Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
    • Associated Baptist Press Foundation
    • Planned Giving
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions and Permissions
Donate Subscribe
Search Search this site

Self-care as political resistance – or how (not) to sacrifice humans to ‘save’ the economy

OpinionEric Minton  |  April 27, 2020

As a psychotherapist specializing in marriage and family therapy, one of the things I’m hearing with regularity not only from my patients, but from friends and family members as well, is how much the coronavirus has laid bare our collective dependency upon the stock market as THE measure of national and individual well-being.

Eric MintonThis comes out colloquially as “We can’t go on like this for much longer; otherwise the economy will never recover” or more chillingly from Oprah’s favorite excrement expert, Dr. Oz:

“We need our mojo back. Let’s start with things that are really critical to the nation where we think we might be able to open without getting into a lot of trouble. I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3 percent, in terms of total mortality … it might be a trade-off some folks would consider.”

Here in East Tennessee, after suffering the tragic loss of nine members of our local community to suicide in the first two weeks of self-isolation, it did not take our county mayor long to make a (soon-to-be-dispelled) connection between these untimely deaths and the shuttering of our local economy:

“Before COVID-19, the U.S. had record low unemployment, so we expect to see a surge in suicides, something we are already experiencing at our Knox County Regional Forensic Center. That number (nine suicides) is completely shocking and makes me wonder if what we are doing now is really the best approach.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic brings our collective fidelity to human sacrifice starkly into view, but it did not create it.”

In this kind of landscape – with more than 50,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the United States and an estimated 26 million people laid off or furloughed since mid-March – it’s nearly impossible to assert confidently that one life matters, and that this one valuable life belongs to you and me and to people decidedly unlike either you or me. Despite the hyper-individualistic American ethos, asserting the inherent sacredness of a person’s worth divorced from their assets or future earning potential is an inherently theological, if not deeply prophetic, pronouncement – especially when this worthiness sacrifices the supposed short-term and long-term flourishing of “the Market.”

In the face of economic collapse, Americans are being invited to become sacrificially collectivist in their willingness to strap life, limb and vulnerable loved ones to the altar of our hyperventilating economy for the good of “everyone” (although, again, the “everyone” being talked about here seems decidedly unclear).

Which reminds me of something God thunders in Jeremiah upon discovering that the people of Judah had been sacrificing their children as a way of securing bountiful harvests, favorable outcomes in tribal disputes or the end of an enduring drought:

“For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight; … they go on building the high place of Topheth … to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire – which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when … the corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the animals of the earth; and … the land shall become a waste” (7:31-34, NRSV).

When our national religion mandates that thousands of people patriotically perish in order to resurrect our nation’s unalienable right to Shrimpfests and Taco Tuesdays or aimlessly spending $35 dollars at T.J. Maxx or Nordstrom Rack, we are engaging in an ancient and detestable barbarism parading as devotion, faithfulness and bravery. It isn’t brave to sacrifice other people who aren’t like you to reopen the economy, just like it isn’t brave to consign other people who aren’t like you to the fires of hell, or a snaking bread line, or a crumbling school or a war zone pretending to be a neighborhood in which you would never venture.

The COVID-19 pandemic brings our collective fidelity to human sacrifice starkly into view, but it did not create it. Millions of Americans live every day without access to affordable healthcare (including mental healthcare), quality educational opportunities for their children and the right to a living wage due to the religious belief that somehow the lives of wealthier Americans reflect an inherent worthiness our most impoverished and reeling (or, frankly, squarely middle class) communities do not.

Which is why the Easter season (at its most historically orthodox) is such a prophetic interruption of how religion typically functions in America. Easter radically asserts the counterintuitive worthiness of all people by spreading the good news of a God who refuses to sacrifice anyone but God’s self (in the image of Jesus) in an effort to bring about our broken world’s salvation.

“Refusing to save ‘our American way of life’ by sacrificing ourselves and others during a global pandemic is a deeply Christian response to a world in need of resurrection.”

So, when you and I, and people who are decidedly unlike either of us, choose to stop internalizing the anxious pressure of an economic system that endlessly demands more and more from us by literally doing nothing but surviving in our homes, we aren’t just practicing “self-care.” We are undertaking a subversive act of political and theological resistance in the name of this self-sacrificing God.

Not answering email, or putting in a full eight hours, or becoming a “brand” on social media, or being our best selves when our children’s education has been abandoned by their school systems, or our own mental, physical and spiritual health buckling under the weight of existence isn’t an act of selfish laziness or fearful withdrawal; it is an act of prophetic resistance to a moment not fit for human habitation.

Refusing to save “our American way of life” by sacrificing ourselves and others during a global pandemic, even after it begins to wane, is a deeply Christian response to a world in need of resurrection. Because our God, the Christian one and not the one who goes by “Mammon,” dies for the world, rather than putting the world (and its most vulnerable) to death as a way of saving itself.

