Pandemic Religion: A Digital Archive

Pandemic Religion Contributions

Item Set

Items

• 

  Map of Pastor Dan Roshke's trip during the Pandemic

  This is a map of Pastor Roshke's trip during the pandemic in which he performed his sermons online in various parts of the country.
• 

  Pastor Dan Roschke in Vacant Churches Traveling during the Pandemic

  Pastor Roschke took the time to travel and put his church services on the road while he traveled the country. His journey lead him to do virtual Zoom meetings inside vacant churches abandoned in the COVID-19 pandemic. This was to both help him and his congregation relax in the pandemic as much of his congregation was becoming over whelmed with the new restrictions. The trip was also inspired by biblical stories such as in the book of Luke with the story Emmaus.
• 

  Daily Congress Prayer, House, February 26, 2021, Chaplain Kibben: COVID relief bill & Purim miracle

  This video, contributed by Howard Mortman (Communications Director at CSPAN), shows House chaplain Kibben opening Congress with a prayer whose message combines the $1.9T COVID relief bill and the Purim miracle
• 

  Flyer about Mental Health in the Pandemic promoted by Abiding Presence Lutheran Church

  Abiding Presence Lutheran Church is very much involved with the subject of mental health and promotes government documents such as these.
• 

  Abiding Presence Lutheran Church, Eucharist at Home 2

  Abiding Presence Lutheran Church is allowing it's congregation to receive Eucharist from home. Here is a photo of that.
• 

  Abiding Presence Lutheran Church, Eucharist at Home

  Abiding Presence Lutheran Church is allowing it's congregation to receive Eucharist from home. Here is a photo of that.
• 

  Editing and Filming a Digital Sermon at Church of the Epiphany Anglican

  Behind the scenes photo of computers set up to record and edit digital sermons along with various other equipment at Church of the Epiphany Anglican .
• 

  Cat in front of Computer that is Screen Playing Sermon

  Rev. Mary Rodger's cat in front of her computer screen while a digital sermon is playing.
• 

  Photographs of Congregation on Pews at Providence Presbyterian Church

  For recording sermons, the church leaders have put photos of their congregation members on pews to feel more comfortable and natural when preaching.
• 

  Daily Congress Prayer, Senate, February 22, 2021, Chaplain Black -- 500,000 coronavirus dead ...& GW

  This video was contributed by Howard Mortman, Communications Director at CSPAN. He notes: "On Monday, in his prayer opening the U.S. Senate, Chaplain Barry Black mentioned the 500,000 U.S. coronavirus-related death. Although he has alluded to the pandemic in his opening prayers several times using broad language, by my records it was his first specific/direct mention of coronavirus in an opening Senate prayer of his since March 23, 2020."
• 

  Rabbi Romi Cohn: His Prayer in Congress and Remarks After His Passing

  These videos, contributed by Howard Mortman (Communications Director at CSPAN), center around Rabbi Romi Cohn. As Mortman notes in his book (see Source), Cohn was a Holocaust survivor and member of the Jewish underground in his native Czechoslovakia. He delivered the House prayer on January 29, 2020-- 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz. Unfortunately, Cohn died from COVID-19 two months after delivering his house prayer. He is remembered in the House daily prayer on March 27, 2020.
• 

  NIH Director Francis Collins recites David prayer (Psalm 103) after getting Moderna COVID-19 vaccine

  This video, contributed by Howard Mortman (Communications Director at CSPAN), shows National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins recites Psalm of David (Psalm 103) after he received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on December 22, 2020. 1 [A Psalm] of David. Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name. ב בָּרְכִי נַפְשִׁי, אֶת-יְהוָה; וְאַל-תִּשְׁכְּחִי, כָּל-גְּמוּלָיו. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; ג הַסֹּלֵחַ לְכָל-עֲוֺנֵכִי; הָרֹפֵא, לְכָל-תַּחֲלוּאָיְכִי. 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquity; who healeth all thy diseases; ד הַגּוֹאֵל מִשַּׁחַת חַיָּיְכִי; הַמְעַטְּרֵכִי, חֶסֶד וְרַחֲמִים. 4 Who redeemeth thy life from the pit; who encompasseth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies; ה הַמַּשְׂבִּיעַ בַּטּוֹב עֶדְיֵךְ; תִּתְחַדֵּשׁ כַּנֶּשֶׁר נְעוּרָיְכִי. 5 Who satisfieth thine old age with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle.
• 

  Behind the Scenes of Filming a Digital Sermon

  Social media post by Rev. Mary Rodgers of Providence Presbyterian Church showing lights and cameras in preparation for filming a digital sermon.
• 

