The Wrath of God: Coronavirus, Theology, and History

In 2020 Donald Trump's "cabinet pastor" declared that the coronavirus pandemic was the result of "The Wrath of God." God's anger, he said, is being visited upon the world as punishment for our sins, or for our tolerating the sins of others. It's an ancient, decrepit explanation that hasn't improved with age.

Whenever a major disaster strikes the world, some people ascribe it to God's will. The disaster, be it earthquake, volcanic explosion, tsunami, fire, or disease, is proclaimed as a punishment for our sins, in this case the sins of tolerating gays and climate activists.  Survivors ascribe their deliverance to God's mercy. Some mercy. Some ego. Some god.

During the Great Plague of London in 1665, preachers went about telling people to repent of their sins or face annihilation. The most famous was Solomon Eagles, or Eccles. Samuel Pepys described Eccles in his famous Diary (vol. 13), as did Daniel Defoe in his fictional Journal of the Plague Year (1721).

Eccles was a Quaker convert who walked about naked except for a loincloth tied around his waist, and carried a pan of burning charcoal on his head to represent the fire and brimstone of hell. The plague, he declared, was God's judgment on the city for its sins. 

These sins apparently included music. Eccles had been a composer of church music but after becoming a Quaker decided that music was sinful, and burned all his music and instruments. London authorities arrested Eccles and jailed him for a few months. He survived that and the plague and lived on into the 1680s. (Below: 19th century images of Solomon Eccles or Eagle)

Many theologians blamed the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 on the Wrath of God. The quake, tsunami, and fires destroyed much of the old city and killed thousands of all ages, perhaps as many as 100,000. Catholic priests blamed it on toleration of infidels and heretics, including Protestants, Jews, and Muslims. Protestants blamed the Catholic Church for persecuting Protestants.   

That many of the victims of historical disasters have been children innocent of the sins in question has proven no barrier to the Wrath of God argument. Comics might argue that God's aim must be spectacularly bad. 

Wrath of God theologians will counter that all people are sinful, or that society is being punished for tolerating the sinful, like people who do not consider Donald Trump a gift from God.