Guest Post: Panxiety

I dutifully sang ‘God Save The Queen’ whilst washing my hands in the staff toilets yesterday. I wasn’t sure what was helping my anxiety more, invoking the name of the Queen or using lots of powerful soap: If you are of an anxious disposition the Corona Virus outbreak is an emotional nightmare come true. As a Christian it feels like navigating a minefield, so what to do? What should our Christian response be to the anxiety of pandemic? How can we be both faith filled and do everything we can to avoid getting sick?

Plagues are nothing new! I was watching The Prince of Egypt Musical just before this all erupted (Smugly singing along whilst all of the Egyptians were getting boils and being overwhelmed with frogs). It all seemed so matter of fact on the page of my bible, now I am living in it and I realise it must have been utterly TERRIFYING! At the same time, there is comfort in the knowledge that illnesses have come and gone throughout history. God promises never to leave us or forsake us whatever our circumstances.

OK, so I have met a few Christians who are totally fatalistic, like they have some sort of spiritual forcefield around them that will protect them from Covid-19. Should we all adopt this faith filled position? No absolutely not. In fact, this sort of spiritual showboating is one of the reasons why the virus has taken such a firm grip on South Korea. As Christians I believe that we have a social responsibility to model the best practise guidance of our government, whether we believe we have some sort of spiritual immunity or not (which I don’t believe I have!)

1 Peter 2:17 says, “Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king (or queen).” I believe that our Christian duty to honour others by washing our hands as instructed and taking the difficult guidance of social distancing seriously. A young guy turned up to church last week, he had been to a high-risk area and was supposed to be in quarantine. The conversation went along the lines of; “Hi, you are here? I thought you were in quarantine?” “Oh yeh, I have done ten days but I am so bored, plus I really didn’t want to miss church!” No exactly confidence building!

If you are reading this you are probably not in Camp Confident and that brings me onto the worried well (of which I am a member). I was at Luton airport a week ago and most people were following the sensible advice we all know. A few people had pretty much bought HAZMAT suits on the internet and we looking at us like we were part of a Zombie apocalypse! Whilst it is tempting, I believe that we need to resist the anxious energy that leads up to take disproportionate steps to self-preservation.

Faith is not about recklessly flaunting the guidance about self and community protection, it is equally not about running blindly for the hills. Faith is, as Hebrews 11:1 says, ‘Confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.’ As hard as it might be in the current climate, exhibiting a gentle confidence and carrying an assurance of the love and presence of God could be the most helpful thing any of us could do.

What about when my fear gets a grip on me? The first thing to remember is that fear is a health and God given response to any threat. It is completely natural to feel afraid when you sense that you health or the health or your family is at risk. You cannot stop the instinctual release of adrenaline that comes with the perception of danger but you can give your reason time to catch up with it.

One of my huge frustrations about this outbreak has been the medias incessant fear selling. It seems to me in a culture that is supposed to be more mental health friendly we might have seem a bit more responsible journalism. The difficulty is that people who struggle with anxiety (Over 6% of the population) are already likely to catastrophise this situation, the media is legitimizing their worst case scenarios.

Will Van Der Hart is pastoral chaplain at HTB Church, and author (with Dr Rob Waller) of The Worry Book, The Guilt Book and The Perfectionism Book.