When All This Is Over, How Do We Want The World To Be Different? ICCJ Conference 2021

From: Anette Adelmann; ICCJ General Secretary

CONFERENCE THEME

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the enduring systemic injustices and vulnerabilities in our societies, economies, political systems, and religious communities. It challenges our religious traditions to examine themselves in order to inspire effective actions for the common good both locally and globally.

We would like to examine how the coronavirus and related crises confront us in three ways:

• As individuals: All generations have been affected in the immediate present, even if differently, but probably with consequences for the future. As social animals deprived of living in society, we try to remain connected even though being physical present to one another has been severely restricted.
• As religious traditions: Have we relied on faith? on Scripture? on worship? Have the restrictions on communal gathering changed our way of worshipping? Have our traditions complied out of concern for the common good or resisted infringements on religious practices, and why? What, if anything, has changed forever?
• In Jewish-Christian dialogue: Do our experiences of a shared suffering involving all humanity turn us into more defensive postures about our respective traditions or outwards to seeking a more interreligious approach in a globally threatened but pluralistic world? Can the recent rapprochement between Christians and Jews, even if still in its infancy, learn from or positively contribute to the current situation?

Online webinars on Sunday and Wednesday and workshops on Monday and Tuesday will address different aspects of these questions and other topics concerning Jewish-Christian relations.

More information will follow in due course.