God and the Pandemic - NT Wright and Francis Collins

welcome everyone we're so glad to have you with us for this BioLogos event a Christian response to the corona virus with dr. Francis Collins and Reverend NT Wright I can't think of two better leaders to guide us in this discussion what should our Christian response be to the pandemic well as Christians we need to understand what scientists have actually learned about this disease and how it spreads yet we know science alone isn't enough we need biblical faith to make good choices in response to it to that science and good public policy and we need biblical faith to give us hope and courage in the face of suffering and to fill us with compassion for the most vulnerable more than ever we need both rigorous science and biblical faith and that's what we bring together at BioLogos I encourage you to check out our website BioLogos org you'll find videos articles the discussion board resources for all ages on a host of topics you'll find the online events we've already done since March featuring believing scientists leading pastors and theologians discussing the issues of the day we had a conversation between Reverend Tim Keller and Francis Collins on the pandemic and a discussion led by bishop claude alexander on black lives and science and faith you'll find our podcast the language of god which now has dozens of awesome episodes you really should subscribe so today we're here for a live recording of the podcast featuring two leaders who have been instrumental in BioLogos from the beginning Francis Collins and NT Wright they'll be sure to watch to the end because after the conversation you'll get to hear them play their guitars and sing a song together and now I'll turn it over to our podcast host dr. Jim stuff [Music] [Music] welcome to language of God I'm your host Jim stump we are still talking coronavirus some people had predicted this would all be a distant memory by now I think it's safe to say that none of them were actual scientists working with the data and understanding the gravity of the situation there are exceptions of course but scientists are generally pretty cautious and not given to sensationalism all the more reason to take their advice seriously and we've been thrilled to be able to go straight to the top of the biomedical research community and talk several times already with Francis Collins the director of the National Institutes of Health before he had that job he did a little thing which surely ranks among the greatest scientific achievements in the history of our species he led the Human Genome Project which unraveled and mapped out our DNA in between these posts he wrote the best-selling book the language of God after which this podcast is named and he founded BioLogos and most recently he's been named this year's Templeton Prize winner succeeding people like Mother Teresa Desmond Tutu and Billy Graham in conversation with him today is another longtime friend of BioLogos biblical scholar Tom Wright the section of nt write books on my bookshelf is among the longest by any single author he writes careful and penetrating scholarly work for instance I've written on the bio locust website about slogging through his 800 page tome for Lent a few years ago the resurrection of the Son of God but he also engages a more general readership and has deeply influenced and corrected the way many of us understand the Gospel story through books like simply Christian and surprised by hope and there are at least 80 other books he's authored so it's no surprise that he was among to have a book published reflecting theologically on the coronavirus called God and the pandemic we've been happy to partner with Zondervan publishers who has made available some great discounts on tom's books including God in the pandemic which also includes a free study guide you'll want to get out your cell phone take advantage simply text the word learn to eight four four nine four seven six one nine eight in addition they're giving away a free month subscription to master lectures featuring thousands of lectures on the Bible in theology from the world's leading Christian scholars including NT right again text the word learned eight four four nine four seven six one nine eight or just send an email to learn at Zondervan dot-com this is a limited time offer one more time text the word learned to eight four four nine four seven six one nine eight we'll put up that slide again at the end of the episode while you have your phones out you might also find your podcast app and subscribe to language of God this episode will be edited and dropped there on Thursday which is when you can usually find new episodes Tom Wright and Francis Collins are both extraordinarily busy right now with the increased demand for their expertise during this pandemic but when we asked if they might squeeze in one more appearance to talk about the science and faith of Cogan 19 with each other they both readily agreed and you can join the conversation too putting questions in the comments section wherever you're watching this we have people monitoring those and we'll try to work in as many as we can now finally let's get to the conversation Tom Francis welcome and thanks so much for sharing your time with us I hope you're each holding up okay going okay hello Jim hello Tom yes hello and good to be with you one more time well you two have known each other for a while Tom can you tell us the story of how you first became acquainted well I was in a previous job where I was extremely busy dashing in and out and one day my secretary said to me I've got somebody called Frances Collins on the phone for you and I thought well it can't be the Francis Collins so do I know a Francis Collins and and she said well it's a call from America so I thought goodness maybe it is the Francis Collins and it was and I was astonished and delighted to discover the V Francis Collins had read some of my books actually found them helpful and wanted me to come on board with this BioLogos project that was just getting underway I was oh there we are I was I was flattered and I'm flattered still because I say right from the top I am NOT a scientist I did one year of physics and chemistry at school and dropped them as soon as I could because I wanted to do the classics as you can see from my book show behind me but I've been brought on board and it's been fascinating it's been a real journey for me and I'm very grateful to Francis for graciously bringing me in on the side as it were of what he was doing what did you talk about on that call Francis well this was at the point where the language of God had been published and there was a great outpouring of responses coming in to my email inbox that I couldn't possibly figure out how to handle I'm an amateur theologian at best I'm a pretty good scientist but a lot of these questions were coming at me in ways that I needed help to try to figure out how best to respond in a way that would be faithful and to Scripture and credible as far as science and also didn't come down too harshly and a particular answer if we aren't really quite sure in some instances what the answer should be so I needed distinguished experts of all sorts and what better expert in New Testament theology than NT right I couldn't imagine and I was amazed he talks a call not only talk but then subsequently agreed to come and take part in these early meetings we had as part of BioLogos in New York and I learned so much every time I had a conversation with him or he took the podium to speak about something at this interface of science and faith and then I discovered we had some other areas of shared interest like folk