Kroesbergen-Kamps, Johanneke2023-10-102023-10-102024-02Kroesbergen-Kamps, J. “God is in Control”: Religious Coping in Sermons About the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Reformed Church in Zambia. Journal of Religion and Health 63, 704–724 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01915-3.0022-4197 (print)1573-6571 (online)10.1007/s10943-023-01915-3http://hdl.handle.net/2263/92799Coping is one of the mechanisms employed by people to deal with crises or disasters such as the global COVID-19 pandemic. The RCOPE, developed by Kenneth Pargament et al., is a quantitative scale to measure styles of religious coping. This article applies the RCOPE qualitatively to live-streamed sermons in the Reformed Church in Zambia, held in the two-month lockdown period in Zambia from the end of March to the end of May 2020. A total of 20 pastors contributed 134 sermons that were transcribed and analyzed using the full RCOPE. The results show that pastors in the RCZ mainly encourage their audiences to seek spiritual support, gain control over the situation, and give a positive meaning to the pandemic. The idea that God is in control is important behind all of these means of religious coping in the Zambian sermons. This qualitative analysis also discovered possible lacunae in the RCOPE questionnaire, especially concerning its applicability to evangelical forms of global Christianity, such as the lack of attention to God’s intervention and control.en© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Religious copingCOVID-19 pandemicCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)African ChristianityZambiaReformed Church in ZambiaSermonsTheology of sufferingPandemic responseChristian faith and healthTheology articles SDG-03SDG-03: Good health and well-beingTheology articles SDG-04SDG-04: Quality educationTheology articles SDG-10SDG-10: Reduced inequalitiesTheology articles SDG-16SDG-16: Peace, justice and strong institutionsArticle