Pandemics and religion go hand in hand. Often, this association expands to crises in general, with historical anecdotes showing that people often viewed such events as the wrath of God, or the gods in polytheistic societies. For example, in the Iliad, one of the most famous books from Ancient Greece, the Achaean army, under the command of Agamemnon, is afflicted with a plague by Apollo, the Greek god of the Sun. While the Iliad is a work of fiction, the same principle of plagues being the wrath of God(s) still applies to other plagues of ye olden days, especially the Black Plague of medieval Europe. However, crises, pandemic or otherwise, tend to increase religiosity, even if for a brief time during and after the crisis. In the COVID-19 Pandemic, religiosity has been on the rise. According to a poll by Pew Research Center in 2020, more than half of people surveyed said that they had prayed for an end to the virus at that time. The question is, will the increase in religiosity be permanent, or just something that happened during COVID to help people cope?
According to an article in VOXEU by Jeanet Bentzen, COVID could very well increase religiosity permanently. In her article, Bentzen states that a permanent shift in religiosity resulting from COVID could “impact the wider economy,” suggesting that if religion dampened people’s anxiety surrounding the economy, then religious communities could see greater recovery, even if said recovery is only marginally greater than others. Bentzen also suggests that the main reason for the increase in religiosity is as a coping mechanism, also known as religious coping. People pray when faced with adversity, typically for peace, comfort, relief, and a host of other things.
Religion has historically been used as a mechanism to help people cope. For example, in a study completed by Jeanet Bentzen, it was found that people who live in areas prone to earthquakes tend to be more religious, with that effect being generational and permanent. The hypothesis for this phenomenon is that because people living in earthquake-prone areas are faced with regular adversity, they tend to use religion to cope with the above average levels of hardship presented to them. This also supports a larger hypothesis that people who are existentially insecure tend to be more religious than those who are more secure in life. On top of that, religious coping tends to be more prevalent than other forms of coping and is among the most common coping mechanisms used by most people.
During the black plague of medieval times, people used religion as an explanation for the massive increase in death, claiming that it was God’s wrath upon the sinful masses. The view that the plague was to punish the sinful was a driving factor in the incessant persecution of Jews during the plague, with burning and slaughter of Jews being a staple of the plague period. Jews were regularly arrested based on the suspicion that they poisoned the well, murdered Christian children in secret, or anything that they could think of as an excuse to execute Jews.
However, contrast that with the reaction to the Plague in the Middle East, where Islam was (and still is) the dominant religion. Contrary to viewing the Plague as punishment, Muslims viewed the plague as a gift from God, providing martyrdom to the people who died, whose souls would be transported to paradise. (Mark, 2020) Also contrary to the Catholic beliefs of the time, Muslim officials in the Middle East declared that people ought to stay where they are if they lived in an area affected by the Plague; meanwhile, Europeans would regularly move in order to escape the “bad air” which they believed to be the cause of the pandemic. (Mark, 2020) However, in the Middle East, people tended to simply ignore the decree and moved anyways.
The most striking difference between the European response and the Middle Eastern response to the Plague was that in the Middle East, there has been no evidence of persecution of Jews; in fact, it’s suggested that Jewish physicians were highly regarded in the Plague years by people living in the Middle East, even though they could do no better than other physicians of the time. (Mark 2020)
Historically, pandemics have been a driver of religiosity, causing spikes in religion during the pandemic and after, for a short period of time. Reactions to the pandemic are often very different based on the religion that’s being talked about. For example, Catholics reacted to the black death in the medieval times by persecuting Jews and other minorities, many of whom were suspected to be carriers of the plague or committing some sort of sorcery/witchcraft to avoid being infected. On the other hand, Muslims in the Middle East viewed the plague as a merciful gift to the people who were infected, claiming that anyone who died would be transported to paradise in the afterlife and be made a martyr for the living.
COVID-19 has had similar effects on the levels of religiosity in the world, albeit a lot less violent. More than half of Americans reported praying for an end to the pandemic at some point in the early stages, which is supportive of the hypothesis of religious coping. One could also argue that the reactions of the people in the medieval black death were a much more violent, much less restricted form of religious coping in the Catholic response. The Muslim response to the black death was also a form of religious coping, as the people used religion to try and get them through a pandemic as unscathed as possible, mainly by way of prayer. After all, religion has always been important to humanity since it was conceived and has gotten us through many hardships throughout our history; that much is for certain. Just as certain is the fact that religion will remain important to us for years to come, and will get us through many more hardships, pandemic or not.
WORKS CITED
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Goodman, Bryan. “Faith in a Time of Crisis.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, 11 May 2020, https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19/faith-crisis.
Witvliet, John D, et al. “Calvin University.” Calvin Institute of Christian Worship – for the Study and Renewal of Worship – Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, 23 Mar. 2020, https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/pandemics-and-public-worship-throughout-history.
Pargament, Kenneth I., et al. “Religious Coping Methods as Predictors of Psychological, Physical and Spiritual Outcomes among Medically Ill Elderly Patients: A Two-Year Longitudinal Study.” Journal of Health Psychology, vol. 9, no. 6, 2004, pp. 713–730., https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105304045366.
“Most Americans Say Coronavirus Outbreak Has Impacted Their Lives.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, Pew Research Center, 4 Sept. 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/03/30/most-americans-say-coronavirus-outbreak-has-impacted-their-lives/?utm_source=link_newsv9&utm_campaign=item_307619&utm_medium=copy.
Zimmermann@stlouisfed.org, and Jeanet Sinding Bentzen. “Acts of God? Religiosity and Natural Disasters across Subnational Worl.” Discussion Papers, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics, 14 Apr. 2015, https://ideas.repec.org/p/kud/kuiedp/1506.html.
Bentzen, Jeanet. “Rising Religiosity as a Global Response to Covid-19 Fear.” VOX, CEPR Policy Portal, 9 June 2020, https://voxeu.org/article/rising-religiosity-global-response-covid-19-fear.
Mark, Joshua J. “Religious Responses to the Black Death.” World History Encyclopedia, World History Encyclopedia, 25 Apr. 2022, https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1541/religious-responses-to-the-black-death/.
