Winter Living Theology 2021: Does God Allow Suffering?

The Jesuit Institute, due to the ongoing COVID pandemic, will host Winter Living Theology 2021 online. Fr Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez OP will offer a series of lectures on Does God allow suffering? Is there hope in a time of Pandemic? It is an important and relevant question for South Africa today, especially in light of the current pandemic.

A week of lectures will be offered from Monday to Thursday from 18h30-20h30. This will take place from 21-24 June and will be repeated from 5-8 July 2021.

Each evening will start with a lecture and there will be time for questions and answers. Fr MendozaÁlvarez will talk on the following over the four evenings:

1. The global crisis: A look at the planetary crisis and systemic violence that afflicts us throughout the world, particularly the way in which humans have begun to reconstruct the world in their image. The Covid-19 pandemic is a severe symptom of the dysfunction of today’s civilisation.
2. The resistances against systemic violence: Listening to the stories of those who experienced violence, we will reflect on the various ways in which victims confront evil and their understanding of how this world can change. What practices of Good living emerge from this?
3. Seeds of salvation. We will explore the signs of hope and the Kingdom of God in the history of suffering, in a theological and spiritual key to strengthen our experience of God revealed in Jesus, “taking the crucified peoples from the Cross”.
4. Reimagining the powerless church: The seeds of salvation in this broken history of humanity and the planet will give us the direction to imagine the Church as a network of communities in resistance and hope to receive with joy the gift of God’s abundant love.

COST: R1500 per person for the four evenings.

DISCOUNT: Subscribe to our mailing list to receive a 20% discount coupon.

BURSARY: Partial bursaries are available on application admin@jesuitinstitute.org.za

TO BOOK OR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Online on our website: www.jesuitinstitute.org.za

Or, contact Ursula admin@jesuitinstitute.org.za or 011 482 4237 (Office hours)

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez is a Dominican priest from Mexico. He is a professor and researcher in the Department of Religious Studies at Iberoamericana University in Mexico City and is currently teaching at Boston College, Massachusetts. He obtained his doctoral degree at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. The topic of his dissertation (later published) was Christian revelation in dialogue with modernity. The foundational elements of theological aesthetics. Fr Mendoza has published widely in specialised journals and has authored seven books.

In the last few years, Fr Mendoza had been accompanying people whose loved ones have disappeared in kidnappings in Mexico. This has led him to work and reflect on the question of suffering, resistance and hope in a time of global violence and now, the Covid-19 pandemic.