Loving Your Neighbor in a Pandemic

Friends of the Global Fight’s Mark Lagon reflects on pandemics, isolation, responsibility, and stigma for the Trinity Forum with this excellent piece on “Loving Your Neighbor.”

Well before the onset of social distancing to curb a pandemic, the Trinity Forum took up sustained reflection on endemic loneliness. This included reading Dorothy Day and hearing from a truth teller about ills of our time, Russell Moore. The catalyst of loneliness and anomie has been addiction to social media.

The new coronavirus has accelerated remote interaction, moving everything more “virtual.” However, my hope is that some greater solidarity of community, nation, and world may yet come from taking on the pandemic, and the distancing ultimately be more physical than social.

If one feels loneliness or isolation, compounded by economic uncertainty, it is worth thinking of your neighbor. The imperative to “love your neighbor as yourself” is stressed as a paramount commandment in the Gospel of Matthew, but also lies at the common epicenter of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, as well as other traditions.

Who then is your neighbor, and what does one owe them in the face of pandemic disease?

What you owe your neighbor in your community is keeping distance for a while, to preserve their lives.

If naturally anxious about isolation or economic dislocation, think of your more distant neighbors. Consider those around the world already vulnerable to the three biggest infectious disease threats to human life to date (TB, HIV, and malaria) – they will be even more at risk as a new pandemic reaches their often weaker health systems.

Read the full article on The Trinity Forum website.

Mark P. Lagon is Chief Policy Officer at Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum. Mark previously served as CEO of Freedom House and of Polaris, as well as U.S. Ambassador at Large to Combat Trafficking in Persons.