Kuzipa Nalwamba

Lecturer of Ecumenical Social Ethics at Bossesy Ecumenical Institute & Programme Exectutive for Ecumenical Theological Education (ETE), World Council of Churches, Geneva
Switzerland

While naming the fault lines that have exposed vulnerabilities in the pandemic, this reflection calls for an orientation towards faith-action. Covid-19 has exposed the fault-lines and hypocrisy that run through our communities – local and global. A question that arises is: Had the virus been confined to the global South, would it still make global headlines in the world’s media for the sustained period that it has? Europe, and then the US, became epicentres of the pandemic in quick succession. In its wake, the virus has exposed the deep inequalities that exist within communities, nations and between nations. Poor economies and poor people are challenged to the core. The poor and vulnerable communities, even in wealth countries, are the worst affected. Against that backdrop, we will reflect on what it means to confess faith in a vulnerable God and to be bodily vulnerable, while naming some of the fault lines that covid-19 has exposed as sites for lament and resistance and bodies are at the frontline. In that regard, we may speak of vulnerability as mobilizing the ‘body’ (physical and ecclesial) to move beyond triumphalist piety towards embodied resistance. The vulnerabilities that covid-19 exposes incite/invite the ‘body’ to lament, protest and disrupt as manifestations of faithful witness to a vulnerable God