As I write this, it is difficult to accurately read the psychological state of Americans right now. We have had weeks of forced isolation throughout much of the nation and the nearly universal practice of social distancing. All of this goes against our human nature: God made us for community and COVID-19 is challenging this fundamental axiom of the human condition. Consequently, for nearly all of us, we are experiencing a profound loss of freedom accompanied by a genuine fear and sense of danger posed by the virus. The result is often a measure of emotional stress, confusion and fear. Let’s think biblically about all this.

The coronavirus currently racing across the world and now America has fostered fear and, for some, panic. Fear of the unknown is riveting and saps us of our trust in almost everything, including God. The fear and panic in response to the coronavirus are exacerbated by the subsequent carnage in the equity and financial markets. You see it in people’s eyes as you talk with them and you hear it in their conversation. We are facing something we cannot control—and it causes panic.

One of the most significant and contentious issues under discussion during the Catholic Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazonian Region, held in October 2019, was the question of whether to allow married men in that region to become priests. The reason for this consideration is the significant shortage of priests among indigenous people groups in the Amazon region. “Due to the shortage, many indigenous Catholics in that region are unable to regularly celebrate the Mass and receive other forms of pastoral care.”

The phrase “climate change” is an incendiary one. There are the “alarmists” who often posit a scenario of end-of-life-as-we know-it. And there are the “deniers,” who argue that it is all a hoax. But any intellectually honest person cannot deny the partial relationship between human emissions of greenhouse gases and a warming climate, which cannot be denied. Being concerned about climate change is a genuine expression of our faith as Christians.

Two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination—Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—have declared war on American capitalism. Columnist Bret Stephens cites Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute, who has tried to calculate the costs of the programs these two candidates have proposed

The United States faces a new world order as we begin 2020. It is an unstable world filled with uncertainties and significant threats. It is thus important to remind ourselves as Americans that Russia and China remain the two formidable enemies of the US. Each has goals that run counter to American interests and each poses both a global and a military danger. We must understand them.

Wisdom is a curious term, often difficult to define. The Bible presents wisdom as a practical outworking of profound truths centered in God’s Word. Several times it affirms that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (e.g., Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7). The wisdom literature of the Old Testament further adds terms such as prudence, discernment, understanding, and discretion to characteristics of wisdom. As we begin 2020, perhaps it is beneficial to refresh our understanding of what a life of wisdom looks like.

In Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” the dialogue between the ghost of Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge is most enlightening. As Scrooge protests Marley’s intervention, he declares that Marley “was always a good man of business,” to which Marley responds: “Business! . . . Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business: charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business.” The feverish materialism of the Christmas season seems to side with Scrooge’s miserly greed, not Marley’s redeemed perspective.

In 1947 C.S. Lewis published The Abolition of Man, in which he charted the “negation of human dignity in the name of progress.” He lived long enough to see the accuracy of his assessment: “For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please.” Historian Joseph Loconte of King’s College speaks of “an echo of another era of medical innovation amid moral ambiguity.”

Medical doctors are beginning to link the devastating wave of lung injuries and deaths to the vaping of marijuana. [Invented in China in the early 2000s, vaping refers to an “electronic cigarette,” which uses heating elements to vaporize liquids, usually containing nicotine, but now also containing an ingredient from marijuana.]