songs from the 60s where we were able to find an assured repertory that maybe aboard everybody else but we had a wonderful time recreating a Bob Dylan you can imagine and I'm playing guitars together and figuring out how to make that sort of human connection as well so yeah we kind of bonded and I met Maggie is a wonderful wife and it's been a wonderful friendship ever since bless you thank you so what stands out to each of you from some of those early BioLogos meetings that were gatherings of scientists and theologians many of whom were a little nervous to be there even it's it's fascinating to me looking from the other side of the Atlantic but we don't in Britain have quite the same standoff between science and faith that has been part of the American I was going to say the American DNA I better be careful how I say that in transistors present in the American Way of life just so many people assume science and faith are totally irreconcilable of course there are some people in Britain who still try and push that line I mean Richard Dawkins and his ilk but actually most people I think in informed public life see that as a kind of a rant and realize that there are many many great scientists who are also believers and many believers who were also great scientists and they don't seem to be fooling themselves there seems to be something which they can hold onto together and so for me looking both across the Atlantic and across the divide between theology and science I see just all kinds of things I mean I always have loved the natural world and all that therein is and imperfectly as Francis says music and so on and so I don't just stay in a theological bubble I want to relate that to everything else and to to find how that works with contemporary science has been really really exciting and some of those early BioLogos meetings forced me to articulate things about the New Testament and origins and so on which I had not really had to think through in that way before and particularly to articulate the differences between American approaches to things and basically the rest of the world and I hope that's been useful and it's certainly been exciting for me it has most certainly been useful I'll do another bit of book promotion here this book I gather had some influence from your having been at those BioLogos meetings was a wonderful contributor to people trying to sort through the science faith issues and I was shocked and incredibly honored and to have that book edited to me which I never expected would happen by anything written by right oh my god and you're right that in those early days of the BioLogos meeting there was a lot more attention about gosh is it safe to be here we had these deliberations about maybe we should have a statement that comes out of the first meeting or two and some people are like oh I I don't think I could sign that because people would know I was here because it was such a sense that science was a threat and the idea that science is just another way of worshipping of understanding God's creation using our brains and the tools that God it's giving us in science that is an uneasy feeling and it plays it even now I'm sorry to say as we're about to talk about coronavirus I think we're still in a place in the US where the church is not entirely comfortable with the scientific perspective on what's happening III see that looking across the Atlantic and it's it's both fascinating and worrying that I was at a meeting in New York about twenty years ago where I was talking about climate change and I said something quite casually about the scientific evidence and somebody said to me afterwards do you realize you just lost half your audience there and I said well why and they said well if you quote scientists it's assumed that you were a Darwinian and therefore you don't really believe in God and I've had people email me and write me letters and say what are you doing hanging out with that BioLogos crowd it shows you don't really believe in God because you obviously believe in Darwin and and the idea that science equals Darwin and Darwin equals unbelief this is just trivial and we need to be able to get way beyond that and part of the irony of this is that as I look at North American society in general I see quite a lot of social Darwinism still rampant of the Mighty's right doctrine that the survival of the fittest in terms of how society works and I think we'll hang on if you're so opposed to Darwin how come you're into all that and so on and so on but of course today Darwin is seen in Britain certainly as simply one among many Victorian pioneers who needs to be put in his context needs to be understood in his philosophical and cultural context at a time when the middle classes were delighted to think of evolution because it meant oh we can actually develop and become more prosperous azores there are all sorts of things going on there which were quite different in America and we never in Britain had a Scopes trial for instance that which is a defining moment and I think as Francis says you're still reaping the whirlwind from that in terms of people saying her scientific evidence clearly not to do with faith and so we of faith have to ignore it and go somewhere else which is just right now crazy as I think Francis and I would agree I would agree although I think I am somewhat encouraged and and Tom I have to mention your role with BioLogos as having been such an encouragement to so so many of us people like yourself like Tim Keller other really serious deep Christian thinkers recognizing that the science faith conflict need not be a conflict and was actually harmful to the faith law causing a loss of credibility for those who were promoting Christianity because they seem to be asking people to check their brains at the door and who would want to do that and I would say over the last 15 years as this effort has been going on and BioLogos now in place for more than 10 I get the feeling that there is more of a realization that these worldviews of Christian spiritual respect for Scripture and also an appreciation that science can teach you truth about nature those are complementary they're reinforcing their harmonious and a person would want to be able to wrap their arms around both without having their heads explode and maybe we're making some progress a long way to go but maybe some I would like to hope so and you know partly pre-code precisely because of your work which has been so stellar anyway that's that's that where we are well let's get to this topic at hand here Francis we last talked in the middle of May then lamenting the fact that we had just reached a hundred thousand kovat infections in the US now we're over three million in the US and twelve million worldwide and Cova deaths are currently over a hundred and thirty thousand in the US and half a million worldwide give us an update if you would from your vantage point on this pandemic sure well let's talk about this beast this is my 3d model of the corona virus that is causing us all such terrible grief doesn't look like much but if it gets inside one of your cells it's very good at replicating itself and making gazillion of copies and spreading to yourselves and then also allowing you to spew it out when you cough or sneeze or even speak so that others who are in your vicinity getting one of those droplets into their airway then become infected this particular virus is particularly diabolical because of its ability to spread so rapidly and so easily including from people who have no symptoms we don't really have a precedent for that we remember SARS and the world got pretty freaked out about that 20 years ago but in order to