The Covidian Construct

The Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth is thought to have been built on the spot where Christ's conception took place in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. Inscribed on this church's altar are the words: "Verbum caro hic factum est [the Word here was made flesh]." There is no greater declaration of the doctrine of the incarnation than this, for it points to that specific place where the process began in which the invisible God was becoming a visible sight for us to behold. The Church points to that place, over there, in that part of Nazareth during the reign of Augustus Caesar where the intangible thought of the Father, who expressing Himself as the Eternal Word from eternity, became tangibly within the grasp of His own creation. At that place He became flesh and took up an insignificant amount of space in His cosmos with the significance of His divinity. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us"(Jn 1:14) not in theory, but in fact, and it happened right there.

The core of the Christian faith is found in the historical and physical facticity of Jesus Christ's body in the incarnation. For the faith is not backed merely by spiritual insight, rational argument, or the force of pragmatic benefit to be had for the believer in believing it; it is backed by the reality of the divine presence touching earth by a certain individual at a certain time in recorded history with His body.

The other doctrine that expresses this tangibility of Christ's flesh on earth is His bodily resurrection from the dead. Our Lord did not appear in a mere spiritual vision to his disciples after He had been dead for three days. He came to them in a body so corporeal that He asked them if they had caught any fish for Him to eat (c.f. Jn 21:1-14). It is none other than the concreteness of Christ's body in the resurrection accounts that the faith's veracity hinges on. St. Paul teaches: "If Christ has not been raised [in His body], then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain"(1 Cor 15:14).

It is by the objectivity of His bodily presence both at the incarnation and at the resurrection that the faith of the Christian is kept from becoming futile. It is by the presence or the absence of His body that the faith is confirmed or destroyed.

Moreover, in addition to the importance of the spatial presence of Christ's body in our world (not only 2000 years ago but also in His perpetual presence in the most holy Eucharist today), there is still another essential element to the Christian faith: this is the notion that human fulfillment can only be achieved in Heaven where man will see the face of God. As it stands now we cannot see His face and live (c.f. Ex 33:20), yet the ability to see God's face remains the yearning of every Christian heart (c.f. Ps 13:1, Ps 31:16, Ps 42:2, Ps 80:19, Ps 119:135, Ps 143:7, Dt 34:10, 1 Cor 13:12, Rv 22:4). Everybody strives to see it for it is believed that in its countenance all will be well.

So it is in these two things that Christian hope centers itself on: the physicality of His presence and the vision of His face.

Unfortunately, these two hopes have been quickly obscured in the span of a year by the abrupt mania that has ensued with the arrival of the corona virus. A virus-driven ideology has been formed that has set itself in opposition to the faith of Christians by becoming a counter-religion in itself with devastating effects to the true faith. Primarily, we see this new pseudo-religion: 1. deny the importance of both Christ's and man's body in the world and 2. deny the importance of God and man's face as a window to Heaven.

It might seem a stretch to view our society's response to the virus so gravely, however, before making this argument it will do us well to make a comparison. We can liken how our society has reacted to the virus to how the body reacts to it in some individuals during an infection with complications. Cytokine release syndrome occurs when an infection triggers the immune system to flood the bloodstream with inflammatory proteins that, instead of helping the body fight off the illness, kill tissue and damage organs; the body's response to the virus' presence goes awry in the face of the virus and does more damage to itself than good.

It seems that just as the immune system has lost its ability to properly function in these cases, so too has our societal system lost its equilibrium with the corona virus' arrival; though simply trying to stop the virus' spread, the measures encouraged and implemented by our society have wreaked havoc on everything else besides the virus. The mindset that has been adopted by the majority to stop the virus' spread has created measures that have sent our world into shock and have indeed caused more harm than good. The philosophical and pseudo-religious implications of this shock are far-reaching and yet to be fully appreciated.

The Body's Presence. First, how has this ideology's reaction to the corona virus denied the importance of one's bodily presence at any given place in our world? How has it indiscreetly downplayed the pivotal role Christ's body played in His incarnation, in His ministry, and in His resurrection? How have the safety measures implemented in response to this virus attacked man's corporeal understanding of himself?

Our society's reaction to the virus has successfully convinced many people to not be physically present in the spaces they once frequented. Because the virus is transmitted by person-to-person interaction, it is reasoned that there is no better way to stop its spread than to simply prevent people from interacting in-person (i.e. with their bodies). In fact, it has declared that there is no longer anything so important as to require it being done in-person at all.

But it was initially asked: how are we to work without being present with others in our workplace? How are we to worship without being present with others in our church? How are we to vote without being present with others at the polls? How will our kids learn without being present with others in the classroom? How are we do anything without being present with others doing them?

