Introduction

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Life out there looks like an apocalyptic movie. Store shelves are empty; entire countries are quarantined; every public space stands deserted; even the freeways of LA are desolate. The blaring of the political news cycle has been drowned out by updates on COVID-19. Public health announcements, alarming statistics, painful testimonies, dire economic impacts litter our news feeds. Speculations, superstitions, and fake news lie strewn across the But for several days, I have been hoping to read not about the present, but the past, about how Christians of yesteryear dealt with crisis and plague in their own day. I want to read about how faithful saints responded to death and disease, to glean from their experience. I haven’t found much out there

Life out there looks like an apocalyptic movie. Store shelves are empty; entire countries are quarantined; every public space stands deserted; even the freeways of LA are desolate. The blaring of the political news cycle has been drowned out by updates on COVID-19. Public health announcements, alarming statistics, painful testimonies, dire economic impacts litter our news feeds. Speculations, superstitions, and fake news lie strewn across the But for several days, I have been hoping to read not about the present, but the past, about how Christians of yesteryear dealt with crisis and plague in their own day. I want to read about how faithful saints responded to death and disease, to glean from their experience. I haven’t found much out thereLife out there looks like an apocalyptic movie. Store shelves are empty; entire countries are quarantined; every public space stands deserted; even the freeways of LA are desolate. The blaring of the political news cycle has been drowned out by updates on COVID-19. Public health announcements, alarming statistics, painful testimonies, dire economic impacts litter our news feeds. Speculations, superstitions, and fake news lie strewn across the But for several days, I have been hoping to read not about the present, but the past, about how Christians of yesteryear dealt with crisis and plague in their own day. I want to read about how faithful saints responded to death and disease, to glean from their experience. I haven’t found much out thereLife out there looks like an apocalyptic movie. Store shelves are empty; entire countries are quarantined; every public space stands deserted; even the freeways of LA are desolate. The blaring of the political news cycle has been drowned out by updates on COVID-19. Public health announcements, alarming statistics, painful testimonies, dire economic impacts litter our news feeds. Speculations, superstitions, and fake news lie strewn across the But for several days, I have been hoping to read not about the present, but the past, about how Christians of yesteryear dealt with crisis and plague in their own day. I want to read about how faithful saints responded to death and disease, to glean from their experience. I haven’t found much out there

So in this post, I want to do just that. No, I’m not going to look at Exodus and learn what the Egyptians did when God smote them with the plagues—because, well, we all know how that went. Instead, I want to look at how the saints in Geneva, Switzerland, responded to the black plague epidemics of the 1500s.