What Will Christianity Look Like After the Great Pandemic?

26 percent say the 2020 crisis strengthened their faith

Nearly two-thirds of Americans of faith believe the coronavirus pandemic is “God telling humanity to change the way we are living,” a new study shows.

More telling? The University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs research found:

26 percent believe their sense of faith or spirituality is now stronger

Only 1 percent said their faith diminished after the pandemic, 73 percent said their faith and beliefs remained the same, and a full 26 percent now feel closer to God. How will they grow their faith?

Most of the people polled lost income or a job and14 percent had coronavirus or knew someone infected. Demand for online Christian services and events, meanwhile, has exploded: a record 90,000 watched a recent Mass from New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral and conferences have seen similar numbers.

“We’re going to open our churches again,’’ Trump said May 21 during a Michigan visit. “I think CDC is going to put something out very soon … They’re going to be issuing something today or tomorrow on churches.”

The challenges are real: 33 of 92 people at an Arkansas service were infected at recent services and a Houston Catholic church re-opened and closed after people were infected. But the Chicago/AP study shows faith growing.

The poll of more than 1,002 adults conducted April 30 to May 4 found 82 percent of Americans saying they believe in God (including 2 percent of Americans who said they came to believe in God after the outbreak).

Seventeen percent of Americans surveyed said they didn’t believe in God before or after the outbreak though just 6 percent called themselves atheists and 5 percent called themselves agnostic.

How the pandemic tested and stretched our belief systems

From March through May, churches closed from Rome to home. My home state of Michigan had the strictest lockdowns (house to house visits were banned). When we were allowed out, we had to wear masks, even when churches began re-opening May 17-18. The aftermath included:

• A Detroit emergency room treated a woman who was so scared she had COVID-19 that she shot herself in the chest. She didn’t have the virus. The U.S. suicide rate has jumped 35 percent since 1999, and in March, the first month of U.S. lockdowns, the Crisis Text Line saw its monthly text volume leap 26 percent over the previous month.
• Lansing, Michigan Kroger worker Kristine Holtham urged a customer to wear a mask, saying it would protect her health as well. The man responded, “I don’t give a damn about your health.’’ Retailers are on “the front lines’’ for enforcing mask rules, and a Flint security guard was shot and killed by a customer who didn’t like being told what to wear in public.
• A 68-year-old Michigan woman suffering from panic, fear, depression, and anxiety, asked a Catholic doctor for comfort. He asked, “Are you afraid of being hit by lightning?’’ She said she wasn’t. The odds of her dying from COVID-19 and being hit by lightning were the same, he explained.

How we react to the unknown tests — and sharpens — our faith

My bride woke me up early Sunday morning, calling me downstairs, pointing out the kitchen window, asking, “What is it?’’ I looked at the bottom of our hill and saw a bright turquoise thing bouncing around in the valley below.

I shrugged: “It’s either plastic or some kind of animal.’’

I turned around and went back upstairs.

“Don’t you care?’’ she asked.

I didn’t care because I knew the thing in the yard couldn’t hurt us. I went back to my own agenda, and during morning prayer, the answer came to me:

“It’s probably a mylar balloon,’’ I called out.

When the sun rose, we saw it was indeed a mylar balloon, and we laughed it off. As we ate breakfast, a deer encountered the same balloon. The deer had no clue what this strange object was and repeatedly circled it, fearful of what this strange object may or may not be. The deer was more startled when the wind made the balloon go up, up and away.

Watching the deer and the balloon taught me we could all be fearful about something strange and unfamiliar (like a massive terror attack in 2001 or the 2020 pandemic).

Once we know what to expect, the unknown becomes known, less frightening. We go to Church to learn more about the Way and the Truth and the Life, which minimizes our fear of the unknown while adding meaning to our lives.

When freedom and truth are disconnected

“If freedom and truth become separated — as they most certainly have in many people’s minds in our own time — we not only end up with an unhealthy and dangerous association of liberty with moral relativism, but we also open the door to those who claim that the truth is whatever the most powerful or the loudest say it is,’’ Samuel Gregg writes.

St. John Paul the Great, Gregg argues, coming of age when communism dominated Eastern Europe learned “liberty needed to be grounded in and guided by the truth knowable via reason and faith.’’ God is truth and love.

A September 2019 Cato Institute study asked who “finds the most meaning and purpose in life.’’ It asked Americans whether they “feel I have a purpose in my life; my life has meaning.” Cato found:

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans (who attend religious services at least weekly) strongly agreed their life had meaning and purpose.
• Among Americans who never attend religious services, just 36 percent felt their lives had a purpose or meaning
• Among religions, 55 percent of Protestants, 51 percent of Catholics, 39 percent of Americans in “no denomination’’ and 29 percent of atheists/agnostics strongly agreed their life had meaning and purpose.
• Similarly, 54 percent of people who did volunteer work said their lives had meaning and purpose versus 37 percent among non-volunteers.

Nick Hall, the founder of the PULSE Christian movement and a host of Fox Nation’s “Bible Quarantine’’ series, said more than 117,000 people from around the world were part of one of this year’s Holy Week services.

“We are living through a Great Quarantine Revival, and I think God is just getting started,” Hall said.

This story is published in Koinonia — stories by Christians to encourage, entertain, and empower you in your faith, food, fitness, family, and fun.

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