The innovative response epidemiologists and tech companies provided us: Go virtual. We were told that to do all these things remotely- especially on a computer- is not only a smart way to avoid person-to-person contact, it in fact more efficient, more safe, and more considerate of others well-being.

But is not something lost when we shrug off the need for one to be physically present performing certain actions with others in a given place? Is an act qualitatively the same thing when one presents himself in-person to do it as when he chooses to do it from a distance? Is the spatial absence of a corporeal being acting remotely consistent with the design God ordained in making him an embodied soul?

It would seem with the coming of the corona virus we have quickly become discomfited from presenting ourselves anywhere in-person because we have been gradually adopting a sort of Cartesian duality that places primary emphasis on one's spirit/mind over one's body. By our disregard of the intrinsic connection between one's spirit and body working together, we have decided our body only plays a minor role in how we relate to the world and does not need to be present when we act. We think one's body is simply an added accessory and that it is primarily one's mind and heart that speak. Hence, we are told to let our bodies stay home while our spirits encounter the world -always from a "safe" distance- via the internet.

This is certainly a different anthropology than that which had previously been accepted by most of us when we thought of there being an intrinsic connection between the body and soul. However, even as we now critique our current undervaluing of the body's presence as it pertains to defining who a person is, it still must be admitted that distinguishing one's spirit from one's body is beneficial for us as we try to understand ourselves as embodied souls. There is even some truth in giving priority to one's spirit over one's body for we hear Christ speak to Nicodemus: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (Jn 3:5-6). And to the Samaritan woman: "The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth"(Jn 4:23-24). A great deal of the Sermon on the Mount juxtaposes physical actions to the inner movements of the heart (c.f. Mt 5-6). It is quite clear our Lord valued the conditioning of one's spirit above that of caring for the body.

But let us not overstate that. There is also great deception to be found in a view that overemphasizes the spirit to the neglect of the body. Christ healed many bodies, not just hearts (c.f. Mk 1:29-34, Mt 9:18-26, Mk 7 31-37 to name a few) and a consistent theme in all these healings is the physical proximity/contact of Christ's body with the person in need of healing. Of course we are reminded that He did on occasion perform miraculous healings without being physically in contact with the sick (e.g. Mt 8:5-13) but few and far between were the times when Jesus Christ worked remotely! Rather, His ministry thrived on in-person business in the flesh, whether He was around the healthy or the contagious. It would be nonsense for us to imagine the paschal mystery performed remotely as if Christ's body were not actually there on the cross, in the grave, and in His glory (though this form of nonsense had been imagined in the past and is known to us today as the heresy of Docetism).

And why would it be otherwise? We are not souls stuck in bodies as Plato would have it nor are we merely atoms congregated in mass to form a body as Democritus thought. We are embodied spirits where the union of spirit and body is as such that when disunited from each other the result is our very dying. Our body is not inconsequential for it determines the way we exist. Certainly one's spiritual presence matters, but so does one's physical presence as well. Our bodies speak by their very presence in a given spot.

This truth is not acknowledged in the age of the virus. Our physical presence for various activities is not only not requested, it is frowned upon for fear of what we might be carrying around in our germ-laden selves. Bodies need not be present for work, for church, for school, or for shopping. It is assumed everyone is now sick so it is best to isolate. Too bad if deep depression overshadows you because of your loneliness; flip your screen on to video-chat a friend we are told, it is just as good as a real visit.

But the Christian objects to all this nonsense. He wonders how much harm will social-distancing do to society in the long run. He wonders how much has been lost by our self- imposed isolations. He wonders what psychological effects will result now that the government has forbidden physical contact between individuals and furthermore stipulated how close they can "safely" approach one another. He asks: if Christ were to come tomorrow offering physical healing to any who might approach, would most people be too timid to come within six feet of Him? The corona virus is quickly dislodging the spirit of contemporary man from his body as he is instructed to do all things from a distance. It seems that from its outset the virus had already begun its work destroying man's ability to think for himself by dislodging his head.

The Face. Now what about the face? We have briefly spoken of the Christian's ultimate hope to see the face of God in Heaven so now we must look at how the religion of public health has begun to chip away at this very idea of Heaven itself.

When the scriptures speak of God's face, insofar as God is spirit, it must be remembered He has no literal face. Apart from the Son taking on flesh and thereby gaining a physical face, the language of the divine face is figurative. We speak of seeing God's face as an image of what it means to apprehend the reality of who God is in His fullness and thereby unite with Him through means of this apprehension (c.f. 1 Jn 3:2). It is the face we speak of as a fitting image that allows us to grasp a certain depth of God's being that we would not be able to access otherwise except by a certain "face-to-face" encounter with Him.

