The Faith Community and the SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?
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The Faith Community and the SARS‑CoV‑2 Outbreak: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? Jeff Levin1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The current outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a critical moment in time for institutional religion in the USA and throughout the world. Individual clergy and congregations, across faith traditions, have been sources of misinformation and disinformation, promoting messages and actions that engender fear, animosity toward others, and unnecessary risk-taking. But there is a positive role for religion and faith-based institutions here, and many examples of leaders and organizations stepping up to contribute to the collective recovery. Personal faith and spirituality may be a source of host resistance and resilience. Religiously sponsored medical care institutions are vital to health care response efforts. Ministries and faith-based organizations are source of religious health assets that can help to meet community-wide needs. There is a pastoral role for clergy and laypeople who are instrumental in providing comfort and strength to the suffering and fearful in our midst. The outbreak presents an ethical challenge to all of us to step outside of our own preoccupations and to be present and of service for others. This includes having the courage to represent the highest values of our faith in speaking out against religiously motivated foolishness and hatred and in calling for political and public health leaders to be truthful and transparent in their messages to us. Keywords COVID-19 · SARS-CoV-2 · Religion · Faith-based As everyone is aware, we are in the midst of a global outbreak of an acute respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. While the general public may believe that it has an understanding of the parameters of the outbreak due to the constant stream of information circulating on the internet, in social media, on blogs, and in the mainstream news, most of this information is being misconveyed or is downright incorrect. Especially serious are the pronouncements and projections, most of * Jeff Levin [email protected] 1
Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, One Bear Place # 97236, Waco, TX 76798, USA
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Religion and Health
them alarming, originating with government officials and purported experts, including physicians, nearly none of whom have advanced training in epidemiology nor understand the nuances of infectious disease transmission. A lot of misinformation is being communicated regarding disease risk, the pathogenesis of infection, and the prognosis for diagnosed cases, and technical terms are being thrown around—exposure, case-fatality, herd immunity, transmission, incubation, and epidemic curves— without an accurate understanding of what these terms mean and what current data imply. This is doing much to frighten the general public, and has led reflexively to community-wide lockdowns and other “extreme measures of unknown effectiveness” (Ioannidis 2020
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