spread SARS you had to be pretty sick already it wasn't like a mystery with this disease probably 40 50 percent of the new cases are caused by spread from somebody who had no symptoms some of those people were never going to get symptoms some of them are just still in the incubation phase so that has made this from a public health perspective a particularly horrendous situation to try to deal with it is by the way why we are now insisting that people should be wearing masks and people assume that's to protect yourself but actually the cloth masks that I wear when I go out they're not protecting me particularly well they're protecting other people from me in case I am one of those who's now gotten the virus and don't know it yet and I could be spreading it and that's the case we keep trying to make with variable success and it seems to be getting worse particularly with young people that this is part of your responsibility if you really care about your neighbors your family your grandmother you shouldn't be the one who is walking around spreading this virus unknowingly and you could be and that's where the mask really helps so yeah we of course had in the u.s. a terrible terrible time in March and April or cases were going up hospitals in New York New Jersey were loaded up ICU so were overwhelmed people got very serious and a lot of places in the u.s. then did the full shutdown including where I am here in Washington I'm speaking to you from my home office that's my library of science and faith books behind me which has a lot of NT right by the way and I've barely been out of space now for 14 weeks because it is the right thing to do if you can manage to work from home and I figured out pretty much how to do that although it's not my preference it can be pretty functional but then you know we got over the worst of that peak and people were flattening the curve as we say by appropriate public health measures and then places started to open up and didn't really follow the CDC guidelines about how to do this in a careful phased way and the public I think took advantage of what seemed to be a little uncertainty and exactly what was request it requested and kind of went to the least common denominator in a lot of places especially that led to young people going to bars and going to the beach and now look where we are in the US we're in a terrible state right now we never really went down to the end of the first wave we stayed at this sort of low level not that low of maybe 15 20 thousand new cases a day and now we're on this steep upward slope where for the last couple of days it's over 60,000 cases a day a hundred and thirty thousand plus people having lost their lives and now for the first time in the last four days or so you're starting to see the death rate go up again we had sort of been somewhat reassured that deaths hadn't started to come back it was just the cases and maybe those were all young people who are going to be fine but it doesn't work that way if it's in the community which we know it is in Miami in Houston in Phoenix it's going to find its way this virus likes to get around and it doesn't care that we're all tired of wearing masks and keeping ourselves at home so we're in a in a really tough spot we are better it's managing the sickest patients but we still don't have a cure and we still don't have a vaccine although we are working really hard on that and I could say more about that if you'd like yeah so talk a little bit about the state of the research on this I read an article in Nature this week and the things scientists desperately want to learn about this virus things like why do people respond so differently has the virus developed any worrying mutations what's the nature of immunity how long does it last how well the vaccine work are any of these at the of your list of things you'd really like to know about this now they are as well as a whole bunch of others it's hard to say that you have a top of this list you just have a really big list and you want answers to everything at once this virus does mutate slowly so so far I don't think there's a reason to be alarmed that it is going to become something even worse or that we'll come up with a vaccine and then it won't work anymore because the virus has changed its code it changes but rather slowly so of the things to worry about not so much in that space clearly people differ in terms of their susceptibility and some of that turns out to be blood type which is a surprise that nobody expected and I don't understand the mechanisms there at all but I think right now the big question is how do we develop treatments that are going to help people who are really sick and prove that they work hydroxychloroquine was not the answer what would be the answer well we have two drugs now REM des aveer and dexamethasone that have been shown in randomized controlled rigorous trials to benefit people who are hospitalized and quite ill with this we don't have anything yet that's gonna be effective for the people who are just a little bit sick to get them quickly better but we're working on that I think the big concern most people have right now is where is that vaccine remember that in every previous epidemic of this or building a vaccine from scratch has taken generally five six seven years and we're trying to do that in months and it is breathtaking to see the way that everybody has pulled together to make this happen I organized a public-private partnership with industry because they have a lot of skills and academia does and government does we all got to get together here and not be a missing connections and that partnership in the space of just a few weeks now we are on the brink of starting what's called a phase three trial of the first vaccine getting out of the gate which will start enrolling patients later this month and I will tell you what I'm doing this weekend is trying to be sure that as we start that trial going we make sure that it's available for people from the most hard-hit communities to take part in if this is a trial that just enroll a lot of 25 year-old white people that is not going to tell us what we need to know about safety and efficacy because this has hit so hard to come communities that are impoverished so hard on African Americans and on Latinos on Native Americans that's where the greatest tragedies are happening and we certainly need to know if we have a vaccine that it'll work in those places as well so getting this trial underway has got to be done right not just in the shortest fastest cheapest way one of our listeners is asking once we have a vaccine realistically how long is it gonna take to vaccinate the people who need it most or how many people do need it most what what's that process gonna look like good question certainly you would want the vaccine to go first to the highest risk people so we would want to have if we have a limited amount of vaccines when we first know that it's working to give that to the people with chronic illnesses the elderly to individuals who for other reasons are at high risk because of the inability to maybe protect themselves against exposure healthcare providers we actually are starting a high level group right now that's going to try to put into place in a epical way what would those priorities look like but let me be clear we are doing something we've never done before in this space as well we have at least four and maybe as many as seven different vaccines that are being developed for all of those the US government is actually paying to manufacture tens of millions of doses even before we know if the vaccine works because you want to be able if you get a good answer oh this