For Dr. Kezevino Aram, Joy Comes from Serving the Most Vulnerable

The township of Kovaipudur has a reputation.

Located in the foothills of the Sahyadri Mountain range and part of the city of Coimbatore, in Tamil Nadu, India, the township enjoys gentle mountain breezes and monsoon rains that create a generally serene setting of lush vegetation. Locals know Kovaipudur is cooler than the rest of the city.

But Kovaipudur is also known as the home of Shanti Ashram, an international centre for development, learning and collaboration founded by Dr. M. Aram and Mrs. Minoti Aram, who are Dr. Kezevino Aram´s parents,  in 1986 on the Gandhian principle of Sarvodaya (progress for all).

According to Shanti Ashram’s records, its community work impacts more than 250,000 people in Coimbatore and its environs. Dr. Kezevino Aram has been leading the Ashram as its President since 2014. Through her hands-on, collaborative approach, Aram has responded to numerous challenges and crises in her community— most recently the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health Concerns in Religious Communities: Challenges and Approaches

During the course of the pandemic, religious leaders have often found themselves on the frontlines of the global health crisis. In addition to adapting rituals to new norms of social distancing and digital worship, religious leaders became humanitarian aid providers, medical responders, and local information experts.

Now, as the world focuses on vaccine rollout and returning to some sense of normalcy in the months and years to come, religious communities and leaders, as with society at large, have to confront challenges posed by mistrust of science or government, vaccine disinformation, and concerns. In some quarters over whether the vaccine aligns with religious values and law.

At an April 2021 workshop Sarah Hess, Sally Smith, and Melinda Frost of the Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN), Health Emergencies Programme at the World Health Organization (WHO) shared their insights on the importance of working with religious communities during the crisis. They also shared some tools and best practices for religious communities to confront this all-embracing global health emergency.

Priest wants you to "Give the World a Shot"

When Rev. Dr. Richard Sudworth received his COVID-19 vaccine — or “jab”— he said it was more than a medical procedure, it was a solemn affair.

“It is really quite moving,” said Sudworth, Secretary for Inter Religious Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury and KAICIID Board Member, “we thank scientists, we thank medical professionals, but we also thank God. It’s a gift.” 

It is this gratitude, said Sudworth, that moved a coalition of partners in the United Kingdom, including Church of England, Office of the Chief Rabbi and the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, to work with UNICEF to launch a vaccine equity programme that would help schemes such as COVAX – an international cooperative formed to make sure low- and middle-income countries have fair access to COVID-19 vaccines.

PHOTO courtesy Khalid Bari via KAICIID.

Called “Give the World a Shot,” the programme operates on the premise that if people want to express their gratitude after receiving the vaccine, they can give money to support those communities still struggling to access it. 

“Modest in what it’s trying to do, it’s very ambitious too,” said Sudworth. With donations going to provide protective kits to health workers or to help transport doses of vaccines, they set a target of helping UNICEF deliver 2 billion vaccines. 

Although an increasing number of countries’ inoculation programmes are underway, global vaccine rollout remains an uneven affair.

According to the Duke Global Health Innovation Center Launch and Scale Speedometer’s latest data, high-income countries already own more than half of all doses purchased worldwide. At this rate, estimates suggest that vaccine supplies will be too low to inoculate the entirety of the world’s population until at least 2023.  

Experts say providing widespread access to COVID-19 vaccines is necessary to ensure global immunity against the deadly disease. It is also, said Sudworth, something the world’s faith communities must address together.

Faith Leaders on the Frontlines of COVID-19 Response

When Margaret Hoffman passed away last spring, her remains were brought from California to her hometown in Wisconsin and interred in a plot she chose years ago. There was a brief, Christian ceremony and those in attendance sang the hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross” per her request. In many ways, it all happened exactly as planned.

One thing Hoffman could not have foreseen, however, was that her funeral would take place during a global pandemic, which prevented most of her family from attending, save for a few distant cousins.

Along with claiming the lives of millions, COVID-19 has upended death rituals like Hoffman’s across faith traditions and spurred religious actors to respond with creativity and compassion when it comes to bereavement services and crisis response.

Here is the story of two faith leaders — one a rabbi in the United States and the other a priest in India — who have stepped up to provide frontline care, and inspire others to follow their lead, in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic.

Your own personal tour through LutherCountry

In 2018, when I had the opportunity to go on a personal tour through LutherCountry, I decided to travel with my dad. 

