How do we stop being afraid of each other?

This is my magazine article for June:

Those of you on social media will have probably seen posts that say that people want to keep socially distancing after the threat of the virus has gone, not for health reasons but just because they don't like talking with people! However, although some people are enjoying not having to interact with others, a lot of people, including introverts, are finding that they are really missing being with people. But as I write this (and I'm aware it may all have changed by the time you read this!), there is a growing sense that the restrictions we face at the moment will gradually lift. The questions then are how? and when?.

Aside from the practicalities there is another problem we have to solve as we move towards normality: how do we stop being afraid of each other? One of my strangest experiences at the start of this crisis was talking to someone and thinking “this person may have Coronavirus; they may be passing it to me; this person might be killing me!” The precautions that we are encouraged to take also make us cautious about other people. We stay two metres away from people because we might infect them, but also because they might infect us. We want trolleys and door handles to be sanitised; we want deliveries left on doorsteps; we wear gloves to bring in the bins, all to prevent contamination from others. COVID-19 might be the enemy but the people around us are its agents.

It seems to me that there are two ways in which we can re-learn how to be with other people. The first is to re-assess how we view life. The Government mantra reminds us that we should 'save lives' but why should we? This pandemic could have been used to aid 'social Darwinism' – killing off those who were weakest in society, which would have helped solve the problems of an over-stretched NHS and a pensions crisis. The fact that this would have been unacceptable is due to the deep Christian roots of our society: life is sacred not simply some evolutionary accident, and life is only sacred because we are made in the image and likeness of God himself (Genesis 1 and 2) and because he loves us enough to die for us (1 John 4:9-10).

The second is to re-assess how we view death. We fear COVID-19, and therefore others, because we fear death itself. Christianity, with the death and resurrection of Jesus at its heart, has the antidote to this fear – death has been destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). This is why in the Plague of Cyprian (249–262 AD) that, at its height, caused upwards of 5,000 deaths a day in Rome, Christians stayed in Rome to tend the sick. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, reported that in doing so they often died 'serenely happy' unlike the other Romans who “deserted those who began to be sick, and fled from their dearest friends. They shunned any participation or fellowship with death; which yet, with all their precautions, it was not easy for them to escape.” (Eusebius 'Ecclestiastical Histories' 7.22.7–10). The Romans died in fear but the Christians died cheerfully, knowing that “that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

So as we ease ourselves out of this lockdown, let's learn again not to fear people (because the worst they can do to us is kill us and death is not to be feared) and to love them as God's beloved image-bearers (and that includes you!).