For all the confusion caused by President Biden’s recent declaration that “the pandemic is over,” and the familiar sight of administration officials rushing to qualify his comment, it raises a question: where does the Covid emergency actually stand? Having gone from draconian lockdowns to a summer of travel chaos in just over two years — […]
Just How “Over” Is Covid? Read More »
Recent mass shootings have reminded us of just how much gun violence has surged since Covid. The record of 45,222 Americans dying from gun-related injuries in the first year of the pandemic could well be topped in 2022, with more than 12,000 fatally shot since the end of April. Many rightly condemn progressive district attorneys in cities for failing
The Post-Covid Mental Health Crisis Read More »
I did not intend for this to read like a cautionary editorial. When the Spectator World asked me to do a piece on the BA.2 Omicron subvariant, I thought I would simply be updating readers on the progress of the latest Covid mutation. And while the BA.2 is fast spreading, it appears to be no more life
Government Lockdowns Backfired — Encouraged Defiance Read More »
No one need ask why the strict public health regime to manage Covid — masks, mandates, quarantines, and required inoculations — has begun to collapse. Between angry truckers, unfavorable polling for continued lockdowns, the perception of a Wuhan coverup, changing reports of vaccine effectiveness, and declining hospitalizations, even President Biden and blue state governors realize
Our Post-Covid World Has Some Unexpected Benefits Read More »
One unexpected compensation of the COVID-19 lockdown, the one which dwarfs all others, has been the opportunity to pay greater attention to the one place where religion has always told us we get closest to the spiritual reality beneath worldly appearances: our current situation. As it says in Jeremiah 23:23-24 – as it says,
COVID-19 as a Spiritual Catalyst Read More »
As Americans return to work under state variations of President Trump’s three-phase reopening plan, it will certainly be with a heightened sense of social responsibility. For many it will be enough to wear a mask and keep a healthy distance, but others will undoubtedly be seeking a more spiritual relationship with both their customers
Taking God Back to Work Read More »
Underneath the argument that only degreed professionals should have a say over how we respond to the current crisis is a false, if widely accepted, assumption about the knowledge these experts claim to possess. For once we get beyond the so-called “hard” sciences of physics and chemistry, much of what is accepted as experimentally
The Highest Authority in This Crisis Read More »
Augustus Hopkins Strong, president and professor of theology at the Rochester Theological Seminary from 1872 until 1912, liked to tell the story of a young minister who once complained that all his projects, no matter how well-intentioned, always left him feeling moody and dissatisfied. Irritated and discouraged, he feared his studies had come
Self-quarantine as a Spiritual Opportunity Read More »
As people around the world self-quarantine with no clear end in sight, there is a growing restiveness for which the predictable advice of catching up on long-deferred chores or finding something new on Netflix goes only so far. For those of us long accustomed to the convenience of cars, subways, planes, and trains,
Faith Can Tame COVID-19 Cabin Fever Read More »
One more helpful suggestion from America’s early college presidents for dealing with coronavirus fear is not to let our increasing frustrations boil over into anger. Waiting in long lines to buy self-quarantine supplies—trying to manage tighter budgets in the wake of job uncertainty—discovering friends or family members have foolishly ignored infection precautions—these and
Another Spiritual Release from COVID-19 Fear Read More »