Plagues, Pandemics and Churches-Carl Trueman

Today we are asking some bigger questions! The famous theologian
and boxer Mike Tyson once said: “Everybody has a plan until they
get punched in the mouth.” I like that. It rings true today as
much of America and the World cowers in their homes in this storm
of an invisible virus called Corona. We’ve been punched in the
mouth and any plans we had have been put to the test. We’ve heard
from more medical experts than ever before. We’ve listened to
economists by the dozen wax eloquent guessing about the future.
But I think something else has been going on to, and it is
something that usually takes a punch in mouth. We are asking some
bigger questions. Who’s in charge here? How could this happen in
our sophisticated scientific age? What can I do? What should I
do? What if it gets me?


It’s in times like this that I find some wisdom in look
backwards. Has anything like this happened before? How did the
Church handle it? What did they do right? What did they do wrong?
So today we have one of the most qualified people I know to help
us do exactly that. His name is Carl Trueman. I could take the
rest of the show introducing him by listing his degrees and books
but anyone can just google his name for that. Let me just say his
specialty is Historical Theology which is a soup with history and
theology all mixed together and it can be pretty healing stuff if
it is cooked properly.


Welcome Carl… Rumor has it that you grew up in Dudley England
which is a lot like growing up in Pittsburgh from what I can
tell? The title of this show is “Church Hurts AND…” For a lot of
people who’ve been hurt or disillusioned by the church, they
might think that is largely new to period of history. Might you
be interested in removing that illusion from us as a bonafide
expert in Historical Theology? So…tell me what times in history
have come to your mind in recent weeks in the midst of this
Corona Virus… Can you tell us a few stories of when people and
the church faced anything that felt like this? 


churchhurtsand.org