one works to immediately have lots of doses to begin offering to the highest risk people if you hadn't planned for that then you got another long gap while people are susceptible and getting sick and dying so even though that's costing several billion dollars we're going to make sure that we are ready for that and our goal is to have a hundred million doses by the end of 2020 and that is that's a stretch goal that's our real stretch goal that is a white-knuckle goal but this is the moment to do everything possible to get to that space without compromising safety will not allow a vaccine that's not proven to be safe and effective to be put out there just because you want to say you did something that end is not going to happen let me ask a couple of questions that are a little skeptical of sometimes the science and Tom maybe you can jump in here two responses from the Christian community even but Frances every time we've talked I've asked some version of this question but if my social media feed is representative there are a lot of people who still feel like this isn't that big a deal right when when there had been only 10,000 kovat deaths they were saying well it's less concerning than deaths by pneumonia each year well we're way past that now so maybe now they're saying at least it's better than deaths by cancer each year well there's something wrong with this logic isn't there every death is a tragedy if you have a family member who's sick with this coronavirus or someone who has died and that didn't need to happen because this is an infection that maybe somehow we could have understood how to do something that's a tragedy you can't dismiss that as being well not as bad as some other tragedy this is a public health emergency the last thing we need is minimization of its consequences having said that I realized that some of the consequences that are being proposed by public health people like me also have serious implications for economics for people whose families are now in real trouble because of lost jobs I understand that Tony Fauci who's been such a wonderful spokesperson for the truth of this is fond of saying it's really unfortunate that we seem to have the public health experts over here and the economists over here and the economists are saying open things up because we need our economy to go people are suffering from lack of resources and the public health people are going no it's not safe actually we all believe we want to get the economy opened up we want to get the whole business of business back to normal public health is our tool to get there to get there safely that ought to be the way to think about yeah we've we've seen the same debates going on in Britain and for first month or two of the pandemic every early evening before the main early evening news on the BBC there was a briefing by either the Prime Minister or one of his senior ministers flanked by leading government scientists on either side and then the journalists would come in on zoom or whatever and would ask them questions so we've been going through the same debates and we've had really exactly the same problems and so just recently when they've opened up pubs and restaurants and so on has been a huge sigh of relief oh we can go out for a meal again Maggie Maggie and I went out for dinner on whenever it was Friday night first time we've been out from you together for four months and it was wonderful but while we were there we've kind of worried the restaurant had these glass screens but the waitress who serve just wasn't wearing a mask she perhaps should have been somebody stood up and talked to us across the screen without a mask and so it were all a bit jumpy and but I think the sort of sigh of relief of even a semblance of normality is so seductive and I hear what Frances says that this this could this could get worse we we maybe should be more careful still but it's it's a very difficult thing so we're having exactly the same sorts of debates that we are not having the politicized debates that I think are going on in America and I hear tales of people from both the major parties in America who think that it's a conspiracy this way or a conspiracy that way we we don't have that in Britain we don't really believe in conspiracies we just believe in models and we British you're very good at levels I'm afraid that's really where we are right now I take a muddle right now I'd be better talk a little bit about reopening of churches maybe we have a listener who's from Orlando Florida which is currently a hotspot asking that they have a church that has a 1700 seat auditorium but it's limited to 350 people masks are required when entering and leaving but not during the service music is loud and people are encouraged to sing out while not wearing masks we're in our 60s and would like to support our church by attending but our hesitant due to no masks during worship are we being too cautious he asks I the word that I'm getting from church leaders in Britain is that deep cleaning a church building is very difficult and if somebody walks in who doesn't know they've got the viruses Francis was saying they can easily spread droplets just by breathing let alone by talking let alone by singing and then if those droplets are resting on seats or benches or whatever or on in books or prayer books then somebody has to go around immediately afterwards and clean the whole thing every square inch and that takes a lot of work and if you're gonna do that two or three times on a Sunday because you've got different congregations coming in that takes even more work and I just think this is this is where we are right now we've been having church services buy zoom and similar stuff and I I find that quite depressing and having a church service in my living room with a screen just isn't the same as being with my brothers and sisters worshiping and praying together in a church building and but we have to cut our co2 according to our cloth and if our cloth says at the moment we can't have 700 people in the building because we can only have 300 or we can't in the small churches we have we can't have a hundred people in church we can only have 40 or something then so be it much rather that than have yet more sad funerals which people can't attend in great numbers of people who shouldn't have died and that's that's the thing we have to remind ourselves as Francis was saying and every time we say oh come on it'll be all right we want to say um actually I don't want to be standing at your funeral in six weeks time saying we thought it would be all right and we had a lovely moment and a week or two ago we're allowed to visit grandchildren at last we have a four-year-old grandson Leo bless him who his grandmother my lovely wife Maggie was about to hug him and he sort of backed off because he'd learned the rules and so Maggie backed off and he said there you are Nana you did the right thing and to be told by a four year old but you did the right thing was a very precious moment oh I need that four-year-old to come and speak to some of the Americans I totally get this I mean I understand how much people long for the gathering together that we're all feeling called to do as Christians to come together and pray and worship but I think we also were given gifts that God has made possible understanding things like this virus and how it gets spread and if we are really serious about protecting our neighbors and our family members can we ignore that I have seen some fairly disturbing examples of people who really find that you know the devil can't get into my church so I'm safe while I'm there or jesus is my vaccine so I don't need to worry right now that I