That decision was inspired. 

The bratwursts on the market square in Weimar, the early morning mist settling around the base of the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, the reverberating sound of the church bells from the Castle Church in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg — all of it was richer watching my father enjoy the tastes, sights, and sounds of LutherCountry for the first time. 

At the end our journey, saying our goodbyes at Berlin’s Tegel airport, we tearfully said to one another, “we may never get the chance to do something like this together again.” 

Little did we know that two years later, we would be feeling the weight of those words all the more. Since that trip, we’d been planning for both my parents to come in May 2020. The hotels were booked, the itinerary set, and the flights confirmed. You could almost smell the bratwurst that we were going to be chowing down on together. 

Then, COVID-19 happened. 

Your Personal Tour Through LutherCountry

In lieu of detailed itineraries, the plan for this trip is pretty straightforward:

September 10, 2020

1:00 PM EST // 10:00 AM PST

Register in advance for the meeting HERE. 

The webinar will be held via Zoom. Participants need a working internet connection, the volumed turned on, and a comfortable chair to sit back in and experience LutherCountry virtually.

All-in-all the webinar will last around one hour, depending on the Q&A session.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Having planned for months to welcome my parents to our new home in Germany, we were devastated when we had to cancel everything. And I know, we are far from alone. 

Many of you also canceled, postponed, or gave up on long-hoped-for trips to dream destinations. Many of you told me that you were planning to come to Germany this summer or were hoping to come to the Christmas markets this year. 

COVID-19 upended those plans. 

Feeling our pain, the two German states that make-up “LutherCountry” — Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt — are coming to the rescue and bringing LutherCountry to our homes with, “Your personal tour through LutherCountry” on Thursday, September 10th.

The “Your personal tour through LutherCountry” webinar will be hosted by LutherCountry expert Mike Adams, CEO of TourComm Germany, who will guide participants to stops along the way, including Wittenberg, Eisleben, Erfurt, and the Wartburg. 

Each city played a special role in Martin Luther’s life and the story of the Reformation. 

That story will come alive with the help of tour guides such as Katerina von Bora in Wittenberg, my friend, and Texan-turned-German, Rev. Dr. Robert G. Moore, Rev. Scott Moore at the Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt, and special guests from the Wartburg and Eisleben.

My dad appreciating the historical significance in Martin Luther’s room at the Wartburg, Eisenach. (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

For those who have lost loved ones, whose livelihoods have been threatened, or whose lives are at risk on the frontlines, travel can be pretty far down on the priority list in the midst of the pandemic. In the end, traveling is a privilege. 

And yet, people are starting to travel again — camping, taking road trips, or small weekend getaways with loved ones — and planning for dream-trips in the future when restrictions are lifted and life returns to a bit of normalcy. 

“For many of us, travel is a vibrant part of life. It is part of what makes life worth ‘living.’”

As we all slowly come to the realization that the virus will be with us for quite some time and that we will have to adjust our lives accordingly, he role that travel plays in our lives will have to change too. 

Planned trips may be delayed awhile. When we are finally able to travel again, those trips might look very different than before the pandemic. 

With that in mind, LutherCountry is not only going to take you on a “personal tour,” but invite you to share your own questions and concerns. At the end of the webinar, participants will be invited by Mike Adams to ask anything they like about Luther and his homeland and how they might be able to plan their next trip to LutherCountry, whenever that may be. 

The famous Martin Luther statue in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

Maybe it will be to see the Oberammergau Passion Play, scheduled for May 2020 only to be postponed until May 2022, the same year as the 500th anniversary of Luther’s translation of the Bible. Or, perhaps it will be to celebrate the 500th wedding anniversary of Katherina von Bora and Martin Luther in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg in 2025. 

Whatever your dreams, the “personal tour through LutherCountry” webinar might be the perfect place to start your planning. 

“We Need Each Other to Survive”: How Interfaith Orgs are Responding to COVID-19

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Zaw Zaw Aung’s first thought was how the disease might put further strain on already fraught relationships in Myanmar, where there are ongoing tensions between Buddhists and Muslims.

Aung is the Programme Manager of Paungsie Metta Initiatives (PMI), a multi-religious network of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims that promotes peaceful dialogue across Myanmar.

Rather than endangering PMI’s efforts, the crisis has proved an opportunity to strengthen bridge-building between Myanmar’s multiple religious communities, Aung said.

