The threat of a flu pandemic is getting a lot of media attention in light of the swine flu outbreak and has raised many fears about health, travel and immigration, among others.

Johann Christoph Arnold is the author of 10 books, including one about death, “Be Not Afraid: Overcoming the Fear of Death.” In the essay below, he says that our biggest problem is not flu, but our fear of it.

Below is Arnold’s response to containing the fear virus. What’s yours?

By Johann Christoph Arnold

Few people would argue that the swine flu is not a real crisis; this epidemic has already affected our own country more than SARS or the avian flu scare.

I am happy for how our government seems to be meeting this challenge. But not everything that the media is doing to keep us informed is helpful. Too much attention to this situation will only increase the fear and panic that is spreading everywhere. As a doctor friend of mine, who specialized in epidemiology during World War II, once said, “If you are afraid, you open yourself to viruses.”

As odd as it might sound, this crisis may not be such a bad thing, after all. We do need to pay attention to it, so that we can get our priorities right again. Now is the time to make choices — to think about what really matters, and what is unimportant. What does sickness and death have to say to us? Don’t we all have to die eventually?

The fear of death and sickness plays a big part in this panic. Too often, this fear drives us apart, to isolation and even to mental illness. If the swine flu is really going to become a global pandemic, then the only answer is to join hands and work together. Let’s look not only at our own problems, but also at the need of others–like the many families in Mexico that have already lost loved ones to the swine flu. Only by working together, on both a local and a global level, will we be able to face this crisis.

In times like these, prayer is more important than ever. Through prayer we can find answers to threats we cannot do anything about. Two thousand years ago, people were warned to expect wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters, and pestilence. Yet at the same time Paul, an educated Roman, wrote, “Rejoice…Do not worry about anything.”

God only knows what lies ahead, but no matter what happens, we should not fall prey to fear and worry. We need to trust that we are all in God’s hands and that everything will turn out to the good. Let us use this time not to panic, or to stoke fear, but to find community with our neighbors and to give a helping hand to the sick and suffering.

Rev. Brian Carpenter– Presbyterian Church in America, Sturgis
I am a Christian. But I am also a student of philosophy, and especially ancient philosophy. By far my favorite philosophical system is Stoicism. It has been said, and well said, that Western Civilization rests on the twin foundations of Christianity and Stoicism.

Like many things, Stoicism is misunderstood in our day. It does not teach the extinguishing of emotions. Rather, it teaches that we must not be mastered by our unruly passions. Stoics believed that the world is ordered by a pantheistic god, (sometimes called “god”, sometimes “providence” and sometimes simply “nature.”) All that happens comes from this god and is somehow what is best. The Stoics taught that we must pursue a life of virtue, defined as a life that is in accord with nature or providence. Thus, we are to calmly and rationally change what is in our power to change, and we must accept whatever is not in our power to change. So the Stoic philosopher Epictetus writes,

“We must die, but must we die whimpering? We must be imprisoned, but must we whine as well?”

And the modified Stoicism of Cicero teaches,

“Consider, for example, the man who is morally imperfect enough to feel distress. Then he is also certain to feel fear as well: since fear is the anxious anticipation of distress to come. And if he is likely to feel fear, that is the same as admitting that he is susceptible to every sort of panic, faint-heartedness, hysteria, and cowardice. In other words, he is the sort of person who will get the worst of everything… the man we have in mind will be defeated; he is bound to be reduced to a state of slavery. Whereas moral goodness, according to my interpretation, is essentially something free and undefeated: the whole point of morality is its independence.”

Now, this is essentially a sub-Christian philosophy, but it is a manly and admirable one. And it has some congruence with the Christian faith. Devout Presbyterian Civil War General Stonewall Jackson was noted for his utterly calm demeanor in the heat of battle, tranquilly riding about the battlefield giving orders as the bullets whined all around him. When one of his captains asked him about this and he replied,

“Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me.” He added, after a pause, looking me full in the face: “That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave”

The Christian should live with an absolute trust in God who has ordained all that comes to pass and decrees the end from the beginning. Well does the Psalmist say, “All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before even one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:17) Because Christ has died and risen, for the Christian death is a vanquished enemy. It should be treated as a kind of rough joke. The Christian should not fear death, but rather view it with a keen anticipation, as a mother views the birth of her child. There will be labor pains, but the end result is joy. There may well be bitter death pains, but death is the passage to glory, where our fondest hopes will be fulfilled and all our sorrows and trials will be at an end.

