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Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Christoph
STUECKELBERGER
President and Founder of Globethics.net Foundation
Professor of Theological Ethics, Geneva
Switzerland
Rev. Lect. Cosmin-Tudor CIOCAN, PhD
The Faculty of Theology,
Ovidius University of Constanta
Romania
The new Coronavirus, namely Sars-CoV-2, took the world by surprise
and grew into a pandemic worldwide (called COVID-19 pandemic) in a
couple of months since the beginning of 2020. It managed to lockdown at
home almost half of the world population under the threat of illness and
sudden death. Due to the extreme medical advises of containing the
spread and damages of this threat, mostly directed towards social
distancing, public gatherings cancelation, and contact tracing, each
State imposed such regulations to their people and for all areas of
social activity, including the religious ones. This articles analyses
four topics: 1. Restrictions imposed by the State and reactions by
religious organizations. The theological-ethical response focused on the
fact that all religions what to save lives and defeat death. 2. The
pandemic shows the sensitive relation between the State and religions
and shows the differences in power relations in the different countries.
The theological-ethical response calls for a partnership between the
State and the religions in their territory. 3. The relation between
science and religion is tested during the pandemic. Whereas the majority
of believers adhere to scientific results, a good part refuses
scientific knowledge. The theological-ethical response of the authors is
that science and religion are complementary and not contradictory. 4.
Pandemics as situations of high uncertainty are often accompanied by
conspiracy theories that claim to know who is guilty for the disaster,
who is the scapegoat, which has to be punished. The theological-ethical
response gives theological reasons to say no to conspiracies and
scapegoats and yes to take responsibility wherever we are in order to
save lives.
CLIK