Read more BNG news and opinion related to the coronavirus pandemic:
#intimeslikethese

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.
Tags:pandemicEconomic JusticeCoronavirus#intimesliketheseself-careReligion and Politics
More by
Eric Minton
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • Featured

    • Eight months later, there’s renewed interest in Adam Hamilton’s video on why he’ll remain a United Methodist

      News

    • Bob Banks, longtime SBC missions leader, dies at 91

      News

    • What I learned from meeting Martin Luther King in Louisville and Josie in Hopkinsville

      Opinion

    • For every critic of Jesus and John Wayne there are many more positive responses Du Mez says

      News


    Curated

    • ‘He Gets Us’ organizers hope to spend $1 billion to promote Jesus. Will anyone care?

      ‘He Gets Us’ organizers hope to spend $1 billion to promote Jesus. Will anyone care?

    • National Prayer Breakfast breaks from ‘The Family’ with new organization

      National Prayer Breakfast breaks from ‘The Family’ with new organization

    • The Rise of Spirit Warriors on the Christian Right

      The Rise of Spirit Warriors on the Christian Right

    • Twitter reinstated white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He lasted 24 hours.

      Twitter reinstated white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He lasted 24 hours.

    Read Next:

    Life post-Roe: Is there middle ground between religious liberty and medical freedom?

    AnalysisMallory Challis

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • Faith groups must fight online hate, Interfaith Alliance urges

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Of church cemeteries, pulpit committees, crafts and sweet potato casserole

      OpinionChris Ayers

    • Colorado cake maker back in court, this time for refusing service to a transgender woman

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Of Margie, mountains and ‘El Shaddai’

      OpinionBert Montgomery

    • For every critic of Jesus and John Wayne there are many more positive responses Du Mez says

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • What I learned from meeting Martin Luther King in Louisville and Josie in Hopkinsville

      OpinionBill Thurman

    • Bob Banks, longtime SBC missions leader, dies at 91

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • On the baptism of our firstborn

      OpinionEmily Hull McGee

    • Members of Florida church required to sign ‘biblical sexuality’ statement or be removed from membership

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Eight months later, there’s renewed interest in Adam Hamilton’s video on why he’ll remain a United Methodist

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Life post-Roe: Is there middle ground between religious liberty and medical freedom?

      AnalysisMallory Challis

    • Has virtual worship actually harmed Christianity?

      OpinionSara Robb-Scott

    • 165 religious leaders plead with White House to abandon immigrant travel ban

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Boebert babbles about God, Satan and the Second Coming

      AnalysisRodney Kennedy

    • ‘What can we forgive?’: An interview with Matthew Ichihashi Potts on Forgiveness

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Knowing a church’s history on slavery can be a nudge toward redemption, historians say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Los Angeles faces a homeless ‘emergency’ as global warming changes the equation

      AnalysisMallory Challis

    • My father’s faith

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • Sandra and Andy Stanley: ‘We’re not perfect parents, but we’ve learned some things along the way’

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • As more Americans delay health care they can’t afford, it’s time for the church to be a light once again

      AnalysisRick Pidcock

    • The apology that never came at Bubba-Doo’s

      OpinionCharles Qualls

    • United Methodists on alert for dissidents ‘poaching’ members and pastors

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Trump and his allegedly disloyal white evangelical supporters

      OpinionRobert P. Jones

    • The other speech Martin Luther King gave at Southern Seminary in 1961

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Faith groups must fight online hate, Interfaith Alliance urges

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Colorado cake maker back in court, this time for refusing service to a transgender woman

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • For every critic of Jesus and John Wayne there are many more positive responses Du Mez says

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Bob Banks, longtime SBC missions leader, dies at 91

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Members of Florida church required to sign ‘biblical sexuality’ statement or be removed from membership

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Eight months later, there’s renewed interest in Adam Hamilton’s video on why he’ll remain a United Methodist

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • 165 religious leaders plead with White House to abandon immigrant travel ban

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Knowing a church’s history on slavery can be a nudge toward redemption, historians say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Sandra and Andy Stanley: ‘We’re not perfect parents, but we’ve learned some things along the way’

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • United Methodists on alert for dissidents ‘poaching’ members and pastors

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • The other speech Martin Luther King gave at Southern Seminary in 1961

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Faith-based leaders discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of Biden’s proposed border policies

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • U.S. churches more likely to have adult and youth education programs than interfaith or ecumenical work

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Here’s Johnny! Embattled SBC pastor back in the pulpit and will headline a men’s conference

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Dan Hobbs, early leader of ABP and CBF, dies at 95

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • ‘Public safety ecosystems’ could help replace nation’s broken criminal justice system, evangelical leaders say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Reparations should begin with recognition of human dignity, Delbanco says in 50th annual Jefferson Lecture

      NewsMallory Challis

    • Church of England won’t allow same-sex marriage but may allow a liturgical blessing of civil unions

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Transitions for the week of 1-20-23

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Class-action suit against Department of Education alleging discrimination in Title IX exemptions dismissed

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Supreme Court will hear former postal employee’s appeal that he shouldn’t have to work on Sundays because he’s a Christian

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • New survey: Republicans and white evangelicals are outliers in fear of immigrants invading U.S.