According to my religion, the non-Christian has no such hope. Therefore it would be false of me to simply peddle Bible verses to everyone indiscriminately which were only intended for the hope and comfort of the Christian. I believe in Hell, and I believe many will go there. But if a man or woman refuses the free offer of the gospel, then from the perspective of this life only, it would be far better to learn calm fortitude, courage, and acceptance of adversity from the ancient pagans. To run around like panicked ninnies as we do today is the worst of both worlds. Thus we have neither Christian hope nor pagan fortitude and find ourselves in a most despicable predicament.

Dr. Nicholas Wallerstein–humanities professor

The Reverend Carpenter states, “According to my religion, the non-Christian has no such hope” of salvation.  But according to Catholic doctrine, the non-Catholic has no hope. So it looks as though the Reverend Carpenter will be consigned to the lake of fire for eternity, for he his Presbyterian and not Catholic. (My point is merely to show the absurdity of both positions: his and the Catholic Church’s.)

At any rate, to address the issue: yes, we should be afraid of the H1N1 virus, for death will bring to all of us anihilation, extinction, a nothingness that we “shall be lost in always,” as the great British poet Philip Larkin put it:

“[T]he total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.”

The fact is that there is no heaven, no hell, no afterlife. We’ll all be unconscious forever: gone, like the wind. “Dead is dead quiet” as a character puts it in a Marsha Norman drama. Now, philosophers tell us that it is irrational to fear something we won’t be conscious of. But as Larkin points out, this eternity of total uncosciousness is what we all naturally fear. I quote again from his poem “Aubade”:

“[The philosophers say]: ‘No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel,’ not seeing
That this is what we fear–no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.”

The problem with Reverend Carpenter’s response to this–stoic courage–is that it doesn’t work. Larkin explains:

“Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.”

The solution? Use lots of hand sanitizer, stay away from airplanes, subways, and Mexico, and thus try to stave off our inevitable anihilation as long as possible.  But yes, add to this prayer and belief in a higher power, for both of these have been scientifically proven to boost the immune system. But to quote Larkin again, never forget:

“This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die.”

So Johann Christoph Arnold says “We need to trust that we are all in God’s hands and that everything will turn out to the good.”

Not bloody likely.

As Larkin puts it:

“Most things may never happen: this one [death] will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink.”

The famous Harvard-trained physician, Andrew Weil, M.D., says the best we can hope for is “compressed morbidity,” meaning that we should hope for good health throughout life and then a quick death at the end. That kind of hope sounds good–and the only kind of hope that’s out there.

Father Thomas Williams - St. John’s Orthodox Church

Prayer: It must be a constant in our lives, and not just when there is perceived trouble or fear.  A priest once asked Mother Teresa of Calcutta how he should pray. She simply said: “Spend one hour a day in silent adoration of Our Lord and never do anything you know is wrong, and you will be all right.”

Almost 2,000 years before Mother Teresa. Many Christians journeyed to the Egyptian desert to visit with St. Anthony, who lived most of his life in seclusion and is considered the founder of monasticism. When he was asked: “What must one do to please God,” the old monk would say: “Whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, and do not trust in your own righeousness.” The message from both holy persons is similar, from one who lived in the 20th century ministering to the poor, and from one who lived as a hermit in the third century.

The Food and Drug Administration on April 22 expanded over-the-counter access to the morning- after pill, Levonorgestrel or Plan B, for 17-year-old minors as well as to adults. Anti-abortion forces, including the Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land, objected to the move. “The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Korman of New York to order the FDA to make Plan B, post-intercourse contraceptives, available to 17-year-old girls without a prescription from their doctor is one more example of the government believing it has the right to interpose itself between parents and their children. It is shameful that the Obama Administration has decided it will not appeal this terrible federal court decision.”

What do you say? Is it shameful or is it a way to stop unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions?

Father Thomas Williams - St. John’s Orthodox Church

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land is correct in his overall assessment in this case. His criticism of the Executive Branch of our federal government, calling it shameful, is also not without cause,  for the President obviously supports this immoral decision by a federal judge.  However, all of this is not without precedent.  A review of Judicial, Executive and Legislative actions in the 19th century, before 1863, regarding slavery shows that many in power turned a blind eye to morality while in pursuit of political expediency.

Dr. Nicholas Wallerstein–humanities professor

This is such a difficult issue. On the one hand, I have been consistent on this blog in stating that I think making abortion illegal would be poor public policy, due to the fact that making abortion illegal will only drive it underground where women will die from botched illegal abortions.

