Here’s a very relevant article to the age of Covid-19 – a brief history of the church’s response to another pandemic – this one in the 14th century. There are lessons for us here, and I recommend it to you: https://sojo.net/articles/scapegoating-responsibility-and-neighborly-love-plague.
The writer is my son, Joel Looper (PhD, University of Aberdeen), author of the forthcoming book A Protestantism without Reformation: What Dietrich Bonhoeffer Saw in America (Baylor Press).
The Way Home 
Very interesting indeed, my friend, Be proud of your son! Valuable contribution to today’s dilemma. Attached is news of our oldest grandson, Alex. Proud grandparents. John
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John,
Missing the attachment but would like to see it. And I am proud of all three of my sons – good men, making a difference in God’s world.
Shayne
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That was a very good article, written by your son. As a medievalist I do see that people are often quick to judge humans of that time period as simple, clueless even, and one-dimensional, but that was not the case at all. This article nicely lays out what was going on in society at the time, politically, religiously and medically. The effects of the plague caused society to crumble down… and when it was rebuilt it was a very different world. Sadly, one of the few things that didn’t change much at all was anti-semitism.
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Sarah, thanks for reading and for your encouraging comments. (Dr. Looper is a smart guy-I learn a lot from him!) If I understand it, antisemitism was more pronounced after the plague, exacerbated by the “scapegoating” of Jews. Sounds all too familiar.
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