don't think that's quite what are our message from that's just just just irresponsibility and in in my little book which you mentioned I quote a line from Martin Luther and actually there's a whole book of Luther's letters of spiritual counsel which I remember reading ages ago and I pulled it off the shelf again when this whole thing started up because in the sixteenth century and most centuries to be honest there have been big epidemics not quite pandemics in the same way though some of them were pretty much up there but regularly pastors like party move through the sixteenth century we would have to say what do we do the whole town is taken over by this plague as a Christian minister what should i do how should we be worshiping and Luther had his feet on the ground he wasn't gonna take that attitude of Jesus's my vaccines and know if there's a possibility I'm going to infect somebody then I will only go near them if it's urgent past really that I be with them and minister to them otherwise I will stay away I will take medicine myself I will administer it to others if if called upon to do so and he says his lovely line he says if God wants to take me he knows where to find me in other words I'm not going to go around scared and fearful if it's my time then it's my time however I'm going to be responsible and act wisely and that responsibility is actually deep in the Christian tradition that's the point that I'm making the care for the sick is deep in the Christian tradition and the responsibility to act wisely while a plague or pandemic is going on is also deep in the Christian tradition we have such short memories as modern-day Christians we forget that our armed forebears in the faith have actually faced all this before and though we have much better medical knowledge than they did we actually know about germs and how they spread and so on I don't know that we necessarily have any better richer spirituality than some of them did we can learn from that we'll get to your book here in just a second let me ask a couple of more audience questions about this topic one is about the schools Francis should schools be opened up in your professional opinion isn't the cleaning concern for church the same if not worse for schools another really complicated issue because as long as the schools are closed and kids are at home their parents are generally not able to do what they normally would be doing in terms of going to work so if we're trying to get our economy going again this is a really serious issue and some will argue that kids don't actually get infected as easily and maybe don't spread it as easily but they certainly are part of the spread that goes on there's also an argument that can be made that it is harmful for children to be away from the socialization that happens in schools and we have to consider that also and of putting together the benefits and the risks all that being said I think it really falls to the local environment to decide how that benefit risk calculation plays out if you're you're in Casper Wyoming that hasn't had any cases for a few weeks opening up the schools in a very careful way with appropriate public health measures and doing regular testing of the community so that you'll know if it starts to appear might be a reasonable thing to do I would not want to have kids starting school right now in Houston Texas however where we have an enormous outbreak going on and the teachers in such a school what I think quite rightfully consider that their lives were being offered up on the basis of all we just have to open schools right now without considering what the consequences might be so in all things when you try to say it's discs or it's that then it there's nothing in between usually that's not the right answer consider that the nuances the local circumstances so another listener is asking Francis and I think this is where the rubber meets the road how long are you preparing to social and wear masks are you holding out for a vaccine regardless of timeline if that's what it takes I will hold out I am determined not to set a bad example so you will not see me outside my house without a mask on and for the most time you won't see me outside my house at all I'll be right here running a 42 billion dollar a year government research operation because that's what my calling is right now and yes social distancing I am absolutely rigorous about that the six feet or the two meters as they say in Europe because that's what the evidence suggests and it may well be that we will all need to pay attention to those kinds of restrictions again depending on our community until that vaccine is in hand which I hope i'ma pray will be by the end of this calendar year good well let's turn to your new book Tom which I have here in my hand God and the pandemic a Christian reflection on the corona virus in its aftermath you say in the preface that it's written not to offer solutions to the questions raised by the pandemic that we were just discussing there as much as to resist the knee-jerk reactions that come so readily to mind can you give us a sampling of those all-too-common knee-jerk reactions we Christians have the big dramatic events like a pandemic yeah yeah it was very interesting I got inventory involved in this when it started up I was very busy with other stuff so I thought I just don't need to do this and then somebody on Time magazine said would I write an 800 word article about it and of course I was drawn in lured in by the the writers itch to do something and so I wrote a very short piece basically saying that Christianity doesn't give you an instant answer as to why this is happening whatever and actually it's not meant to and that immediately got quite hostile reactions from people saying various things saying for instance this is a sign that the Lord is about to return or the rapture is going to happen or something like that and or saying perhaps more more worrying still um this is a call to repent because if you go to the Prophet Amos bad things happen there it is because Israel or Judah or Edom or Moab or whoever it is CIND and so God is judging them and so we have to repent and I noticed almost at once that the people who said that were thinking that the coronavirus was calling America or the world to repent of dot and then it turned out to be the sins that those same people have been worried about a long time anyway which made me think so the coronavirus is just giving you a megaphone to say a bit more loudly what you wanted to say anyway and that seems to be kind of inauthentic because there we were just piggybacking on this wretched thing and then there were others who are saying in a more moderate way are but this gives us a wonderful occasion to preach the gospel because suddenly all our contemporaries are not thinking about where they're going to get the next cappuccino or whatever they're thinking about life and death and this is the moment to tell them about Jesus well again I wanted to say every moment is a moment to tell people about Jesus and if you waited for a pandemic to come along to nudge you into doing so will shame on you and what's more if people outside the family of faith think that we're using this as a kind of cheap opportunity to get at them that may well be counterproductive and certainly in my country I think it would be if I buttonholed non-christian friends or neighbors have said aren't you thinking about life and death isn't it time we got you reading the gospel or whatever I think they might say come on you're just you're just using this shamelessly so in the light of that what I wanted to do is to say this is at least an opportunity for us to remind