Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)

During the coronavirus pandemic, Middle Eastern Christians like MP Neemat Frem and Dr. Issam Raad are living up to the best of their community’s tradition as healers of the sick.

While quarantined with my family during the COVID-19 pandemic, the following five lessons with international affairs applications have come into focus.

As the coronavirus pandemic continued to ravage Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested that the United States bore responsibility for his nation’s plight.

The mindset of many of First Things’ authors, most notably its senior editor, R.R. Reno, strikes me as that of an angry and bitter remnant. They write as though they are the last Christians in America.

In the almost-19 years since they dispatched their military to Afghanistan, US policymakers and the people they represent have learned, relearned, and unlearned several lessons.

Americans should be willing to condemn China’s great crimes while also critiquing America’s mistakes. Democratic citizens’ right to criticize their government is a key reason why the US is better than China and why democracies ultimately outperform autocracies.

A simple pro-life analysis does not yield much fruit or shed much light on how the government should act in foreign policy.

A theologian’s task in time of plague is to show the light and give people hope. In recent years, many of us trained as theologians have traded our office for that of the pundit and scold. That we have so little worthwhile to say now, in this unprecedented time of fear and uncertainty, is yet one more sign of judgment.

Of course America will survive the coronavirus. We’ve many times survived far worse.