On the other hand, there seems to be a glaring hypocrisy or contradiction when it comes to laws concerning minors. Explain to me how it makes sense that a 13-year-old girl cannot even get a Tylenol from the school nurse without parental permission, yet in many states that same girl can get an abortion without telling anyone, not even having to get permission from one parent, or even notifying a parent. So now we have a scenario where a 17-year-old girl can get an abortion pill, again without notifying anyone, but that same girl cannot buy a cigarette or rent an “R” rated movie. This would seem to put liberals in a bind. They are saying that this girl is mature enough to be having sexual intercourse; she is mature enough to be procuring morning-after abortion pills; she is mature enough to be doing this without any input from her parents. But she is not mature enough to buy a cigarette or a bottle of beer. The liberal argument is that she’s going to have sex anyway, so let’s give her the tools to do so and to be able to prevent the pregnancies that naturally flow from this choice. But the problem is that she’s going to perhaps be smoking cigarettes as well. Do we make that legal for her? Do we make something legal just because a child is going to engage in the activity anyway? Liberals want to hand out clean needles in middle schools because the kids are doing drugs anyway. But do two wrongs make a right?

This issue is not as troubling in South Dakota, for the age of consent is sixteen. The seventeen-year-old is not breaking the law when she has sex. So perhaps access to the morning after pill is legally consistent, in a partial way. However, it is against the law in California, for instance, to have sex under the age of eighteen. So we say to the 17-year-old girls in California, it’s illegal for you to have sex, but when you do, be sure to buy (legally) a morning after pill. Logically, this does not make sense to me. I cannot figure it out.

Rev Brian Carpenter– Presbyterian Church in America, Sturgis

Nicholas, if you would apply your logic from your own paragraph 2 to your statements in your own paragraph 1, you might see a problem with your argument in paragraph 1.

When I was 17, I went to the mall to get my ear pierced. I couldn’t do it without parental permission. Nor could I marry. Or sign a legally binding contract. Or order a beer. It is utterly incongruous that the law would permit a seventeen year old girl to take a medication without parental consent whose side effects might include life threatening hemorrhage or even death.

If I were a conspiracy theorist (and I am) I would assume that there was an orchestrated move to remove the locus of authority over our nation’s children from the parents and transfer that authority to the state. Keep the Tylenol and the ear-piercing laws on the books to make the parents think they’ve still got a job, but remove all real decision-making power from them and treat the child as an autonomous citizen for the big life decisions… religion, sexuality, morals, etc. Use propaganda on television to begin to make the parents think that they actually don’t have a right to impose any view on the child, or discipline a child, or monitor a child’s decisions. Rather condition the parents to let him or her develop naturally as he or she sees fit.

Coincidentally, that’s exactly what’s happening. On my daughter’s “Little Brown Bear” DVD, Little Brown Bear told his mother she was horrible without any consequences, and it was explained that parents and children disagree sometimes, but always make up later. In another episode, he ate all of the strawberries out of the family’s dessert after having been told not to. Everyone laughed when they found out what he did. I told my daughter that Little Brown Bear needed a spanking and we threw the DVD away.

All of this is representative of the philosophical viewpoint espoused in the UN’s “Rights of the Child” declaration and is the basis for laws in the European Union regulating the relations between parents and children. I’m told that under certain circumstances in Sweden, technically, it is permissible for a father to have sex with his daughter, but it is illegal for him to spank her.

This strategy is nonsensical, for it is built on a faulty conception of human nature. It is already producing bitter fruit and will continue to do so. The government needs to worry about fixing the Post Office or paving the roads or avoiding paying $1000 for a toilet seat, and leave its nose out of the relationships between parents and their children.

Father Thomas Williams - St. John’s Orthodox Church

Christians, from the days of Christ, have always been urged to follow the law of their  land as Our Lord did. We pay taxes because it is the law.

However, when tax dollars are spent on what many believe to be immoral it becomes difficult for many Christians.  Our present government has recently made or proposed three major changes to abortion-related policy. The President   reversed the Mexico City policy, which means U.S. taxpayers, including those who morally object, will now pay for abortions performed in other countries and for the destruction of embryos for research purposes. And doctors, pharmacists and nurses face losing their “right to choose” to not perform a procedure that offends their consciences.

By no stretch of the imagination can this be called the gospel of  social justice and service to others through the government.