ourselves how to read the Bible that the Old Testament is a wonderful complex book but the lines of its complexities all run together to Jesus and when we read the Gospels we find Jesus saying very interesting things like it wasn't this man who sinned or that man or or his parents that who sin that he was born blind it was so that the works of God might be manifest in him in other words don't ask why this happened ask what God is now going to do and there it was obviously specifically a work of healing but then the same thing in acts 11 when there's a famine the the Christians in Antioch don't say oh this is a sign the Lord is coming back or oh my goodness it must be because we'd sinned all the our government has sinned or something they said who's going to be at risk what can we do to help and who shall we send and that seems to me wonderfully practical feet on the ground stuff he has a great crisis the Christian response is not to come up with a great theoretical reason why this is happening and breast-beating about somebody must have sinned it's it's to say this world is a strange place as Paul says it's groaning in labor pains at the moment and our task is to do what Francis is doing to be there being professional skilled at seeing where the people are most at risk and seeing what on earth we can do to help and so from the Bible itself I come up with very different answers to what the words are the ones I was hearing three months ago and you were saying in your book and I thought it was very well said that may be the right question that Christians should be asking is not why did this happen but rather what can I do what can I do and yeah exactly and hence the medical thing or if it's a case of people who aren't medically trained are their neighbors on the street who need my help are there people for whom I could help with a grocery order or the very practical things and but obviously then particularly also the question of should I be wearing a mask and the answer from what Francis is saying is definitely yes yes the answer is not a hard answer huh I think you make the case very well about the inappropriateness of a coronavirus megaphone that people adopt for their own purposes when actually it's just their own pet theme that they want to try to promote by whatever means but what do you think about the general sense that this consequence of a global pandemic which hasn't happened at this level in a hundred years does have some implications on the human psyche David Brooks who's in my book club wrote a piece called the moral meaning of the plague in the New York Times a few months ago pointing out how we are in the u.s. anyway and morally inarticulate culture and this causes us to begin to think about fundamental moral questions that we might have ignored for a while do you see any of that is there a silver lining in there not that you're going to beat people over the head with that but they're having this their own internal wrestling with questions that otherwise might have been ignored yes that's a very interesting question I don't see much of that at the moment in Britain I mean the newspapers that I read and the programs on radio and TV that I watch or listen to I'm not getting that sense of a of a great deep moral stirring as it were it may be going on but I haven't seen it and I mean I only see what I only see but I think there are all sorts of questions being asked about other as other larger aspects of our life I mean somebody said to me at the beginning isn't it obvious why God is allowing this it's because we're all now so enjoying having streets without cars and skies without aeroplanes and the seas are much cleaner and quite literally that surely this is God's Way of saying you should be treating the planet differently so which my response is so you're saying God is allowing half a million people to die in order to teach us what we actually should have learned whether it's from greater Thornburg or Al Gore or somebody or all along and I mean I'm being a bit casual there but you hear what I'm saying and it seems to me life is a bit more complicated than that and the the kind of optimistic view that some have that we will go back from this to being a kinder more caring society I wish I believed that was true but I don't actually see great indications that that's going to be so I think it will get back to people who've got power and muscle saying after this I need to be getting out there making money and if anyone's in my way get out and I fear that that will worry we're in danger there could be a tipping point either way you mentioned the groaning of creation a bit earlier Tom and I wonder if you might each speak to that a little bit you have an interesting passage in the book where you say Tom alongside this Israel and God's story there runs the deeper story of the good creation and the dark power that from the start has tried to destroy God's handiwork and you say I don't claim to understand that dark power but I do want to push both of you a little bit just can we say something about this as Christians as we're trying to create a coherent and kind of comprehensive worldview where things like a coronavirus happens sometimes what do we make of that yeah I Frost is probably waiting for me to say something oh dear yeah what one of the things that I think I am learning and I am still learning is that whereas when I was much younger I used to see Genesis chapters 1 & 2 as a kind of that's it gods made it it's perfect oh do we spoiled it whereas now I want to say I think Genesis 1 and 2 very specifically is the beginning of a project it's the launching of something that God the Creator wants to do and he wants humans to be front and center in helping him do it taking the project forward to whole new stages and so on the trouble is that because of the fall whatever that means in Genesis 3 the humans are out of sync and so they're doing things which make that the world out of sync but already there are puzzles there are questions that there is there is the chaos water out of which creation comes why is there a slimy snake in the garden deceiving Eve in the first place in Genesis 3 these are big and dark questions and I think the Bible doesn't give us nice easy packaged answers for the very simple reason that if there was a nice easy packaged answer it would mean that there was a logical and rational and god-given place for evil within God's good creation and I think that's simply not the case and I know some theologians have done it like that but I just don't see that and I think when we see all those lines coming together with Jesus Jesus himself talks about his own death in terms of now is the ruler of this world going to be cast out because with Jesus death something happens as a result of which the real power of the forces of darkness is defeated and in a sense the only thing we know about the forces of darkness is that they are anti creation they are designed to do what this virus is doing to despoil and destroy and kill and that Jesus has defeated them in on the cross and that his resurrection is the beginning of the launch of the new creation heaven and earth coming together and that that is all really all we know about the dark past is that they're trying to stop that and that they are still trying to stop it now but new creation has begun and by the spirit is continuing so that's the framework in which I would put that discussion and I'd love to know what Francis thinks about the theological analysis of why there are such things is these wretched viruses in the first place well in a certain way this is a special case of the problem of evil in the or as I can tell as a Christian is