of full-time teaching separating them, I
fought an uphill battle to transition those congregations to use of technology.
Were local pastors to be entrepreneurial, they could collaborate on local,
statewide, and regional conferences which could benefit congregants and raise
funds for missions, scholarships and building funds. In addition to expanding
electronic giving mechanisms, local pastors will need to wean their
congregations away from primary dependence on collection plate income. How do
local pastors utilize technology to empower congregants in discipleship
development, spiritual growth, and personal development? How do they address
the digital divide effecting senior citizens in their congregations? How do
they partner with children and grandchildren of senior citizens to meet this
need? As I have few if any answers to these questions, I have profound
gratitude that the challenge of this virus provides us with the need to revamp
provision of religious services.
Moreover, the rising death toll from
the coronavirus hopefully will encourage us to reconsider what life is. I
suspect many people will reassess love, work, time, talent, mission, and
purpose. This tragedy will thrust some people directly into an existential and
intuitive wilderness. Anyone who has been deceiving himself or herself will no
longer be able to do so. Fundamentally unhappy people will face that fact. They
will respond with inner honesty and re-evaluate the remaining years of their
earthly journeys. They will no longer allow fear to be larger than life. As I
stated above, we hopefully will experience a renaissance in the local church.
It must become a place where average people go to find meaning in their lives.
There, they can discover their uniqueness as children of God and members of the
human family. They can acquire true riches of love, truth, justice, grace,
mercy, forgiveness, and peace. Twenty-first century pastors and religious
leaders, in addition to formal theological and biblical training, will dedicate
themselves to lifelong interdisciplinary study. They will be conversant with
the branches of psychology, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, behavioral and social
sciences, and public policy. Moving beyond moral suasion, prophets will demand
reversal of systemic, legal, and economic ills that subjugate society’s most vulnerable
citizens. Within the global village, spiritual and religious leaders will seek
an end to international alliances that perpetuate exploitation of poor and
disenfranchised persons in developing countries. Christians in the United
States are their brothers and sisters’ keepers thereby harnessing the American
appetite for conspicuous consumption and tremendous waste. With a genuine
revival reminiscent of the Great Awakening (1733-1770) and Second Great
Awakening (1800-1830), American Christianity can recalibrate and regain its
inherent biblical and spiritual values; thereby divorcing itself from specious
political ideology that contradicts its core principles. The late David Kuo,
author of Tempting Faith: The Inside Story of Political Seduction, served
as Special Assistant to former President George W. Bush and Deputy Director of
the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. An eyewitness
to the dangers of mixing a potent cauldron of politics and religion, Kuo, a
committed evangelical Christian, in a C-SPAN interview years before his
untimely death, pleaded with Christian leaders to declare a fast from politics.
This coronavirus allows us to heed Kuo’s prophetic warning and return to the
core beliefs of the biblically based New Testament Church. Otherwise, not only
will we witness continual decline and closings of churches, we will observe a
colossal shrinkage of Christianity worldwide. The power of the resurrection and
Eucharist enduringly yield rebirth of purpose and rejuvenation in daily living.
Misguided syncretism of political ideology and religion undermines these God
given gifts to humankind.
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