God, Pandemics, and the Holocaust
- Theology
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Published: 2025
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Publisher's Description
How is a loving, powerful, good, and cognizant God related to human lives that are beset with pain and suffering and plagued by diseases and natural catastrophes? What is the role and activity of God in history and nature? How does God help us in our struggles and our tragedies? God, Pandemics, and the Holocaust suggests answers to these questions and others through the prisms of the bubonic plague, the Spanish flu, COVID-19, and the attempted genocide of the Jewish people in the Holocaust. Religious insights from these time periods are noted and additional and alternative points of view are also considered. The existence of God is not examined; what is explored is the kind of God who God is: What conceptions of God are no longer satisfactory to human experience, and what understandings of God can make sense in a world that is both wonderful and woeful?
Endorsements (7)
“Through his utterly gripping narration of the great pandemics of human history and the Holocaust, Cliff Cain undoes the toxic presumption that—for reasons of wrath, test, or wake-up call—God causes or permits such suffering. People of faith need Cain’s infectious, indeed contagious, alternative!”
“Using copious quotes from influential voices past and present, Cliff Cain surveys the common excuses given for why a loving and powerful God doesn’t stop evil. He finds them unsatisfying. Taking the most difficult questions about evil—such as why God didn’t stop COVID-19 or the Holocaust—Cain offers a solution to the problem of evil. His answer points to the unequivocal but non-controlling love of God. I highly recommend this book!”
“Cliff Cain’s timely book raises the existential, theological question of why God would allow pandemics to ravage the world and inflict such suffering on its people. Providing historical context, Dr. Cain considers the COVID pandemic in light of the bubonic plague, the Spanish flu, and the Holocaust. Rejecting theological appeals to God’s retribution, mystery, and other such traditional responses, he challenges us to conclude that our traditional conception of God must change to one of God who loves and suffers with us rather than standing idly by staying his hand. A welcome, unique perspective for all those interested in God’s relationship to our pandemic world.”
“Most of us have had questions around God’s omnipotence and human suffering. The COVID-19 epidemic and the Holocaust certainly raised the profile of those questions. Cliff Cain offers a helpful way to consider the options for responding thoughtfully and theologically to human suffering during COVID-19 and previous pandemics and during genocides. Covering biblical and historical theological responses to mass human suffering, Cain leads readers to a place where they can hold in tension God’s love and the world we live in. Wherever you find yourself on this spectrum of belief, Cliff Cain’s work offers a chance to sharpen your perspective and deepen your appreciation for God’s love for this world.”
“Dr. Cliff Cain does not fear to tread into difficult waters. Here, he gathers from across the centuries, all the best (and worst) answers to the persistent question, ‘How can there be God, whom we understand to be both good and omnipotent, and still evil and suffering persist?,’ and offers them to his readers through the backdrop of three global pandemics—the Bubonic Plague, the Spanish Flu, and COVID-19—and the Holocaust. By the end, this modern-day theologian has guided his reader into new and freeing possibilities, and perhaps a new relationship with both God and the challenges of our human existence.”
“At a time when popular Christianity largely worships a god of bargains, with idols of certainty, comfort, and hedonism here and in the hereafter, Cliff Cain’s God, Pandemics, and the Holocaust, gives us a stinging critique of using God for our purposes and argues forcefully for us to instead follow a God of love and compassion regardless of the consequences. It is a disturbing yet helpful book.”
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