I have watched the COVID-19 pandemic as a biomedical researcher with a half-century career in respiratory virus diseases, and as a religionist with dual credentials: a lifelong Latter-day Saint and a member of the Board of Governors of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.
By the time we achieve “herd immunity” to COVID-19, regular worship services will have been suspended or drastically curtailed for over a year. While many will long to return to the religious life they had before the pandemic, others will have shifted gears and become accustomed to meeting-free Sundays.
How many will return to the pews and what their level of engagement will be are questions looming over all faith traditions in which communal services have been the centerpiece of religious life for centuries.
The gray-haired faithful, of which I am one, are likely to return to communal worship, if for no other reason than decades of deeply ingrained habit suffused with duty. But the young are bound neither by habit nor duty. Even in the pre-pandemic world, they were leaving institutional religion in droves, regardless of the tradition of their parents — hence, the dramatic rise of the “nones,” younger people who are spiritually inclined but unchurched.
The silver lining of the pandemic is that it obliges us to rethink everything in our lives, including religion. Those who emerge from the rethinking and merely return to religion as usual will waste a good crisis, for in too many cases that will mean a return to “Christ-centered boredom.” Simply put, if kids are bored, they are gone.
What religion has historically offered fills libraries; what it offers in a post-pandemic world might be summarized in three simple phrases: truth claims, moral authority, and community. For the younger demographics, set aside truth claims — the backbone of religious conviction for so many of the older demographics. Even talking about them to youths is counterproductive. That leaves moral authority and community.
For most of its history, Mormonism has looked and acted inwardly, taking care of its own while largely avoiding engagement with the outward world and other faith traditions. Moral authority, to the young, means engaging the world and its problems on their own terms, taking institutional risks and minimizing or even ignoring proselytizing as a metric of success.
Humanity is facing existential crises of such magnitude that governments, alone, will be unable to respond adequately. People of goodwill throughout the world, and particularly within religious traditions, need to stand shoulder to shoulder to take on climate change, poverty, global disease, illiteracy, war, domestic violence, racism — the list gets longer with time.
Taking on also means speaking out, something that largely has been missing from the public square for the past four years. Where is the prophetic voice — the voice that calls out wickedness, corruption, dishonesty, and calls people to a higher level of living?
Within Mormonism, where is the prophetic voice that used to defend the U.S. Constitution as divinely inspired, but now sits silently at the edge of the public square as nonstop assaults on the Constitution have emanated from the highest levels of government?
Lastly, the pandemic gives us a chance to rethink religious community. We have an opportunity to extend community outward, to engage with other faith traditions on a level heretofore unimaginable. The sum will be more than its component parts, and only then will we have the collective strength to reestablish moral authority, reengage the young whose energy and genius are so desperately needed, and vanquish the many forms of evil that threaten our very existence.
Gregory A. Prince, DDS, PhD
Gregory A. Prince, DDS, Ph.D., is president of Soft Cell Biological Research, St. George.