The April 15 federal income tax deadline has come and gone, as has the Tea Party Tax Day protests against high taxes and government spending that drew big crowds here in Rapi d City and elsewhere.  Nobody enjoys paying taxes, but don’t we have a moral duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and help the least among us? If so, isn’t an income tax the fairest way to accomplish the gospel of  social justice and service to others through the government? How do you feel about paying taxes in America today?

Dr. Nicholas Wallerstein–humanities professor

When it comes to taxes, I have to defer to the great political philosopher at Harvard, the late Robert Nozick. In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick describes taxes in the following way: The average worker gives to the government the equivalent of about four months-worth of wages every year. That means we are working without wages for four months out of every year. To work without wages is called slavery. Slavery in the U.S. was outlawed by the Emancipation Proclamation and by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Therefore, taxation–technically being a form of slavery–is unconstitutional. We should refuse to pay.

As Christianity celebrates the central tenet of its faith this week, is South Dakota losing its religion? The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey,  released last month, says 78 percent of South Dakotans now claim to be Christian – 17 percent fewer than did so in 1990. And the number of us who belong to another religion, claim no religion or refuse to say which one we are has more than tripled in the last 18 years — rising from 6 percent to 21 percent. Is that a slide toward the secular, or just a shifting of religious identities from organized religion to a different form of spirituality?

Nicholas Wallerstein–humanities professor

I would say that these numbers are extremely significant, and not just for South Dakota. Newsweek reports this week that the decline in Christianity is a powerful new nationwide phenomenon. The numbers bring to mind an old Woody Allen joke, which I’ll paraphrase as the following: “Everything our parents said was good for us turns out to bad–milk, meat, religion, college.” Just look at the rise of Deism in America and you get a sense that younger people especially are interested in new modes of spirituality. And here’s an amazing number: fifty percent of American Christians claim now to believe in some sort of reincarnation! Have a little Hindu with your Christianity? And how about Buddhism? The younger generation is much more in tune with toleration and compassion than the older. They approve of things like gay marriage in astronomical numbers. Maybe we have something to learn from these new movements. Yet we should always remember to have compassion for the adherents of the older, “traditional” Christian denominations as well, even as their numbers drop.
I, too, read this week’s Newsweek on the decline in religion in America. It mentioned that Al Mohler (someone I respect mightily) was concerned and surprised, especially at the losses in the northeast part of the country. I’m surprised that he’s surprised. I have yet to read his blog to discover his reasoning, but I don’t particularly share his concern. I am not alarmed. We have been here before. Several times.

Rev. Brian Carpenter — Presbyterian Church in America, Sturgis

In my opinion, the gravest danger to true, muscular, biblical Christianity is not from the outside, it is from within. The gravest danger is not Islam or the New Age Movement. It is the watered-down theological liberalism that took over the mainline denominations in the last century, and the watered-down cultural accommodationism, represented by things like the Seeker Sensitive Movement, Prosperity Theology, the virtual identification of Christianity and Right Wing politics, and the Emergent Church Movement in today’s Evangelical church. In other words, Christianity is weakest when it tries the most to look just like the world, and Christianity is strongest when it is at odds with the world.

As a Calvinist, I take it for granted that:
1) Nobody who could have come to saving faith in Christ has ever neglected to come, nor was ever prevented from coming to saving faith in Christ.

2) Nobody who ever had true saving faith in Christ ever lost it. No true Christian ever abandons the faith.

3) A sovereign and electing God protects his Church. He may permit it to weaken and decline into a pitiable state, but he will not suffer it to be extinguished altogether. He may decimate its ranks in America. Then He will raise up his saints in Africa or Latin America or China. Right now I get as many hits on my sermons at sermonaudio.com from China as I do from South Dakota, and more from China than any other country. I have a serious concern that theological literature be translated into Chinese and seminaries be raised up in China to train indigenous pastors. As I’ve said in other places, unless we blow ourselves to smithereens, China is the next empire. It would be much better for the world if it was a Christian empire and not a communist one.

Therefore, I believe that the “decline in religion” is probably more accurately described as a “shift in religiosities.” People, left to themselves, do not desire God. Not the true God. Not as He has revealed himself in the scriptures. It’s not surprising that therefore that many people’s religious experience is not satisfactory and they move on. They were either presented with the truth and didn’t like it, or they were presented with something other than the truth and found that it did not perform as advertised. No true inward change has happened in these people who have “fallen away.” What has happened is that their outward behavior has now become more congruent with their true inward state. That is a relative good. Honesty and truth are always better than dishonesty and deceit. Now the battlefield is cleared of smoke and the shooting can begin again in earnest.

