Covid-19, Public Violence, Fake News and Vaccines: A Theological Ethical Reflection

Abstract

This paper attempts to deal with Covid-19, fake news and vaccines and is the product of a talk the author gave at a contact session of the Northern Theological Seminary of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. This presentation was given a few weeks after South Africans were confronted by the eruption of public violence, “apparently” sparked by the jailing of President Jacob Zuma. The author, although requested to share ideas on Covid-19 and vaccines, felt that there was some political nexus between public violence, the feeling of being left out systematically, the unintended consequences of the lockdown, and the spark—the Constitutional Court’s decision to jail the then president. This article does not discuss the Constitutional Court’s decision or the jailing of the then president but tries to academically think about the causes of the eruption of public violence. The author explores the politics surrounding the vaccines and the unintended consequences of the lockdown, discusses “what the Church has become” since the outbreak of this virus, and deliberates the impact of “fake-news” in the era of a pandemic.