Preaching Goes Viral

A sermon on Covid and climate change

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Paneloux insists that the plague in Oran "was not willed by God." Rather, God "grew weary of waiting" for the people to stop sinning and, he says, "has turned his face away from us. And so, God's light withdrawn, we walk in darkness, in the thick darkness of this plague." Camus tells us that Paneloux is a scholar of St. Augustine of Hippo, and here we have the Augustinian view that evil is privation of good, that by depriving us of God's goodness, God enables evil — good's absence — to take its course. Well, you might say, "Same diff as if God willed the pandemic," and I'm not sure I disagree. But however we split this theological hair, the fact is that a lot of people are dying, and the world economy is going to pot.

2022-12-16

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Mark Silk