Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty by Walter Brueggemann
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"These dangers, however, are not decisive for what is possible or for what is required in the world. Thus war, pestilence, and famine are finally seen as accountable to the creator God, who presides even over such disasters. Virus is thereby robbed of its capacity to disorder daily life. In effect, these texts decisively change the subject from disaster to the rule of YHWH. Such a changed subject revises how we may live in the neighborhood when it is under threat."

Finished in early April, this book might have been most helpful then. But it seems to me not to deal as substantively with the current ambiguities and uncertainties of the crisis as well as I had hoped. Some of the best parts of the book are prayers he has written between the chapters and which I'm certain I will use liturgically. And, as always with Brueggeman, some lines and paragraphs that will be useful for preaching.

But I felt that theologically and biblically it didn't give me the meat I need right now. N. T. Wright has also released a book on the pandemic, which I have preordered but won't arrive until July.

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