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| Virus or bacteria cells under a microscope. Image source. |
There isn't a God we can trust to protect us. There isn't a God who takes action in response to prayer. There isn't a God who speaks to Their followers in "a still small voice" and gives "a sense of peace" when we need to make hard decisions.
And I keep feeling like this is so obvious now. Like, after COVID-19, how can anyone believe that "God answers prayer"? Surely everyone sees that, right?
Oh but then I remember what it was like to be an evangelical Christian. Yes, I used to have a personal relationship with God. I know how evangelicals are going to talk about this. I know there must be people out there talking about "God is in control" and sharing extremely self-centered anecdotes about how it's so wonderful and miraculous that God let other people suffer and die but not us. And "God is going to use this crisis to draw people to himself", how it will make people desperate and show them they need God, and wow isn't that a good outcome from this terrible situation.
I know there must be Christians writing those blog posts right now. I haven't looked for them. I don't have the time or emotional energy for it. But it's important to remind myself, no, it's not "obvious" to everyone that there isn't a personal God who talks to people.
(Actually this makes me think of back when I was a kid, and my family went on vacation, and my parents would say things like "Look at this spectacular view! This is amazing! How could anyone see how beautiful this view is and not believe in God?" Perhaps my statement that "this pandemic makes it obvious God doesn't answer prayer" comes across just as illogical as "the outdoors exists, so how can anyone be an atheist?")
I keep thinking about how viruses are invisible. You don't know who's infected, so you need to limit your contact with EVERYONE. You don't know if the thing you just touched was infected, so you need to wash your hands regardless. Wash your hands over and over, every day, even though the majority of the time, in reality you don't have coronavirus on your hands and you aren't at risk. But you need to wash your hands anyway because you have no way of knowing that. The virus is invisible.
And isn't that quite stressful? What if you just washed your hands, and then you weren't thinking and you touched a door handle with your hand, and then you're like "ah crap, should I go back and wash my hands again?" Like, if you want to be safe, you should, but wow that's such a hassle. And it's probably fine to not wash your hands... you just washed them a few minutes ago, and then you only touched 1 thing, so it's probably okay.
I'll throw in a disclaimer here: I am in China, and my experience with the pandemic is much different than that of my friends and family in the US. I did the whole "stay at home" thing for about 2-3 weeks in late January and early February, and since then I've been back at work, back at the office 5 days a week. China successfully flattened its curve, so people are able to leave their homes and do stuff. We are NOT back to normal though- it is still strongly recommended that people don't travel, everyone is wearing a mask, and the security guards are still checking everyone's temperatures when you enter a public place... though they've gotten lazy about it and aren't really bothering to use the thermometers correctly at this point. In the US, though, a lot of people have stayed at home for 1-2 months already, with no clear idea of when it will end. I am having a very different pandemic experience than you.
So when I talk about being worried about whether or not one needs to wash one's hands, well, I'm actually not worried myself. But I can imagine a lot of people in the US are.
And I think about myself, years ago, back when I had a personal relationship with God. The relationship was the most important thing in my life. It was the driving force behind everything I did. It was my identity.
I prayed so much. I talked to God CONSTANTLY, and I spent so much time sitting there quietly, trying to listen to Him. I asked Him for help and guidance and answers. Prayed so hard, and listened. And I believed He did tell me things. I believed He did give me answers.
Christians talked about "discernment" and I was fascinated. Apparently, "discernment" means that if you're a good enough Christian, if you have a really really close relationship with God, you'll just have a *sense* of when things are true or not true. Wow, I thought, that's amazing... is that for real? To just have a *sense* for truth. Wow, how useful! If you get really good at it, think of how useful that will be for scientific research. Just think up various hypotheses and you'll have a *feeling* of which ones are true, and then of course you track down the scientific proof and show the world- but the reason you knew that proof existed was because God told you. Discernment.
No, I never heard Christians talk about "discernment" that way though. I never understood why not. I guessed it was just because it was extremely rare for someone to actually be that good at it. No, instead when Christians talked about discernment, it was always about knowing the right choice to make among several good options, or about knowing some personal background information about someone. So, cold reading.
But why? Why didn't "discernment" mean you know scientific facts?
In particular, why aren't Christians in the United States using "discernment" to make up for the lack of COVID-19 testing? Surely in the US there exist some Christians who are close enough to God that they're that good at "discernment"... right?
Wouldn't it be the easiest thing in the world for God to tell Their devoted followers "get your food from this grocery store instead of that one" or "don't waste a pair of gloves on this, you don't need them because there's no virus here" or "don't go visit these specific people"?
