You may be surprised to hear me say this, but being more religious—going to more church services, reading more Bible texts, and saying more prayers—is not the answer in itself. Nor will the anodyne and customized “spirituality” of our day meet the moment. Instead, we need what humans have always needed.

Five years ago today, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

Just reading that sentence brings back horrible memories for me, as I’m sure it does for you. Images of portable morgues, patients dying alone in isolation wards, people masking out of fear of everyone they meet. It seemed nearly everything was shut down, from restaurants and businesses to schools and churches. No one knew when a vaccine would arrive, assuming one could be developed.

More than seven million people are confirmed to have died from the virus, though some estimates suggest the pandemic has actually caused between nineteen and thirty-six million deaths worldwide.

But these numbers, as horrific as they are, don’t begin to tell the whole story.

“It shattered our cities and disordered society”

According to New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells, we’re living in the “branch of history” the pandemic created, one whose “contours are only now coming into view.” He writes: “We tell ourselves we’ve moved on and hardly talk about the disease or all the people who died or the way the trauma and tumult have transformed us. But Covid changed everything around us.”

Among the changes he lists, I found these especially relevant for today’s article:

• “It turned us into hyperindividualists” in response to a tragedy so unthinkable and massive, we learned to process it through the lens of personal experience—and still do.
• “It inaugurated a new age of social Darwinism” as the survivors credit themselves and blame others for the crisis.
• “It broke our faith in public health” as debates erupted (and continue) over vaccines, masking, and the credibility of health officials.
• “It shattered our cities and disordered society”—homicides jumped nearly 30 percent in just a single year, homelessness surged, and drinking problems escalated, as did drug overdoses and traffic accident deaths. Many of these effects were temporary, but the politics of crime and disorder persist.

Wallace-Wells concludes: “Perhaps the biggest shock was realizing we still live in history—and at the mercy of biology.” Foreign Policy agrees, warning that “the status quo won’t save us from the next pandemic” and urging immediate steps to construct a global system for responding more effectively to future pandemic threats.

Saying more prayers is not the answer

While political leaders and public health officials will be on the front lines of the next pandemic, you and I are on the front lines of culture now. There is only one answer to our hyperindividualism, social Darwinism, broken faith in leaders, and shattered and disordered society.

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