Privilege and pandemic by Chris Dowd

For some of us this isn’t our first pandemic.

As a young gay man in Sydney in the mid-1980s and 1990s, I saw first-hand the havoc that HIV AIDS wreaked on the queer community* at that time. As a member of both a University LGBT collective and a youth group, I can number the survivors of those groups on my fingers. I am lucky to be one of them.

As I acidly commented to a colleague who said that we had never seen anything like this before I said, ‘Yes - but that’s because this time the Church isn’t dancing on the graves of those who  have died.’ While I acknowledge that not all of the Church followed the worst examples of inhumanity I experienced (and still experience as an ordained gay man), many churches stayed silent.  While some clergy and congregations did help, I know of many gay men who died believing that God had cursed them, and that the Church had abandoned them.

Of course, HIV AIDS isn’t the only new disease that ravaged communities in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Like Ebola, SARS and MERS, COVID-19 originally seemed to be one of a line of exotic diseases in exotic places. Pandemic until now for most people has been something on the TV rather than on the doorstep.

I am not for one minute trying to say what is happening isn’t terrible and the rising death toll isn’t truly awful.  Nor am I trying to somehow exult in the idea that finally what has been happening elsewhere has landed at people’s front door. This is a terrible time. I am losing members of my congregation and it hurts like hell. Suffering is always terrible.

But this does bring up the question of privilege. I’m defining privilege as the unearned social capital that some people inherently have or do not have. I would observe that the HIV epidemic in the global north confirmed heteronormative privilege because it was perceived as a disease of those who did not conform to the sacred idea of the nuclear family or ‘family values’. I would also argue that the other pandemics over the last 40 years have been in places that confirm the superiority of those with television sets who can view disease in parts of the world that are not so fortunate.

So, what will this pandemic do for those of us cushioned by lives of privilege? What will it mean for those who take their agency for granted to be isolated, frightened and helpless? What will it mean to suddenly find a job with status is revealed as unnecessary when we must keep a society on lockdown running? What does it mean for a frenetic society to simply come to a juddering halt and have to deal with introspection and isolation?

And what does it mean for churches who make privilege a sacred right?  Who worship a narrow way of life and celebrate material success? Of narrow theologies and ridiculous insistences on their ‘rights’ rendered ridiculous in the face of the reality of a virus? What is the future for congregations who have stopped being viable worshipping communities and exist as Holy Landlords now with empty rooms and dwindling reserves?

I’m not sure.

I can tell you that amazing people transcended all types of the barriers to create a nurturing community that struggled, cried but ultimately survived stronger than it had been before in the years when HIV AIDS ravaged my community.  I remember those years of my youth as both wonderful and terrible.

I hope this time is the same. Only time will tell.

*By the Queer community I am acknowledging the many amazing people who stood with the Gay community and provided love, practical support and lobbied organisations to show humanity and concern.

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Each day, we will post a short article by one of Darton, Longman and Todd’s amazing authors, offering a personal reflection on our current situation in life. Sometimes this will be written with reference to one of their books, and sometimes about how they are living in response to the coronavirus and our current world situation. We hope it will give you a taste of the depth and diversity of DLT’s list – books for heart, mind and soul that aim to meet the needs and interests of all.

Today’s post is by Chris Dowd, co-author, with Christina Beardsley, of Transfaith: A Transgender Pastoral Resource, which you can buy in print here or as an ebook here.