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Religious liberty advocates applaud Biden administration rollback of Trump policies allowing faith-based discrimination

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • ‘Religicide’ a growing threat worldwide, authors warn

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Of church cemeteries, pulpit committees, crafts and sweet potato casserole

      OpinionChris Ayers

    • Of Margie, mountains and ‘El Shaddai’

      OpinionBert Montgomery

    • What I learned from meeting Martin Luther King in Louisville and Josie in Hopkinsville

      OpinionBill Thurman

    • On the baptism of our firstborn

      OpinionEmily Hull McGee

    • Has virtual worship actually harmed Christianity?

      OpinionSara Robb-Scott

    • ‘What can we forgive?’: An interview with Matthew Ichihashi Potts on Forgiveness

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • My father’s faith

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • The apology that never came at Bubba-Doo’s

      OpinionCharles Qualls

    • Trump and his allegedly disloyal white evangelical supporters

      OpinionRobert P. Jones

    • Doom-scrolling, sourdough starter and three kinds of kin

      OpinionJustin Cox

    • Putin needs to be taken down

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • How my eyes were opened to America’s broken immigration system

      OpinionChristian Vaughn

    • Meditating with Buddhists and other Asian lessons

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • The Black resistance tradition and its fight for U.S. democracy

      OpinionDavid Gushee, Senior Columnist

    • Five book recommendations on creation stewardship for 2023

      OpinionDon Gordon

    • Queen Elizabeth was a role model for women in faith and leadership

      OpinionChrystal Cowan

    • Two football coaches went up to pray …

      OpinionPatrick Wilson

    • ‘Grief brain’: The three big deficits of grief

      OpinionLaurie Taylor

    • Prayer might not be enough

      OpinionTerry Austin

    • Mending broken pieces and broken lives with kintsugi

      OpinionPhawnda Moore

    • When my church and I let Jesus down: Jesus in the distressing disguise of the homeless

      OpinionChris Ayers

    • What I’m learning as a Maston Scholar: ‘Don’t forget!’

      OpinionAlfa Orellana

    • A world inside a world, spinning around

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • Faith and civil rights went together for Martin Luther King

      OpinionRussell Waldrop

    • My love-hate relationship with football

      OpinionSusan M. Shaw, Senior Columnist

    • ‘He Gets Us’ organizers hope to spend $1 billion to promote Jesus. Will anyone care?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • National Prayer Breakfast breaks from ‘The Family’ with new organization

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • The Rise of Spirit Warriors on the Christian Right

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Twitter reinstated white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He lasted 24 hours.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • In Rare Rebuke, Elaine Chao Calls Out Trump’s Anti-Asian Attacks

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • How Southern California helped birth white Christian nationalism

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Extreme Israeli group takes root in US with fundraising bid

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Review: Decolonizing Christianity

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Two Leaders Of The New US House Could Put Baptist Diversity In The News Spotlight

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Making Sweat Feel Spiritual Didn’t Start With SoulCycle

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • White Christian nationalism isn’t pro-life. It’s pro-order.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Stop Using the Bible to Dehumanize Transgender People | Opinion

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Martin Luther King Jr. Was A Saint, But Also Just A Man — That’s The Glory Of It

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • A Houston synagogue is tightening security after a woman broke in twice, damaged a Torah and harassed children

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important piece of history – here’s why art historians teach them

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Lutherans ordain first Palestinian woman pastor in Holy Land

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • 2 States Introduce Radical Bills To Prosecute Pregnant People For Abortions

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Flyers coach Tortorella defends Provorov’s Pride boycott

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • ‘Dream bigger’: How weekend marches keep advocates’ fight for Roe v. Wade alive on 50th anniversary

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Rinse, Repeat: Should Believers Be Dunked Again?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Meet the real Jewish Republican of color being floated to replace George Santos, the fake one

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Florida Gov. DeSantis leads the GOP’s national charge against public education that includes lessons on race and sexual orientation

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians Unite in Support for Apache Fight to Save Oak Flat

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Group of faith leaders sue challenging Missouri abortion law

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • ‘Exporting garbage to the nations’: conservative Christian rifts spreading like cracked glass

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2023 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS