WORLD CHRISTIANITY AND COVID-19: THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON SUFFERING
Editors: Chammah J. Kaunda, Atola Longkumer, Kenneth R. Ross Jooseup Keum, and Roderick Hewitt

The United Nations (U.N) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lamented, "We are facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations — one that is killing people, spreading human suffering and upending people's lives. But this is much more than a health crisis. It is a human crisis. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is attacking societies at their core." It was in March 2020 when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak as a global pandemic. COVID-19 first appeared in Wuhan in China in December 2019. The rates of infections have quickly accelerated in almost every corner of the world with over a million people already infected and nearly a hundred thousand people have lost their lives. This has prompted extraordinary forms of social and national distancing as one nation after another has gone into lockdown. Thewidespread travel restrictions and business closures are now threatening job securities and a global economic recession.

In just over 3 months, COVID-19 has altered the human social world. It is a contagious but also a social disease, a human social crisis. The COVID-19 has spread everywhere regardless of culture, class, religion, gender, sexuality, race or region. It is threatening relational rituals such as hugs, handshakes, kisses, and cultural ways of venerating the dead and bereavement consolations have been discarded to reduce the spread of the virus. COVID-19 is touching at the core of the problem of suffering, beyond epidemiological question, in various fields of spiritual, relational, cultural, funeral, families, economic, political, psychological, mental, and ethical which extend far beyond medical interests. There are stories of ups and downs of the struggle with faith and courage, hope and despair over all the world.

Many are re-asking the ancient question: ‘where is God in COVID-19?’ This question has been asked, perhaps, from antiquity. It touches at the core of the “problem of suffering,” and various “theodicies”. Traditionally, theologians and philosophers have largely engaged this problem in the form of theodicies, or justifications of God in the context of suffering. This is a question, however, which human beings have grappled with from time immemorial. The question now troubles the minds of millions of both believers and non-believers alike, who are dreading an ever-rising death toll, troubled by stories of an overwhelmed teams of physicians forced to triage patients, are restricted from visiting their sick in hospitals and cannot attend the funerals of their loved ones. Relationships have been quarantined. As one granddaughter lamented, “There are no funerals ... They buried him like that, without a funeral, without his loved ones, with just a blessing from the priest.”

Beyond the question of suffering, some populist preachers are proclaiming that coronavirus pandemic is a judgment from God for ubiquitous evil in the world. In a recent survey in the United States, it was discovered that more than four in 10 likely voters believe COVID-19 “is a wake-up call from God or a sign of coming judgment.”

This raises a pertinent question: what kind of God are we experiencing in the context of COVID-19 pandemic? Is it an impassable God who does not suffer? Or a passible God who is suffering with the world? Scholars have argued that God “suffers and we all need a God who suffers, because God’s willingness to suffer with and for creation enables us to make our own suffering meaningful. In identifying with Christ in his suffering, human suffering can be made meaningful and appropriated into one’s being; this meaning-making also provides the impetus to stand in solidarity with others who suffer and to work against the oppression of all people.” In his reflection, Chammah Kaunda maintains, “the widespread of coronavirus, its defiance of race, class, religion, region, gender, age and sexuality, more than any human struggle today, is teaching us to recognize our suffering faces in that of strangers and forcing us to make the most of taken for granted traces of our shared humanity with others. Indeed, the body of Christ is infected and dying with coronavirus. And we eagerly seeking for the mutual resurrection which includes all creation." As Marilyn Adams states, suffering is the “secure points of identification with the crucified God” who suffered on the cross so that, as Jurgen Moltmannconcludes, “no suffering can cut us off from this companionship of the God who suffers with us.”

The proposed volume will focus on current understandings and interpretations of suffering emerging in contexts of World Christianity. We are inviting reflections on the question of God and suffering and its praxis in the context of COVID-19. The reflections will be tailored to appeal to lay Christians, clergy, students, and scholars. We are inviting scholars, activists and clergy from various fields of inquiry such as systematic theology, pastoral theology, ecumenism, biblical, liturgical, preaching, missiology, diaconal, and interreligious dialogue. Contributors are encouraged to take a perspective such as gender, racism, sexuality, politics, family etc., on the question of COVID-19, God and suffering in contexts of World Christianity. This volume will also welcome papers interrogating some of the fundamentalist theologies that generally exist in contexts of World Christianity. For instance, many such churches see COVID-19 and other illness as a punishment from God.

We are then seeking to deepen our understandings of the meaning of suffering in the context of COVID-19 pandemic and the fresh ways it can contribute to rethinking human relations beyond race, class, geography, gender, creation (such climate change, animals etc), and sexuality and the like, what it means to be human in the context of suffering, the place of or justifications of God in suffering, human place in creation and the role of the church and other faith communities in re-articulating the theological meaning of suffering for today. In short, the volume will address the theological challenge of COVID-19 along the lines of, but not limited to:

Theology of life
Theology of creation
Human community
Gender and sexuality
Meaning of the Gospel
Health and healing
Economic justice
Prayer, Spiritual Warfare and intercession Liturgy and worship
Pastoral life
Ecclesiology
Funeral rituals
Leadership
Internationalism

The paper should be 5,000 words maximum—including reference and bibliography.

Interested contributors should send their tentative title and abstracts to Chammah J. Kaunda (pastorchammah@gmail.com) and Atola Longkumer (atolalongkumer3@gmail.com)

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Footnote style (Chicago)