The Hartford Institute for Religion Research will be offering a free webinar series this month to help faith leaders better understand the challenges and possibilities for congregations and pastors to thrive.
I believe I’m seeing far more evil in the world than ever before in my lifetime. There’s a constant barrage of antisemitism, gun violence, racism and homophobia. And not only is there a lack of empathy, but there’s a gleeful viciousness about it from perpetrators. However, for this piece, I’m going to focus specifically on the evil I’m seeing in response to COVID.
The COVID quarantine meant no travel, no outings, no dinner out, no overnight company or even dinner guests. The world was reduced to our small home on the South Hill and to our wonderful front porch.
Hope? I’ve never had a very good relationship with hope. First, I haven’t much experienced what I heard others describe as hope; I’ve been better acquainted with despair.
As I compose this article, 2,290,488 deaths have been reported to the World Health Organization. And yet, compared to some events in history, we’re in relatively good shape, which I attribute to God’s grace toward mankind.