really only solved by standing at the foot of the cross and at least in that circumstance we can look and say that if we are concerned about suffering we know that we serve a God who understands suffering from personal experience at a level that I could never possibly imagine and as we are weeping tears of grief for what we are losing in a circumstance like this that we know that Jesus wept as well you mentioned that in the book Tom at the death of Lazarus even though he then raised Lazarus first he wept there was a song I used to sing when I was a music minister in a little Church in Michigan called tears are a language and it does seem that way as we share in grief God God God weeps along with us and we should not in some way imagine that God is aloof about all of this the tragedy that's happening all around us right now causes God also to grieve with us and I do think this is a time of grief you know people talk about I'm angry about this or I'm depressed about this or really anxious and fearful about this I think the primary response for a lot of people is just grief grief and the response to that as you have said tom is lamentation to lament this and that is a long Christian tradition read the Psalms and it is a place that we should not be surprised to go I mean I could go on a long time about how we humans may have brought this particular coronavirus upon us by the fact that this is a virus that was in bats and maybe it was then in pain angle ends and by our human determination to start eating the flesh of ever more exotic animals we put ourselves at risk for this kind of transmission of a virus into a human host I don't know that I feel very satisfied by the hat I will say this is also part of the long tradition of what's been going on biologically on this planet which was part of God's plan and perhaps it's what John Polkinghorne used to refer to as physical evil the same thing as an earthquake that happens and does harm to individuals it is part of the way in which our planet in order to produce this incredible abundance of life also has these other physical properties that you can't just wish away you can't anymore say well you don't need tectonic plates then you can say - and - doesn't really have to be for it just is what it is and we then ascribe that to some lack of love of the Creator God right maybe about the place of viruses in God's good creation that this is an exception to what normally happens let's say that God's creation includes all kinds of wonderful biological entities viruses amongst them and they can in fact in some instances be very good we you know here we are talking about a vaccine against this particular terrible corona virus how do you think a couple of those vaccines are being built there by taking a different virus removing its pathogenic components and add no virus stitching a little bit of the corona virus into it so that it will make an appropriate antigen and using that to save lives so if I didn't have that virus we wouldn't have the delivery truck that we need right now so nothing is all good or all evil in biology and it's it's a mix that's fascinating and and the idea of even being able to think round that sort of thing just blows me away as a non scientist and I'm grateful to God for people like Francis who can do it and I think the thing that I was fascinated francis by what you just said was this idea of the problem of what we've called evil not being about a distant god who may have got it right or got it wrong you know Woody Allen's famous line yes I do believe in God but he seems to be a bit of an underachiever the basic basically treating God as the CEO who sits upstairs pressing buttons or pulling levers and sometimes he seems to have forgotten to pull the right one or whatever and the trouble is that through the 18th and 19th century and into our own time 20th and 21st century many Western Christians pretty many very devout Western Christians have tried to do that business of how is God running the world on the one hand and then have tried to talk about Jesus something quite separate as though here's God running the world and it's a good world and so God does this and that the other and oh by the way we are sinners so we need to be saved so God sent Jesus to save us from our sin and the New Testament refuses to make that split and the New Testament says if you want to know how God runs the world read the Gospels read Matthew Mark Luke and John because Jesus is saying this is what the kingdom of God looks like in the phrase the kingdom of God translates out more or less as how God is now taking charge of the world this is what it looks like it looks like Jesus weeping at the tomb of his friend it looks like Jesus feasting with sinners it looks like Jesus celebrating a last meal with his friends and going off to the cross that's how God runs the world and that's a very different thing from the celestial CEO in other words God runs the world by coming in person to the place where the world is in pain and taking that pain upon himself and that's the other thing that you said Francis which I thought was really so important goes back to Romans 8 again where Paul talks about the creation groaning in travail and then the same thing happens as God comes in the person of Jesus to them to take the pain of the world on himself so God comes in the person of the Spirit to lament with in the lament of the church with in the lament of the world and that sense of God by the spirit being present as we lament that's that's extraordinary you need what we call a Trinitarian theology to make that work as it were but my goodness when you do this is a very very different picture of God of God in the world and it means we are caught up in the middle of it and the fact that we are puzzled and muddle them don't know what's going on it's exactly what Paul says he says we don't know how to pray as we ought but the Spirit groans in articulately within us even the Spirit doesn't have words to say the lament that has to be said and as you think of those statistics well what did you say half a million deaths worldwide well if the Spirit is indwelling all of creation has in a sense the Spirit is the Spirit is groaning and grieving and we should be not content because grieving is never content but we should realize that's our vocation to be there - Tom say one word about Romans 8:28 cuz reading your book point there and and that is such a familiar and reassuring verse to so many people but you make the point that there's more to it then people generally realize and this would be a good moment I think for that going to be made you know I had a funny feeling you were going to ask me this so I just happened to have the texture of Romans 8:2 hand but it's course it's a famous verse and I learned the King James Version of that verse when I was a kid which says that all things work together for good to those who love God which gives you the sense of oh well the world's going on and it's all paying out for my benefit and that's not what Paul says he Paul says that we know that with those who love God God works all things together for good now the with those who love God and that's what the the Greek verb synergy I don't even see it there that's what it means God works with those who love him and that those who love him looks back to the previous verse which is all about the the spirit groaning within us and God the Father knowing what is the mind of the Spirit within us and so it's not about sitting back and saying well all things work together for good it's about Christians who are in dwelt by the Spirit who find the love of God welling up within them that lament itself being used by