If we really do have a "personal relationship with God", and this God gives answers to people who devote themselves to listening, then why isn't God telling us about invisible, life-threatening danger lurking in our mundane, everyday lives? God can see it no problem. And people can, apparently, have a "personal relationship with God"- constantly in conversation with Them. So what gives?
Why doesn't God warn people "you need to wash your hands now"?
And yes, I know that evangelicals can scrape together answers to this. Basically "this is God's plan." And God isn't a party trick or a tool you use or a vending machine, so that's why They don't spit out information reliably and on demand. Basically God has reasons and we just don't know what those reasons are, but surely they are good reasons because God is so perfect and loving.
That doesn't cut it for me.
How can you have a "personal relationship with God" if God KNOWS you just touched something with a deadly virus on it, and God DOESN'T SAY ONE WORD to you about it? What kind of "personal relationship" is that?
Yes, if I have information that is critically important to one of my friends, I will first evaluate whether they love me enough, and if they've had any selfish thoughts recently, and if their motivations for wanting this information are 100% completely selfless. And then I will give an extremely vague hint about it and hey, if they know me well enough, I'm sure they'll get my meaning. And if they miss the hint, oh well, I'm not going to try to communicate better. If they loved me enough, they would have gotten it. Really, it's their fault. Yes, that's how personal relationships work. That's how you treat people you love.
Okay, I'm sure there are Christians who prayed for God's guidance about cancelling events and travel plans. They pray for God's guidance about big things, and they believe God answers and tells them what to do. Sure. I don't believe that, but it's not as much of a glaring problem. For me, the issue is the small things, the many many times over the course of a week when you fail to keep 100% isolated from the outside world. And probably, it's okay, because you mostly limited your contact with potentially-infected people and things, so your risk is very low and you won't get the virus. Probably, you're fine. But wouldn't it be nice if God let you know whether you just made a mistake that could turn deadly? Why on earth would God not tell you?
Sure, maybe "God has a plan" and there is some grand reason for it. Sure. But if that's true, doesn't it call into question everything God has said or done during your entire "personal relationship"? How can you really believe God tells you where to live, what job to take, who to marry, if They don't even tell you something as simple and critically important as "go wash your hands right now"?
Take your answers and exceptions and caveats, all the reasons why a supposedly loving and personal God doesn't say one word to you about your exposure to a deadly virus, and incorporate them into your understanding of what a "personal relationship with God" even is. (That's what I did.) Yeah, usually Christians only trot out those caveats when they need to answer someone's doubts, and the rest of the time they very much DO NOT act like they actually believe the caveats. The rest of the time, they believe God tells them what job to take and what theme to pick for their church conferences, and finds them a parking space.
Hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe God totally is serving as a virus test for Their most super-super-devoted followers. As I said, I don't have a personal relationship with God anymore, and I'm in China so I don't know what y'all are doing over there in the US. Perhaps I'm wrong, and God does tell people "go wash your hands." But that's leads to more awkward questions about why God only tells certain people. I devoted my entire self to God back then, and I never ever got any answers from Him as clear and tangible as "this public surface is infected, go wash your hands." I wanted that kind of relationship with God. I wanted it so much. I wanted to know Him, and hear Him, to be so close to Him that we could just communicate easily like that. I believed that the more godly and devoted I was, the closer I would get to that kind of relationship. I never got there. So hey, hey maybe my "God doesn't tell people whether they need to wash their hands" is wrong. Maybe They do. Maybe there are some very very high level super Christians that do have that kind of personal relationship with God. But not little Perfect-Number-from-10-years-ago. She obsessed over God all day every day, but nope, that wasn't enough to reach that level of clear communication from God. Hard to imagine how devoted one would have to be, then. And why would God only give answers to that small minority of super-Christians? Why not Perfect-Number-from-10-years-ago? She did everything she possibly could, but wasn't godly enough, apparently. Yes, indeed, this raises awkward questions. (But hey, what do I know? I'm in China, where the "evil" "atheist" "communist" government has handled things well and kept us safe.)
Basically, COVID-19 is a huge, glaring example of the problem of evil. How can there be an all-good, all-powerful God if suffering exists? And specifically, I'm stuck on this one particular detail- that we can have a "personal relationship with God" and communicate with Them all the time, but They don't tell us the very small, simple things we need to do to avoid the virus. That makes no sense, and therefore there is no "personal relationship with God."
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By the way, I am a Christian. I don't have a personal relationship with God anymore, and I don't pray, but I am a Christian.
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Related:
I Didn't Like the Ocean in "Moana" Because it was Too Much Like God
Prayer Rates Don't Correlate With Actual Risk
My Racist Personal Relationship with God
My Identity was in Christ
They Prayed About It (a post about the #NashvilleStatement)
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And all my COVID-19 posts are here.
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