Scottish Baptist pastor Alistair Begg puts it very well.

And since I believe I’m powerless to change anyone’s inward state (that is a sovereign work of God) mine is simply to proclaim the gospel to all who are within the sound of my voice and let the Holy Spirit do with it whatever the Father wills. I will not be judged on the results. But I will be judged on the faithfulness of my adherence to the prescribed methods. Therefore I am determined to adhere to the prescribed methods, even if it means unpopularity, or poverty, or imprisonment, or even my death. Again, Alistair is helpful.

Of course, it is only a series of short hops from “unchristian” to “anti-Christian” and from thence to persecution of Christians. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see those hops made in my lifetime or my children’s. For all of its preening and self-congratulatory trumpery about tolerance, pluralists can only ultimately tolerate other pluralists. That’s the malevolent idiocy of postmodernism. Pluralists tolerate every possible point of view except that point of view which excludes every possible point of view. The one thing the Tolerationists cannot tolerate is what they falsely label “intolerance,” and I am most certainly (and happily) guilty of that crime.

Father Thomas Williams - St. John’s Orthodox Church
Any priest, pastor or minister looking out upon his/her parish or religious community in these days certainly sees smaller congregations and fewer young people, especially when comparing modern congregations to those of forty or fifty years ago. Yes, secularism and crass materialism are factors today. But in looking at the gospels read in recent weeks we see the same phenomenon of shrinking congregations of Christians.

When Our Lord Jesus Christ came into Jerusalem after raising Lazarus from the dead there were throngs around Him, greeting Him, hailing Him. A few days later, as He hung from the cross dying , He would see only His mother, one disciple and a few others nearby, with a few women disciples watching from a distance. There were plenty of scoffers, critics and nay-sayers, though. What a difference a few days make! Nevertheless, His Church, the Church of the Apostles, went on to grow so much that it became the religion of the Roman Empire. (Maybe not a good thing).

It grew from the prayers of the disciples and the blood of martyrs. His Church is about prayer and sacrifice, just as His life was.

NFL Coach Tony Dungy made news this week as a controversial appointment to President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. What do you think of his choice? Who else would you want to see appointed to the newly expanded council? And how do you feel about the concept of partnerships between faith-bsed organizations and government funding? Does it cross any church-state lines for you?

Hazel Bonner — Seventh Day Adventist

I think that the appointment shows that President Obama is reaching out to both sides in this controversial area. His funding of stem cellresearchand his granting money to family planning programs that counsel abortion (but do not pay for abortions) has given him a lot of negative comments from the anti-abortionists. I will not call them pro-life because virtually every other stand of theirs goes against improving the lives of humans.

Rev. Brian Carpenter — Presbyterian Church in America, Sturgis
As a former Hoosier and therefore a Tony Dungy admirer, I think it’s a nice way for Mr. Dungy to cap off a fantastic career.

As for the “pro gay-marriage litmus test” that seems to be emerging among Mr. Obama’s supporters, well, whatever. The Religious Right would have demanded that any candidate under a Republican administration be pro-life and anti gay-marriage, so I suppose turnabout is fair play. It’s Mr. Obama’s program and he can run it however he sees fit. He can award positions of authority within his program however he sees fit. That’s the prerogative of the Presidency.

I personally wouldn’t counsel any religious group to enter into a public/private partnership or accept government funds no matter who the president was and who was administering it. There’s an old Arab proverb about letting the camel stick his nose under the tent. If you let him do that, sooner or later the camel becomes your roommate. With government money comes government control and government rules which are always far heavier-handed and more intrusive than originally explained. They are also subject to change at the whim of politicians and bureaucrats. I can think of nothing more deleterious to the theological integrity of any faith-based organization worthy of the name. I want the government in my religious practice about as much as they want my religious practice in the middle of their governing. I subscribe to a Reformed Protestant worldview known as “sphere sovereignty.” The government and the church are separate kingdoms. Each is relatively sovereign within its own sphere. Each has an influence on the other, but the nature of that influence is not coercive. The church’s authority, according to the theological confession of my church (the Westminster Confession of Faith) is a ministerial and declarative authority. The Civil Magistrate alone has the power to bear the sword and punish evildoers. I think it’s not good to mix those two things up.