CORONAVIRUS AND CHRISTIANS: ~4~ Acknowledge fears

CORONAVIRUS AND CHRISTIANS
Look out, look around, and look up

When we think of the coronavirus and the world’s responses to it, one word that comes to mind is fear. In some ways, though, fear is hard to write about. Are we supposed to accept our fears? Ignore them? Suppress them? Condemn them? I’m going to give this subject a shot while trying to sound neither high-minded on the one hand nor unhinged on the other.

At a very basic level, fear is simply part of the human psyche. Early in life we develop certain fears that are actually important for health and survival. In 1960, researchers designed a “visual cliff” experiment in which infants as young as ten months refused to crawl above a place of perceived danger. Fears which help us stay safe are, up to a point, normal and even necessary.

Somewhere along the way, though, fear can become something else. Some develop irrational phobias like agoraphobia (fear of public places), dendrophobia (fear of trees), and venustraphobia (fear of beautiful women-- I promise I did not make that one up!). Such fears can be very debilitating even though they are not grounded in fact.

Further, all fears are heightened by a sense of the unknown. First-time fliers and million-mile travelers have very different reactions to airplanes. And I’m sure the novel (meaning “new”) coronavirus fits right into this category of unknown fears.

In the Bible view, fear always connects with the existence of sin-- not necessarily *your* sin at a given moment, but the reality of sin in the world. Fears first arose when sin interrupted the relationship between God and people (Genesis 3:10-11). That sin also brought death into the world, so we could say that all our fears, whether healthy or misplaced, are tied to the fear of death (compare Hebrews 2:14-15). Human beings want to survive, and therefore we have fears. (The Christian faith addresses this important point in depth, but I set that aside for now.)

For Christians and day-to-day fears, I love that the Bible addresses our condition with realistic complexity. For example, the apostle Paul said God has not given Christians a “spirit of fear” (2 Timothy 1:7). On the other hand, Paul once admitted that he felt surrounded by fears because of trouble (2 Corinthians 7:5). Was Paul being inconsistent? No. The spirit of fear-- that paralyzing anxiety which fills and darkens our souls-- never comes from God. Yet if we ever feel afraid, we have not committed a sin by admitting it.

For believers in God, the question is this: If we feel fear, what will we do next? A beautiful expression comes from Psalm 56:3, when David said to God, “When I am afraid--” what then? I will be ashamed? I will cover it up? I will pretend not to be? No. David said to God, “When I am afraid, I will trust in You.”

[Tune in tomorrow for more about God’s antidotes for fear.]