Lessons from COVID 19 – Part 2

To know where to go, we need to know where we are

By Dr. Doug Kayler and ChristianWeek | April 9, 2020

As followers of Christ, our worldview is shaped by scripture. Atheists, skeptics, and followers of other faiths have worldviews that differ from ours. As Christians, ours includes God’s common grace of giving all of mankind good things we don’t deserve. It also includes the providential work of God, whose grand plan includes working through circumstances, and even good works by non-Christians.

These themes will figure prominently in the story to be told in the coming days. In writing this series, as COVID 19 unfolds, we will consider the past, present and future to help us get our bearings.

Our series is offered as lessons, and I am both teacher and learner in this journey. I believe that in this COVID-19 crisis, all of us are learning new things and being exposed to new issues.

My medical career started in general practice, but I have been in the specialized field of orthopaedic (bone and joint) surgery since 1983. Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, wrote a millennia ago that “the life so short, the craft so long to learn.”

My interest in organization and design of healthcare systems really got going around the time of 9/11. But through my career, I had little involvement with public health, epidemiology, and viruses.

I believe we are seeing my personal experience on a systemic and global scale in COVID19. The health system, governments, and agents comprising the economy are unable to cope collectively. Even worse, there is competition and undermining through individual hoarding, and governments outbidding one another for scarce resources to fight the pandemic.

But the creation story was different.

Genesis outlines the work of God over the six days (or eras) of creation as an unfolding, majestic act of God over a period of time. A wonderful discussion of the magnificent degree of timing and balance in the process is presented in Hugh Ross’ book Creation and Time.

Biblically, creation was written as a series of steps, during which God paused to note the goodness of His progressive creation. As ages have passed and science and philosophy have grown, we have an increasing understanding that creation was also a continuous process of almost infinite, interdependent (neither independent nor dependent) relationships among and within created things.

This is also evident in the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

This theme will be revisited throughout our story. In our opening chapter, Adam and Eve were presented as the first collaborative team. We will also consider that in the Old Testament God’s chosen people became organized as a nation and he named them Israel, or “wrestles with God.”

That was a hint to us that the relationship would be eternally challenging!

We will also consider how Jesus’ New Covenant fulfilled the Old Testament law. And that through his body, the Church, he gave us a new model to organize our individual lives, society, healthcare and the economy.

The journey continues, stay tuned….