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