The Theologising in the Shadow of a Pandemic seminar series is an initiative of the Sydney College of Divinity Theology Research Network. This is the first in the series to be conducted in 2020-21 culminating in a conference to be held late in 2021.

This seminar offers an opportunity to reflect theologically on our global situation. As theologians we have a responsibility to our churches and to the broader community to reflect theologically on our current plight. The present Covid-19 pandemic has been the cause of massive social, economic and religious dislocation. It will impact on personal relations, long term financial and employment issues, how we view our international connections and of course our relationship with God and our church communities. We have an opportunity to bring the resources of our faith traditions to bear, not to provide definitive answers but to explore these resources and share them both within our churches and with the larger society.

The seminar is online. Register your interest with Professor Neil Ormerod,  [email protected]. Closer to the date of the seminar you will receive a link to connect online.

Program

Affirming Creation’s Goodness in a Time of Pandemic: Patristic Insights

We, modern Christians, are both unrealistic and unreasonable. We expect only good things to happen. But not so in the natural world, as the present pandemic demonstrates. The early Christians were more realistic than this. They knew that the world, while good, is imperfect.

They also knew that there is a wild side to it, as to our own nature. As within, so without.
They were convinced that only insofar as we tame our inner selves will there be hope for
the world to become—in turn and in time— gentler, as happen around the saints. In this
paper Dr Doru Costache considers several witnesses of the ancient Christian wisdom, seeking clues for a realistic appraisal of the natural world.