Christianity and COVID-19 Pathways for Faith

This volume explores current understandings of the global meaning of faith and suffering in the context of COVID-19 and interrogates responses to the pandemic that have emerged from World Christianity. It includes chapters by a range of international contributors approached from a variety of angles within the Global Christian theology. They provide reflections and analyses focused on the question of God, human suffering, structural injustice, the role of the church and Christian praxis in the milieu of COVID-19, where misery and dyingare daily routine. This book will be of interest to scholars of Missiology, World Christianity, biblical/public/contextual theology and various contemporary Christian studies.

Part 1 Faith Making Sense of Suffering 1 A Critical Examination of how some Questionable Perspectives are Revealed within Chinese Christian Reactions to the Covid-19 Pandemic 2 Covid-19: A Reflection from Indigenous Peoples’ Lifeway 3 Perceptions of Covid-19 in a Sample of Female Clergy: Implications for Theological Understandings of Suffering 4 The Word of God and the Covid-19: Intercultural Reading of Job’s Questions to God 5 The Holy Spirit, Human Suffering and Healing: An Initial Pentecostal Reflection 6 Covid-19, the Question of Evils, Human Freedom and Divine Attributes 7 Asking God Tough Questions: The Use of Interrogatives in Habakkuk’s First Chapter 8 Martin Luther’s Understanding of Righteousness and its Implications and Challenges to Covid-19 9 Who Tweeted "Mene Mene Tekel Parsin"?: Covid-19, Twitter and Apocalyptic Literature 10 Covid-19 and Human Suffering Part 2 Faith Taking Action 11 Pacific Christianity Online or On the Line?: Renewing Church, Sacrament and Worship amidst the Pandemic 12 Liberation after Covid-19—(Re)Building Hope for Older and Disabled People beyond the Global Hegemonies of "Unity," "Youth" and "Growth" 13 "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread?": Innovative Responses by Faith Communities to Suffering during Covid-19 within a Context of Inequality and Poverty in South Africa 14 Theology and Ethics of Pastoral Accompaniment for Patients with Covid-19 in the Context of Physical Distancing 15 Trusting in God’s Protection in the Wake of Covid-19: An Exegetical Reading of Psalm 91 16 Love in the Time of Corona: Case Studies of Theodicy during the Covid-19 Pandemic 17 The Evangelical Church’s Love Affair with Injustice (White Supremacy): A Womanist Study of Mishpat During Covid-19 18 The Church and Covid-19 Pandemic: Voices of Myanmar Women Clerics 19 Reflections on an Ecological Conversion of Catholic Spirituality Today

Chammah J. Kaunda Assistant Professor in the United Graduate School of Theology, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Religion and Theology, the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. Atola Longkumer is a visiting professor of Religions and Missions at the South Asian Institute of Advanced Christian Studies in Bengaluru, India. Kenneth R. Ross is Professor of Theology at Zomba Theological College, Malawi. Esther Mombo is a Professor in the Faculty of Theology at St. Paul's University, Kenya.