“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like.

“Is Your Church Ready for the Coronavirus?” – Like other pastors, I am working with my staff to make sure that our church is ready for what may come our way with COVID-19. In the midst of famous religious figures being quarantined as a result of travels outside the US, fringe religious sects being blamed for outbreaks of the virus in South Korea, and changes in methods of serving communion in Italy, it is important to come back to basics of being informed by the CDC and WHO about the actual situation with this epidemic. Beyond that, I found this article by Jamie Aten, Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute (HDI) at Wheaton College (IL), really helpful in providing a few simple things churches can do now to help prepare for any potential public health crisis.

“The Coronavirus Is No 1918 Pandemic” – On the other hand, here is Jeremy Brown, Director of the Office of Emergency Care Research, National Institutes of Health: “We have just commemorated the centenary of the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918, which lasted only a few months but claimed 50 million to 100 million lives worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States. That pandemic remains a benchmark, and many commentators have rushed to compare it to the current coronavirus outbreak. What’s most striking about these comparisons, though, is not the similarities between the two episodes, but the distance that medicine has traveled in the intervening century. Whatever happens next, it won’t be a second 1918.”

“What Martin Luther Teaches Us About Coronavirus” – In light of all of this, it’s always helpful to remember who we are as the church, sometimes by getting in touch with those from an earlier time who faced major public health challenges. “In 1527, less than 200 years after the Black Death killed about half the population of Europe, the plague re-emerged in Luther’s own town of Wittenberg and neighboring cities. In his letter ‘Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague,’ the famous reformer weighs the responsibilities of ordinary citizens during contagion. His advice serves as a practical guide for Christians confronting infectious disease outbreaks today.”

“Stepping Toward the Future” – Vince Bacote, who will be joining us at Eastbrook Church on April 27 as part of our “Faith and Politics” series, concludes a series of posts related to his lectures at the Theopolis Institute on the Church and Race.  “God’s work within the church is not the neat trajectory of transformation that we prefer, but the Spirit is at work leading God’s people to:

1. be those who look at the truth about ourselves and the world,
2. be those who patiently engage each other and pursue mutual understanding,
3. be those who work with imperfect concepts while learning how to pursue mission together across ethnic differences,
4. be those who are relentless in confessing and conveying our hope that God’s kingdom and heavenly city is on the way.”

“Patience: Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life“ – Like most of us, I enjoy watching a good movie. But there is a significant distance between the sort of basic ‘good movie’ and a good, or even great, film. One of the great filmmakers of our era is Terrence Malick, whose limited work has several times reached greatness. Some of his more recent films, particularly since The Tree of Life, have involved religious and even Christian themes. In The Point, Alan Jacobs offers insights into his early viewing of and meaningful response to Malick’s most recent film, A Hidden Life.

“Bikers Get A Bad Rep, So They Started A Church Where They Feel Welcome” – Here’s a sentence I never thought I would write. Now, let’s look at an article from NPR about a biker church that has sprung up in Bangor, Maine, to help reach those in that subgroup who are struggling to find community in Christ. “Our mission-vision behind that, originally, was to have 10,000 bikers in the Bible every week. And God said, ‘Well, that’s great. We can do that.’ But we’ve far exceeded any of those numbers. I can’t even tell you what they are today. But we are in New Zealand now. We’re in Africa. We’re in Canada. We’re all over.”

Music: U2, “Yahweh/40,” from Vertigo Tour Live in Chicago

[I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within the articles linked from this page, but I have read them myself in order to make me think more deeply.]