Tracing the Hand of God in Current Events?

The Virgin of the Apocalypse

Stories of the rapid spread of COVID-19, the coronavirus, have been sounding apocalyptic. Stories of people collapsing in the street. Cruise ships wandering the seas, refused all harbour. Especially combined with the plague of locusts sweeping through Africa and Asia at the same time. And, oh yes, the prior and ongoing disease infecting the Asian pork supply.

None of this really has the potential to be literally apocalyptic—the end of the world. Nevertheless, could we be seeing the wrath of God? Does God have it in for East Asia?

Most readers, no doubt, who are not Evangelical Christians, will scoff. We are beyond such superstitious notions, surely.

Nevertheless, the Evangelicals have a point. In the Old Testament it is plain that God sends plagues to express displeasure. Read the Book of Exodus.

Moreover, it simply stands to reason. Given that God exists and gives a damn what happens to man, why wouldn’t he? Of course he would.

God exists; we know that from cold logic. So it is not such a silly notion after all.

Ha, the worshippers of the great god Science will respond, we have had many such plagues throughout history. Where’s the evidence that they ever did any social good, rather than being random disasters?

Good of you to ask. Consider the Black Death. I have seen the argument that it led to the end of serfdom and the rise of democracy. Aside from discrediting existing regimes, it forced up the price of labour, obliging the ruling class to treat the common laboring people better.

Or the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The argument is common that it shook the facile confidence in the status quo that characterized the early Enlightenment, and prompted the Romantic rebellion. Which led, soon enough, to the American and the French Revolutions, and liberal democracy as we know it.

Those two are off the top of my head. I suspect examples could be multiplied, if anyone dared attempt such an interpretation of history.

An important qualification must be made here. It is equally clear that God does not send plagues or other natural disasters to punish sin. That is too facile. Jesus refers us to the tower of Siloam:

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

We all die anyway. God does not need to send a disaster for this purpose, and there would be no point in doing so. He kills us one by one. Nor does physical death amount to a punishment, for a good man.

Rather, a plague or disaster can eliminate a sinful culture or regime, one that is promoting sin.

This was the case for the Egyptian plagues. It was not that the Egyptians who suffered from the plagues were sinful. The intent was to change the policies of the Egyptian government, which was enslaving and committing genocide.

This was presumably the case for Sodom and Gomorrah. According to the Bible, there was not one inhabitant who was not guilty, but apart from this, clearly, these were cultures that socially endorsed homosexual gang rape.

And the Canaanites, according to the Bible, practiced ritual child sacrifice. While not a natural disaster, this led Yahweh to command the Hebrews to wipe them out. The sin was not individual; it was embedded in the culture.

Now, uncannily enough, the progress of the coronavirus up to this point actually looks as though it fits this premise.

If you were God, which world government or culture would you most want to turn from their present course, or perhaps overthrow?

Surely the government of China would be at the top of that list. They are officially atheist, and warring against religion. While not the world’s worst government in this regard—that would be North Korea—China also holds the largest proportion of the human population under its control, and has the greatest ability to project its power and influence elsewhere.

High time, if you were God, to take them down.

Significantly, the Chinese people think the same way: they are primed to understand any natural disaster as the fault of the government. It is an indication of Heaven’s anger. So apart from the fact that the government of China might be blameworthy for being the apparent source of the virus—if it escaped from a government lab—and for trying to suppress reporting of it early on, sending the virus to China may be an efficient means for God to express his will and get results.

Now what about North Korea? Also atheist, also aggressively anti-religious. We do not know what is happening in North Korea—the government controls all information flow. But rumours are that the disease is already rampant there.

And Koreans share the Chinese idea about the “mandate of heaven.”

But why then is it also hitting South Korea?

Not, to begin with, in order to overthrow the government. Since South Korea now has a functioning democracy, a plague seems unnecessary and overkill. Unless it is aimed in this case at something in the popular culture.

Korea is an incubator for a lot of strange religious sects. Koreans are deeply religious, in a sense, but often in a frivolous way. The virus raging there was spread primarily by and through one of them, Shincheonji. Whatever else the virus may end up doing there, it seems well targeted to discredit that sect, the leader of which proclaims himself the Second Coming of Christ. This makes him, in Christian terms, the Antichrist.

Suppose the virus is soon checked in South Korea; then this will be the main effect it has had: to discredit Shincheonji, and perhaps other such unorthodox millennial sects.

After North Korea, the government I’d most like to see fall is Iran. Aside from being oppressive towards its own people, Iran has been exporting trouble across the region if not the world. And working on nuclear capability. While nominally religious, it is not religiously orthodox. In the context of Shia Islam, as I understand it, a theocratic government is, in the absence of the Imam, a blasphemy. Mixing politics and religion can and usually does result in a takeover of religion for political purposes, rather than vice versa. God is entirely liable to want to snuff that out.

And the virus seems to be on track to spread more thoroughly through Iran than perhaps even China.

