History proves that crises provide opportunities for Christians to demonstrate what makes our worldview different. This article from the Gospel Coalition provides a helpful summary of ways the early church stepped up in the plagues of the third and fourth centuries that wiped out whole villages.
“In an AD 362 letter, Julian complained that the Hellenists needed to match the Christians in virtue, blaming the recent growth of Christianity on their ‘benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead, and the pretended holiness of their lives.’ Elsewhere he wrote, ‘For it is a disgrace that . . . the impious Galilaeans [Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well.’”
“According to Dionysius, the plague served as a ‘schooling and testing’ for Christians. In a detailed description of how Christians responded to the plague in Alexandria, he writes of how ‘the best’ among them honorably served the sick until they themselves caught the disease and died:
“Most of our brother-Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of the danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbours and cheerfully accepting their pains.”
For more context and perspective read the rest of the article!