As part of my reporting for the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), I had the opportunity to speak with Zaw Zaw Aung and other interfaith leaders in Nigeria, Indonesia, the Middle East, and the Central African Republic about their efforts in the wake of the global pandemic.

These are their stories of courage in the face of the coronavirus, making connections in an age of social distancing, and how interfaith responses to the global crisis are creating fertile ground for future inter-religious engagement.

Come, let us wear face masks in worship: Lockdown measures eased, but Christians struggle with coronavirus restrictions

Franziska König always enjoys getting a note from her pastor. Even so, she never expected to get one like she did last week.

“The message started out normally, asking me how I am doing,” König said, “how I am fairing in these terrible times and so on.”

Then, her pastor told her that their small evangelical church in Berlin was going to reopen after being closed for weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That was good news.

“But it was weird when he said I would have to make ‘reservations’ for my family to have a spot on Sunday,” said König. “That’s certainly never happened before.”

König and her congregation are not alone in navigating a “new normal” for worship gatherings as lockdown limits ease across Germany.

While Germany’s federal government makes plans for tracing infection chains and reopening public facilities, churches across Germany are developing their own plans for how to restart worship with new regulations such as compulsory face masks, the prohibition of physical contact, and restrictions on congregational singing.

Questions about singing, more than anything else, have caused consternation among evangelicals in Germany. Perhaps this comes as no surprise. It was the German reformer Martin Luther, after all, who said that “next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.”

However, Lothar Wieler, the head of Germany’s top health research organization—the Robert Koch Institute (RKI)—strongly advised against communal singing of any kind while there are still fears about the spread of the coronavirus. Wieler explained in the official biweekly COVID-19 press conference that “evidence shows that during singing, the virus drops appear to fly particularly far.”

Some even say that singing is a “super-spreader.”

A short history of hajj cancellations

Saudi Arabia has urged Muslims to delay their plans for the hajj, amid speculation that the obligatory pilgrimage may be canceled this year due to the coronavirus.

Earlier this year, Saudi authorities halted travel to holy sites as part of the umrah, the “lesser pilgrimage” that takes place throughout the year.

Canceling the hajj, however, would mean a massive economic hitfor the country and many businesses globally, such as the hajj travel industry. Millions of Muslims visit the Saudi kingdom each year, and the pilgrimage has not been canceled since the founding of the Saudi Kingdom in 1932. 

But as a scholar of global Islam, I have encountered many instances in the more than 1,400-year history of the pilgrimage when its planning had to be altered due to armed conflicts, disease or just plain politics.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS PARTNER WITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS TO REACH VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES DURING COVID-19

Pope Francis leading Easter mass in an empty St. Peter’s Basilica. Solitary images of the Kaaba in Mecca and the absence of pilgrims praying around it. Digital meditation sessions, online devotions, and Holy Communion served on the end of a PVC pipe.

As faith leaders react to the new realities of religious practices in light of COVID-19, non-profit organizations, policymakers, and intergovernmental institutions are working with religious communities to develop plans, implement strategies, and provide guidance for what can be done to mitigate the virus’ social, economic, and political impacts. 

“The virus does not care about ethnicity or nationality, faction or faith. It attacks all, relentlessly,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. “Together, we can and will defeat this virus – with cooperation, solidarity and faith in our common humanity.”

Read on to learn what international organizations like the WHO, UN, Religions for Peace, and more are doing to partner with religious communities across the world to protect the vulnerable at such a time as this.

Plague Started Their Passion Play in 1633. COVID-19 Canceled It in 2020.

As an epidemic raged across Europe, a picturesque German village in the mountainous south of Bavaria decided to do something about it. 

Having already lost 80 of their own to the plague, the villagers of Oberammergau pledged to perform the Passion of Jesus Christ—his suffering, death, and resurrection—every tenth year, so that no one else might die. 

So goes the historical legend of the origins of the Oberammergau Passion Play, an almost four-centuries-old tradition that takes place once every 10 years. 

The year of the pledge was 1633, not 2020. The Pest—German for plague—was the so-called “Black Death,” not the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, in an ironic twist of fate, the 42nd Oberammergau season—set to run between May 16 to October 4, 2020—was postponed last week due to measures taken by local government authorities in response to the new coronavirus outbreak. 

For my latest story in Christianity Today, I spoke to organizers, tour operators, locals, and potential pilgrims about their hopes, fears, and the realities of what it means to postpone a once-in-a-decade ritual in light of COVID-19’s rapid spread across the globe.