Though we speak of God's face in just a spiritual sense, when we speak of the human face we are speaking both in a spiritual and a physical sense. Man too, who has been created in the image and likeness of God (c.f. Gn 1:26), has a face that somehow participates in that reality of manifesting a certain depth of his presence in the world. Because of this, the visible human face acts as a certain window, not only into a man's own soul and the communion he is inviting others to share with him as they look upon his revealed face, but also as a window into Heaven where communion is to be had with the very countenance of God. Man's face acts as a sign pointing to communion with both God and men.

Thus, how do we explain the detriment caused by the hiding of our faces on such a large scale with surgical masks because of the virus? How are we to fathom the successful proselytism the virologists have accomplished (more fevered than any genuinely Christian proselytism of the past) which have forced everyone to be signed with the mark of a face covering almost overnight? What are we to make of scriptural imagery alluding to the face of God as it will inevitably become harder and harder for us to make sense of such imagery the longer we remain in this brave new world we have created?

We can only admit that for too long the exposed face has been taken for granted and has not been seen as holy and as unique as it is. And now, with the tipping point of the corona virus, the distinguishing sign that once was the face is no longer acknowledged. That sign of one's very identity- his face- was once was able to reveal itself to others and declare: "I am here and am to be recognized as such". Now masked, the face does not call out for such recognition. We are at the point when a face exposed without a covering -which is as infrequent as common sense is in this our age of insanity- is no longer recognized as a statement of one's presence, but a threat to another's health! Now, it is assumed literally everyone walks around as a potential executioner of his brother and the only way to stop mass executions from happening is to cover every aperture on each face to prevent what is lethal in us from escaping out into the air we breathe. No longer is feeling healthy a good enough excuse for one to not act as if he were sick. The human person has drastically changed his image of himself and how he is to interact with others with this mentality.

Nonetheless, it might be brought to attention that men have in the past similarly covered their heads. We initially think of Moses veiling his face after his talks with God face-to-face (c.f. Ex 34:33-35); but here, he veiled his face to keep the splendor of his countenance which had been transfigured by God's presence from blinding those around him not accustomed to such light. Women too used to veil themselves in church (indeed some still do, especially brides); but in these cases, the veils are more like the veil we place over the tabernacle itself. It is there to protect the mystery that is present within, just as on a woman it is meant to honor and protect the mystery of her feminine nature. In both instances, the veil is meant to keep what is holy inside from being debased by the profane sight of others. It is there to protect the mystery within.

The surgical mask is not about this at all. It is mandated to be worn in order to keep an evil (that in all likelihood has a very small chance of being there in a given moment) from getting out and into another's body. The viral mask is more like Rev. Mr. Hooper and his black veil. The minister's dark veil worn over his face was there to remind the world there is a dark sin in each of us that is too shameful to expose to view (c.f. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minister's Black Veil). Now it is merely the human face on each of us that is too shameful to expose to view.

Because of this, no longer is the face a good sight, nor even a neutral sight to behold. Now it is classified as a potential threat. For in spite of all the good that it may bring to the world with the cheerfulness of its joyful expressions, it may also bring the virus and its transmission with its sneezing, coughing, breathing, speaking, singing, yes, even with its smile. In the age of a virus, it is best we mask all that risk to be on the safe side.

But, in truth, when the face of man is no longer visible in the world what else becomes invisible? God Himself does. We can no longer see Him because we can no longer see each other. God has bound up knowing Him with knowing our neighbor so closely that to obscure our vision of our neighbor is to obscure our vision of God. When we view others as mere threats to our health and well-being, at what point do we begin to see Him as a threat to us as well?

It is for this reason that the modern-day prophet will be the one who goes into the world with his face exposed. Indeed, he will begin the Counter-Covid Reformation in this way. This person -who by revealing the beauty and clarity of his own face- will declare to the world the presence of almighty God who made man in His image. And just as Jonah preferred the danger of the sea to encountering the Ninevites with God's message, so too will the unmasked man desire to be swallowed by a whale rather than face the judgmental eyes that will look upon his naked face. Nevertheless, reveal his face he must in order to proclaim the glory of God at work in his countenance!

The grave situation we have created by the masking of our faces has yet to be fully appreciated. The 20th-century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas identified the face as a mode of being that dominates all other ways we encounter the world (c.f. God, Death, and Time). Consequently, the French thinker speaks of death as the annihilation of that mode of being; death is the annihilation of the face. However, in the age of the virus we no longer need death to do that for us, we have done it with our masks.

