The image of Nero fiddling while the City of Rome burned was referenced by some academics in Sri Lanka when transition to teaching online began during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Many of us could identify with that sentiment. How and why should we be engaging in ‘normal’ academic activities when the world is facing a pandemic?
Almost 100 years ago, C S Lewis, Professor of English at Oxford and fiction writer, reflected on this very question. In a sermon delivered during the Second World War he asked ‘…why should we – indeed how can we – continue to take an interest in these placid occupations [the pursuit of learning] when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?’ Our equivalent of this question today would be ‘How can we focus on teaching online, attend to regular work and research, when people are dying in their thousands and in our own country so many are facing countless hardships including our own students?’ A genuine question that many academics raised.
C S Lewis’s essay ‘Learning in War Time’ offers a helpful approach to developing a Christian response to this question. I summarize his main ideas below and invite you to reflect on this question further through the questions that follow.
- Christians believe that only those who believe in the Good News will be saved. Then, even during ‘normal’ times we ought to be thinking about and being concerned for the fate of non-believers. Even during ‘normal’ times should we not be worried and asking ourselves how appropriate it is to spend our time teaching and in research when people’s lives ought to be saved?
- Has life ever been ‘normal’? C S Lewis says ‘Human Culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself’ [think of the Ebola epidemic, the war in Syria and the refugee crisis. In Sri Lanka, the war and the JVP insurrections are examples]. Where these injustices were removed from us we may have chosen to ignore these injustices and tragedies and to continue with business as usual. Where they took place in our own country, we may have had a different approach.
- C S Lewis suggests that these concerns, whether of crisis or of the normal – can only have a temporary demand on human nature. Only God can have an infinite claim on us.
- But in that infinite claim it is clear that our faith recognises the ordinary and the extraordinary human activities as being sacred. The work we do as ‘scholars or as scavengers’ continues to be sacred and relevant to God’s purpose of saving all of creation – in ‘normal’ times and in ‘abnormal’ times.
- Lewis suggests that in keeping our focus on God’s calling in our work – at a time like this- we must guard against three temptations.
Excitement
By this he means the temptation to direct, on to the pandemic, the passion that we ought to be pouring into our work. Lewis points out that favourable conditions are elusive and we must learn to be faithful to our work regardless of whether conditions are favourable to our work or not.
Frustration
This is the temptation to give into the feeling that ‘we shall not have time to finish’ our work (our research agenda, for instance). He readily identifies with that feeling and says that it gets stronger in you as you grow older! But we can leave the future in God’s hands. ‘Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment ‘as to the Lord’.
Fear
‘Extraordinary’ situations confront us with death. But what does a pandemic actually change about death? It remains 100% certain as before. Lewis says ‘All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realise it. Now the stupidest of us know.’
So in conclusion Lewis invites us, academics, to remain faithful to our calling – a life of learning. This calling remains relevant and true, during a pandemic or a war just as it would be in times of relative peace or normalcy. Through this calling our Christian duty is to try to better understand God’s will and purpose for all of creation.
Questions for Reflection
- What has your experience of these last few months been – at a personal level (home, marriage, parenting etc), at a professional level and in your life as a citizen?
- What is our Christian duty at this time, in these aspects of our life?
- What are the conditions of your work that are favourable? Which ones are not favourable?
- What support do you think you need to cope with the unfavourable? How can you take advantage of the unfavourable?
- In reading C S Lewis’s piece what further reflections were prompted?
The views expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or position of FOCUS, Sri Lanka.