Could a plague of biblical proportions be America\u2019s best hope for religious revival? As the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, there is reason to think so.<\/p>\n
Three-quarters of a century has dimmed the memory of that gruesome conflict and its terrible consequences: tens of millions killed, great cities bombed to rubble, Europe and Asia stricken by hunger and poverty. Those who survived the war had to grapple with the kinds of profound questions that only arise in the aftermath of calamity. Gazing at the ruins from his window at Cambridge University, British historian Herbert Butterfield chose to make sense of it by turning to the Hebrew Bible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe power of the Old Testament teaching on history\u2014perhaps the point at which the ancient Jews were most original, breaking away from the religious thought of the other peoples around them\u2014lay precisely in the region of truths which sprang from a reflection on catastrophe and cataclysm,\u201d Butterfield wrote in \u201cChristianity and History\u201d (1949). \u201cIt is almost impossible properly to appreciate the higher developments in the historical reflection of the Old Testament except in another age which has experienced (or has found itself confronted with) colossal cataclysm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Americans, chastened by the horrors of war, turned to faith in search of truth and meaning….<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Can the idea of death and suffering bring us closer to God? If we are to find meaning in this pandemic, the answer must be yes: https:\/\/t.co\/Na9unukKdJ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Nick Givas (@NGivasDC) March 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n