  Bible Study and Social Distance at Mclean Presbyterian

  Bible study group at Mclean Presbyterian practicing social distancing during COVID-19 pandemic.
• 

  Waiting on the Lord By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

  October 2020 General Conference talk about the COVID-19 pandemic and patience.
• 

  A Perfect Brightness of Hope By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

  April 2020 General Conference talk about the COVID-19 pandemic and hope.
• 

  Response to Coronavirus Public Celebrations of Mass Diocese of Arlington

  November 13, 2020 Guidelines for mass for the Diocese of Arlington during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• 

  Thin Places: A Podcast About Finding God in Everyday Life

  Thin Places is a new podcast experiment from Zion Episcopal Church in Douglaston, Queens NY: it's a way for the Zion community to share the new ways we’re meeting God in this time of COVID-19—to tell each other about the “thin places” we’ve found. Places where God feels close, where we can feel the breath of the Holy Spirit passing over us, even if just for a moment in the midst of our uncertainty and stress, our frustrations and our griefs. Join us as we explore!
• 

  Hanukkah Lighting on Boathouse Row

  The Mayor's Office of Public Engagement hosted their Hanukkah lighting on Zoom and shared it via Facebook Live.
• 

  "Zoom in the Inn" Christmas Pageant at Zion Episcopal Church

  We humbly present our 2020 Christmas Pageant "ZOOM IN THE INN." This year, parents filmed their children acting out their parts at home, and we knit all those little videos together into this pageant. We hope it makes you smile, and reminds you that wherever you are, you are never alone. Our God is Emmanuel—"God WITH us." Help us spread the good news—please share! Thanks so much to all the families who got creative with us as we told this sacred story in a new way! This is what Zion is all about. Like Mary says, "God is doing a new thing, and we're a part of it!"
• 

  Food Security during Ramadan

  Food boxes that were provided by local mosques and funded through nyc government. These specifically are labeled Halal but there were many options.
• 

  Shi'a Islam, digital collectives, and covid-19 outreach

  As an early-career anthropologist of religion, I was conducting ethnographic fieldwork among the Twelver Shi’a denomination of Islam in the Pakistani city of Lahore when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. In the short two-month project I was working on, I was engaged in learning more about new digital proselytization networks established in Pakistan. Building on the work of marketplace producers of Shi’a religious media, these networks deployed existing social media platforms such as Facebook Live, YouTube, and WhatsApp to create a regular calendar of blended on- and offline events which closely resonate with existing theologies of mediation and co-presence richly in evidence in Pakistani Shi’a faith. When I left Pakistan in early March 2020, I was able to continue this research remotely at the same time as expanding my fieldsite to similar digital collectives in parts of the world with large diaspora communities of Urdu-speaking Shi’a of largely Indian, Pakistani, and Tanzanian origin. This included the online activities centred upon the Islamic Shia Ithna-Asheri Jamaat of Toronto (ISIJ) in Canada, which as a physical member community comprises around 5000-7000 people, but whose online activities have a much wider reach. Not only is it the most lavishly adorned mosque in the Greater Toronto area, but its outreach activities include the Jaffari Community Centre, equipped with a gym, banquet hall, and classrooms, and a fully-functioned “Watch Live” facility on their website and YouTube channel, the latter of which also includes archived recordings in both English and Urdu. I had been familiar with the ISIJ for some time through the engaging and charismatic sermons of the ISIJ’s Maulana Syed Asad Jafri. I find Jafri’s English-language majlis-e-aza [mourning gathering] sermons on each of the first ten days of the Islamic month of Muharram, the most engrossing in the language. During the pandemic I watched as the Jaffari Community Centre established a wide range of resources, under the headings, “Nurture the Soul”, “Contact Resources”, and “Educational Fun”. The first heading featured (at the time of writing) a 19-video series titled “Spiritual Check-up”, led twice-weekly by Maulana Syed Muhammad Rizvi on topics that the community are encouraged to reflect upon. The ISIJ also established a COVID-19 Taskforce which held regular live-streamed panel and Q&A sessions through which viewers could feed back directly through the interactive presentation software Menti. Among the wider Canadian Shi’a (Twelver, Ismaili, and Bohra) community, Facebook pages centered around religious television networks provided an opportunity for users to post visual material with the active encouragement that they be shared widely. As I observed among digital proselytization networks in Pakistan, the sharing of visual material on one’s feed or among one’s WhatsApp contacts carried with it the possibility of gathering blessings and increasing the potential efficacy of one’s prayers. A small sample of these COVID-19-specific materials shared among Canadian Shi’a are attached with this entry. A number of these written in Urdu and shared widely between Canadian worshippers and family and friends in Pakistan are briefly summarised and translated below. 1. A diagram showing congregational salat [prayers] during social distancing, produced by Al-Maarif Foundation, a Canadian Shi’a Ithna ‘Ashari publisher. The diagram was produced by Maulana Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi after sending a question to Ayatullah Sistani's office in Najaf, Iran, regarding the utility of a diagonal connection in congregational prayer during COVID-19. 2. The split image shows two sides of a morally responsible Shi’a subject. On the left-hand side, a young man is shown wearing a mask outdoors. On the right side he is shown undertaking a pilgrimage, likely to the mausoleum of Imam Hussain in Karbala in Iraq. Below the English text, a caption reads in Urdu: “Wearing a mask keeps azadari and azadars safe. This is your legal, national and moral duty.” The word azadari refers to the doing of ritual mourning for Imam Hussain and the ahl-e-bayt who suffered death or humiliation at the Battle of Karbala in 680AD. The word azadar refers to one who does azadari; a ritual mourner. 3. With a similar guiding message of “Save Azadar, Save Azadari”, this image carries an embedded invitation to share widely. The Urdu transliterated text reads: “For all azadars the use of a mask is compulsory. The management will not allow anyone to participate without a mask.” In its journey between users the image was often accompanied by the hashtags #ResponsibleAzadar #saveazadar #saveazadari 4. Depicting a masked pilgrim wearing a devotional green headband, the image is captioned in Urdu with the words, “Hussain ibn Ali said ‘Any individual who sheds even a single tear for our troubles will be rewarded by Allah with a place in heaven”. Shared widely on social media, the image was often pegged to the hashtags #SaveAzadariSaveAzadar #DefeatCoronaSaveAzadari. 5. The global, inter-faith day of fasting referenced in this image was also referred to by other contributors to the Pandemic Religion archive, particular a number of Mormon contributors. 6. This image, shared widely on social media, was captioned in English with the words, “How is separation, what is called suffering? Ask those people who are deprived of visits”. The use of the English word “visits” likely acts as a translation of the Arabic/Persian/Urdu expression ziyarat, when describes an act of pilgrimage, usually to a shrine or mausoleum.