Calling Out the Construct. Thus, we see that not only the body's role in the world has been disregarded in our society's fight against the virus, but also the face's significance has been rejected as well. There is still much more collateral damage from our viral war, but it seems that it is these two realities- at the heart of our beloved Christian faith- are the ones that have been repudiated so vehemently. In their rejection lies confusion and despair.

Nevertheless, it is continually argued by the experts (or rather simply dictated by them without much rational argument allowed) that these measures must be used to stop the death and destruction caused by the novel corona virus. Perhaps one might even agree with them if we were dealing with a virus whose death toll was comparable to that mysterious plague that killed a quarter of the population of Athens during the Peloponnesian War in the 5th-century BC, or the bubonic plague of Justinian in the sixth-century which killed half of the population of the city of Constantinople, or of the Black Death during the 14th-century which killed a third of the population of all Europe. Maybe if the corona virus' lethality could be likened to the smallpox during the American Revolution as it wiped out a quarter of the population of a town like Morristown, NJ, one might begin to see the need for such stringent precautions; but- and perhaps this is the elephant in the room- the mortality rate of the corona virus of 2019 is proportionally speaking nowhere near as destructive as these epidemics. It is perplexing to think of the disproportionate response we are demanded to take in the face of this virus' presence.

Yet, still are we inundated with the message, even on signs in the bathrooms of our churches: "Germs are everywhere!" Germs, it is believed, imbue the air we breath, the things we touch, the faces we look upon so much so that we must watch out with all caution. We must drastically alter the way we live so as to stop transmission at all costs.

But perhaps other things besides germs are everywhere too: could angels be everywhere? what about demons? maybe even God Himself is everywhere? Of course a religion centered on public health would never acknowledge that, just as it does not acknowledge the importance of one's physical presence nor the need of the visible human face and they have done quite a job persuading others to follow suit: all things are done remotely, all faces are masked, and for good measure, all holy water fonts have been abandoned in favor of hand-sanitizing stations, for we can all agree that the washing of away of germs supersedes the washing away of sins.

The desire of well-meaning individuals to stop the corona virus in its tracks is indeed praiseworthy to an extent, however, their inability to place this virus in its proper context shows a lack of wisdom. "If in order to live it is necessary not to live, then what's it all for?"(Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). In response to the virologists' worldview that demands everyone to cease living in order to be safe from a virus, this question, which was asked by Solzhenitsyn in a very different (but maybe not so different) context, ought to now be asked. In the face of "stopping the spread" they have cast aside everything else that people previously held dear. All other topics that pertain to man's flourishing, happiness, and fulfillment have been jettisoned for the sake of this one issue of public health. Their "charity" is suffocating to those who still feel that there is more to life than creating a perfectly safe environment artificially made to preserve our health. Indeed, disregarding any other truth, their zealous concern of being rid of this one specific disease will always have the final word in shaping the society of tomorrow. But we must be wary lest our new society's shape may begin to look uglier than the virus itself for it is impossible to not think we are living "in one of those sudden panics all nations know, when people's fears for their own safety have been worked upon and they turn cruel"(Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way).

For we now see a new vision of heaven has ingrained itself in the hearts of individuals as a result of the virus. This heaven does not bring us to the face of God but to a mere return to the way things were: when we could go over another's house to share a meal; when we could shake hands and embrace; when we could let a child see the face of their parent smiling at them at a public playground. But in order for this heaven to be brought about, we must await the new messiah who will accomplish it: the long-anticipated vaccine that will deliver us back to such nostalgic times. Being vaccinated will supplant being baptized. In effect, vaccination will be baptism for this new world and this new religion and those who choose to not undergo this baptism might as well be cast into the outer darkness.

So we hear the Covidian priests proclaiming from their virtual pulpits out of their masked-mouths: "Let the Christians hold onto their antiquated beliefs in bodily presence and human faces. Let them have their holy water and their communal meals. Let them think heaven is something more than bodily health and safety. Let them believe in the reality of invisible things they claim one cannot even see under a microscope, not because they are too small, but because they are too grand. Let them believe all those foolish things like individual liberty, independent critical thinking, personal responsibility, corporeal fellowship, supernatural grace, and the like. Let us see if their bodies are resurrected at the end of time and they behold the face of God. Meanwhile, King Covid XIX is here and everyone must pay him their homage, if not with a pinch of incense, then by at least making public health the new compass that directs their lives. Ad maiorem hominis sanitatem!"