How Christians Respond to Pandemics

How Christians Respond to Pandemics

My grandfather died a year and a half ago at 101 years old. He was a baby when the Spanish Flu was ravaging the world. When Covid broke out, I asked him about what it was like to have the dubious distinction of living through two global pandemics. “That was a terrible thing,” he said of the Spanish Flu. He was too young to remember, of course, but his twelve-year-old cousin died of it. I was struck by the fact that what to me seemed like a distant event in history books was, for him, an too real scourge that directly impacted his family.

It got me thinking of how the Christian family has responded to pandemics throughout history. I feel a bit of family pride when I read of how the early Christians responded to the plague that swept through the Roman world. Rather than fleeing the cities like their pagan counterparts, many stayed behind to care for the sick and dying, often losing their lives as well. I was also fascinated to read about new research into a historic Syriac Christian community who were some of the first victims of the Black Death that besieged medieval Europe. You can read about their faithful witness in the face of pestilence in this article: What the First Black Death Victims Wanted the World to Know.

And while we’re on the cheery topic of plagues, I want to encourage you to check out our resource on Ministry to the Dying. It will teach you about home and hospital visits, how to prepare your congregation for death before an illness or injury sets in, and how to minister to families and friends losing a loved one.