• Personal Religious Experience -Jacob Miller

  I'm a sophomore in college at the University of Missouri and quite honestly religion has been one of the biggest changes for me since the pandemic started. When I'm not in school I live in a small town in Southwest Missouri, and when the pandemic began and the first quarantine started, my church didn't take it very seriously, we weren't required to wear masks or distance ourselves or anything of the sort. About 3 weeks later a member of our church staff tested positive, resulting in the entire building being shut down for a number of weeks. When it finally reopened things just were not the same, the entire "social" side of going to church was hardly there at all. It kind of felt like going to a class, we all just had to sit there and listen without being able to greet other people. Along with this, ever since I can remember there is always about a 5 minute period in which you're able to walk around the room and say hi to friends and family before the sermon started. This was taken away, and the result is a hollow shell of a church, especially compared to what it used to be. I personally hope that this tradition picks back up after it is safe to do so because it's sad to see how harshly it's affecting the church.

• I haven't gone to Church since March but my grandfather still goes twice a week.

  I haven't gone to Church since I was first sent home from college in March when lockdowns began. I feel guilty because as soon as the strictest lockdown for my area was lifted my 80 year old grandfather started going back to Church. He also goes to veneration every week. At first my family was worried about him and my grandmother but they never once got sick going to mass. After all these months my grandfather contracted Covid a couple weeks ago but hilariously it wasn't from going out it was from a visit from one of my relatives. I am lucky in that I can laugh at the irony of that because the only symptom my grandfather showed was loss of taste. I understand how fortunate I am to have healthy grandparents whom were rather unaffected by the virus. I am praying for those who are not as lucky and have lost someone during this pandemic.

• Searching for my faith during the pandemic

  Hello! I am a student at the University of Missouri and if anyone asked me if I had a faith before the pandemic, I would have laughed. Now, I am searching to see if I am able to put my full faith back into the Catholic church. I am taking a Religious Studies course this semester and by being able to talk about my religion and its history, it has made me realize that it might be something I should look into joining again. With the pandemic, every single person has seen a low moment because of the virus. If that is to loosing a job, a family member, or not being able to go outside because of fear, I have realized that having faith can help anyone through that.