God as part of the means by which his own purposes for the renewal of the whole creation are going forward that's a very different read on Romans 8 from how many have done it but there's good scholarship behind it and in the book I cite two or three scholars who've taken that line and and the more I read it now the more I think they're right the trouble is when you know a passage so well it's very hard actually to read it differently until somebody you respect juggles your elbow and says hang on just look and see what the Greek is actually saying there and it's back to what can I do it's back to what can I do which starts with lament and everything else grows out of that lament if you would then Tom know where we're getting very close to the end of our time here but I'd like you to talk just a little bit about the end of your book there where you compare what we do now with the church's mission in her early days which you say began with tears and locked doors and doubt not so different from today right so as Jesus was sent to Israel so we're sent to the world to get on with the job visiting prisoners care for the wounded welcome strangers and so on bring that up to up to speed for our day today and perhaps each of you might just say one more word on how this relates to our calling as human beings to be image bearers and perhaps even how we understand Christ charge to care for the least of these in a pandemic like this one you've just asked me a question which could give a a whole lecture as answered but you were you were basically doing a walkthrough of John chapter 20 John chapter 20 Jesus is meeting Mary Magdalene she sees him through her tears then he appears in the the locked upper room there in lockdown because they're afraid just like many of us are in lockdown because they're afraid and then he appears to Thomas and Thomas bless him my namesake he can't believe until he can actually touch as well as see so that business of Tears and lockdown and doubt that's straight out of John 20 and in the middle of that is that line where Jesus says as the father sent me so I send you and you ask yourself where would Jesus be in the pandemic and the answer is out there on the front line caring for the sick or standing alongside and praying with the medics who are doing the hard work and bearing as much of the weight of it upon himself as was appropriate and as he could and it seems to me that's what we're called to do and that's thank God what many of our brothers and sisters are doing right now and it is necessary to do that for the least of those the ones who are in most trouble the ones who have the least resources and here is a wonderful opportunity and a mission for the church as it always has been to take this difficult circumstance remembering all the plagues down through the centuries where Christians have been out front and following that same task not in a fashion that ignores the importance of protecting against being a vector yourself of the illness as Martin Luther's quote that you went through warns against but actually in a way that does reach out to those who are most in need and doesn't put others at risk so all Christians I think can embrace that regardless of your political persuasion this seems like a very straightforward opportunity responsibility that we should all embrace and run towards that particular opportunity and not be fearful of it even as we take care of all the important public health measures that we know we're called to do to keep innocent people from acquiring a terrible illness well we've hinted a few times to the big musical number we have planned here at the end of the episode perhaps you can give it a bit of an introduction Tom I think this idea started with you didn't it it was a complete accident and actually it's it's Maggie's fault we mentioned Maggie wants twice already this evening but we were we were at a conference in Rome and she was out shopping and it was snowing it was in February and she got a cab back to the hotel we were staying and the cab driver was serenading her all the way back with Paul McCartney songs and particularly yesterday and so she came into their tail room wafted in on a cloud singing yesterday and we had a good laugh about it I then went across to the conference meeting sadly the paper was in Italian and my Italian isn't very good in the translation my headphones was very helpful and I started and I I was about to go to the BioLogos meeting in New York and so I suddenly thought you know the word Genesis it has the same ring as yesterday so I started writing Genesis earth in heaven in a cosmic kiss and then I thought do I dare send this to the great Francis Collins and suggest that we sing it together by that evening I had the first draft of a song and I sent it on the email thinking is Francis going to be offended and by return there came hey this is great song but the second verse needs to be this and so so that's how I've been wishing advising the purpose he sings the second well that was pretty much it wasn't it Francis I think that was exactly right to get that message and appreciate your creativity and that's not the only song but it's the only one you're gonna hear today right in college so obviously we're not attempting to do this live each of you send in your parts and we put them together so let's give it a listen here and then we'll get a little reaction from each of you go ahead Kyle and play the video [Music] [Applause] [Music] in the paradise we all houses [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] very nice very nice are you two ready to quit your day jobs and start recording albums of such songs in the same place at the same time and get this virus over with well very good I'd love to keep this conversation going another hour but I'm cognizant of the time in the UK Tom and Frances we feel bad taking you away from your work at NIH for one more minute I should tell you though that these kind of appearances are not without value for your work I hope I got a note this week from someone who said every night when they say their prayers his 10 year old asks specifically for God to bless the scientists and doctors working on a vaccine for this coronavirus now they have a picture of you to show that 10 year old is one of those doctors they pray for so well ever since you guys sent in your songs there that melodies been going through my head non-stop and particularly the long the the line of they did something wrong and now we long for God's new day and perhaps in that vein we might end our time together here with the Lord's Prayer and the plea for God's kingdom to come we invite those of you watching to join in with us we'll be using the tresspasses version our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen amen well thank you so much for sharing with us thank you to our audience for finding this important enough to give up your time to watch please share the link with others you think might benefit from the conversation watch for the podcast version later this week and thanks again to Zondervan for making this special deal on Tom's new books available to everyone listening for the details again find the details again on screen for how to take advantage of the discount the month of master lectures simply text learn to eight four four nine four seven six one nine eight Francis Tom thank you so much and bless thank you thank Jim thanks to you too [Music]

Channel: BioLogos

Views: 20,100

Rating: 4.737288 out of 5

Keywords: NT Wright, Francis Collins, Pandemic, Coronavirus, COVID, faith, science, genesis

Id: jhBGkdDhInE

Length: 66min 20sec (3980 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 12 2020