Although Qom seems to be the centre of the Iranian outbreak, pilgrimages to Qom have not been suspended, and the holy sites remain open. The government’s reported reasoning is that the pilgrimage to Qom is healing, and therefore valuable in order to fight the illness.

Which may encourage those experiencing symptoms to do their best to get to Qom, and mix with the crowds.

This is putting the Lord your God to the test; this is necromancy.

It also reminds us that the legitimacy of the Iranian government relies heavily, like China’s, on the supposed mandate of heaven.

If the outbreak gets truly out of hand there, it is therefore a clear indication, even to the government itself, that God is against the government.

What about all the poor pilgrims who might die on the Qom pilgrimage? Doesn’t God care about them?

The logic of the tower of Siloam is familiar to Islam as well. If one dies on pilgrimage, by tradition, once goes straight to heaven.

The one other nation in which the virus seems currently out of control is Italy.

As with South Korea, Italy has a functioning democracy; so a plague is not useful in order to change a government.

But as with South Korea, Italy is the international headquarters of another religious group: the Vatican.

Not that Catholicism is a millennial cult; but any good Catholic will say that there is a problem at the Vatican. A year ago, a lot of Catholics were calling on Pope Francis to resign, because of his evident implication in the McCarrick scandal in the US. Before that, people were speaking of a corrupt “Lavender Mafia” dominating matters in Rome.

Unfortunately, in Catholic tradition, there is no way to remove a Pope if he will not resign. Meaning the only way may be for God to intervene. The pope and the men at the Vatican who are ultimately responsible for this rot in the church, if the accusations are true, are elderly. They are in the age cohort most likely to find the coronavirus to be fatal.

Sending the virus to Italy might be, in part, for this purpose. After all, the Vatican is, like Qom, a pilgrimage site, especially from other parts of Italy. This Pope likes to get close to the crowds and grasp hands.

Reportedly, the Pope himself has now fallen ill. There is no indication yet that it is the coronavirus.

Again, if so, this is not to be understood as punishment for sin. Yet if the present pope’s policies are seriously misguided, and spiritually harmful, God might well want to call him quickly upstairs, for the good of all his church.

Now; why an epicentre in Northern Italy, instead of Rome?

Because that is closer to the border.

The appearance of the virus in northern Italy seems also as if calculated to challenge the EU concept, which is first and foremost that of open borders. The easy spread of the virus across borders lacking any stops or customs checks amounts to a compelling argument to ratchet back on the “ever closer union” enterprise. Maybe there was a reason for those borders that we all overlooked.

One is reminded of Chesterton’s advice: never tear down a fence until you can say why it was there in the first place.

It is perhaps not self-evident that God should be opposed to the EU or globalization; or that he should prefer the nation-state. Unless you remember the story of the Tower of Babel. That is the Biblical account of the creation of nations—by God, precisely to prevent the enterprise of a world government. This was considered human presumption. There is only one rightful world king, and anyone else presuming to that office is the Antichrist.

Or unless you remember the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity, declared by Pope Pius XI “a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable.” The moral principle is that decisions should always be made at as close to the individual level as possible. This is to respect the essential moral importance of free will. Free will is why we exist. This principle of subsidiarity the EU violates, in forever drawing more decisions to the distant centre.

And because the structure of the EU is not democratic, and beyond even national control, it cannot be turned or thwarted by lesser means. It might take a virus to make the point.

If so, part of the point must be made by having the virus now spread through the EU. Which seems to be happening.

If, as looks likely at the moment, the virus then spreads everywhere, the fact that it infected China, Iran, North Korea, Shincheonji, and the Vatican may be insignificant. And it will look far less like some divine judgement.

If, on the other hand, the virus is one way or another stopped soon in its tracks, this will strengthen my impression that it has been God’s weapon to root out specific sick governments and organizations.

There are early indications that the virus may have peaked in China; although we cannot trust the government figures. It seems to have been contained in Singapore and in Vietnam. There are also claims here and there of some effective inoculation or treatment coming soon.

It is striking to me, in the meanwhile, that the virus does not seem to have spread in the Philippines. This seems a little uncanny, because Filipinos are working abroad everywhere, more than any other nationality, and always coming and going. There are especially a lot of Filipinos in Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, regularly flying back and forth. People are accustomed to flying to Manila from Hong Kong just for the weekend.

The islands even recorded three early cases; all Chinese. One died, the first death from the virus outside China. The other two have now recovered. Yet no spread, so far as we know. Moreover, Filipinos live packed closely together, ideal for virus spread.

How to account for the difference, while the disease has jumped containment during the same period in Japan, South Korea, and Iran?

Perhaps because in the Philippines it would not serve to upset a disordered culture or regime.

Say what you want about the current Duterte administration; say what you will about Philippines government corruption. The Philippines is nevertheless a functioning democracy; such extreme measures as a plague are not required to change things. And the Philippine culture itself is genuinely religious. Were the government system or the culture to collapse, it is unlikely it would be replaced by anything better.

And so this looks like preliminary evidence that the virus is selective and divinely directed.

Events may prove me wrong. We shall see.