Theologian NT Wright has called it both "fascinating and worrying" that some Christians are reluctant to believe the scientific community's expert opinion on coronavirus.
The University of St Andrews scholar said it was "just trivial" to disregard their views because of the notion that "science equals Darwin and Darwin equals unbelief."
Discussing the pandemic with BioLogos founder Francis Collins and podcast host Jim Stump, Wright said it was "crazy" to ignore the science.
The discussion brought up the reluctance of many Americans to wear facemasks, despite the authorities urging them to do so.
Over 138,000 people have died of coronavirus in the US, while many more millions have been infected.
Collins said some Christians wrongly had the attitude that "Jesus is my vaccine so I don't need to worry."
Wright said that Christians should feel a "responsibility to act wisely while a plague or pandemic is going on" and that not doing so was "irresponsible".
Although Zoom worship services could feel "quite depressing", Wright said he would "much rather have that than more sad funerals which people can't attend in great numbers, of people who shouldn't have died."
Later in the discussion, he said it was more beneficial for Christians to ask "what can I do?" than "why did this happen?", and advised them to regard the pandemic as an opportunity to tell more people about Jesus,
"The Christian response is not to come up with the great theoretical reasons why this is happening and breast-beating [that] somebody has sinned," he said.
"It's to say, this world is a strange place, as Paul says, it's growing in labour pains at the moment. Our task is to ... be there, being professional, skilled at seeing whether people are most at risk and what on earth we can do to help."
