If the United States were a football team, our opponent would score two touchdowns before our players were even paying attention—but we’d claw back into the game during the second quarter and win going away in the second half. 

That’s the way World War II went. That’s how the Space Race with the Soviet Union went in the 1960s, supply side economics went in the 1980s, and the War on Terror went in 2001 and 2002. And that’s the way the coronavirus war is likely to go in 2020 and 2021.

My book The Politics of Disaster came out in 2006 on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I had sections on what went wrong in New Orleans, what went right, how national disaster policy needed reform, how religious organizations could help, and how the United States could help with disaster abroad. The last section, titled “Disasters to come,” included chapters on earthquakes, nuclear terrorism, and pandemics.

Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission used to have open doors with people moving in and out, but now it has checkpoints at every entrance. People going in have to stop and disinfect their hands, and a worker checks everyone’s temperature as they enter. Staff, volunteers, and even guests at the homeless shelter have learned how to identify symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Since 1977, New Zealand law had required women seeking abortions to prove their pregnancies posed a danger to their physical and mental health. But lawmakers on Wednesday reclassified abortion as a health issue and not a criminal act, leaving unborn babies unprotected until 20 weeks of gestation.

Early next week, Americans who think they might have COVID-19 can access a screening website and drive-through testing centers in parking lots of major retailers and pharmacies, President Donald Trump announced on Friday. He declared the outbreak of the disease caused by the new coronavirus a national emergency and laid out changes to the nation’s healthcare system as a result. The federal government will relax numerous regulations on hospitals and doctors so they can make quick decisions without limits on how, when, or where they provide care for patients.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin could become president for life if voters adopt proposed constitutional changes. The lower house of Russian parliament on Wednesday voted 383-0, with 43 abstentions, in favor of changing the country’s term limits to allow Putin to rule until 2036. The upper house approved the measure hours later. The amendments will face a nationwide vote on April 22.

Ten years ago, I felt honored to write a chapter in a book edited by John Piper and David Mathis, With Calvin in the Theater of God. Many of our readers have read John Calvin and are deeply aware of his theological brilliance, but here’s a slightly adapted part of the chapter in which I looked at 10 ways Calvin challenged his era’s conventional wisdom concerning government and economics. In this election year, as the full fury and superficiality of half-blind 2020 politics assaults us, let’s spend a few minutes looking deeper.