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Invitations for Conversation & Reflection

 

March 14 - For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church

Sunday, March 14th, 2:00-3:30 MTS

You are invited to join a series of reflections and conversations with Andrew Bingham & David Goa. Kindly pass along to those who may be interested.

Poverty, Wealth, and Civil Justice

“When the eternal Son became human, divesting himself of his divine glory and exchanging the “form of God” for the form of a servant, he elected thereby to identify himself with the most marginal, politically powerless, and socially disadvantaged persons of his age.” So opens section IV of the document we are discussing. The Church’s concern for the poor – provision for the oppressed through charity – and, this is also central, doing all it can in pursuit of “social justice and civil equity” is seen as a “necessary means of salvation”, of our essential vocation in the healing of the life of the world. A full range of themes anchors our refection: systemic poverty, the dignity of work, the dangers of unhinged capitalism, access to healthcare, and the challenges of climate change. Compelling matters all. What may we learn from the sometime surprising ways the Church thinks and encourages us to think and respond to these matters? Join us for this conversation.

Join Zoom Meeting - Passcode: 960466

https://zoom.us/j/91990323849?pwd=YkxYSkw3MlBHRVVFQUd2LzljSjZtdz09

An electronic copy of the book is available at: https://www.goarch.org/social-ethos

You may also connect through davidgoa.ca

Up Coming Schedule

Sunday, March 21, 2:00-3:30 MTS - War, Peace, and Violence

Sunday, March 28, 2:00-3:30 MTS - Ecumenical Relations and Relations with Other Faiths

Sunday, April 4, 2:00-3:30 MTS - Orthodoxy and Human Rights

Sunday, April 11, 2:00-3:30 MTS - Science, Technology, and the Natural World

Sunday, April 18, 2:00-3:30 MTS - Conclusion, “What do we take from For the Life of the World ?” Does it speak to all Orthodox Christians and beyond the boundaries of Orthodox churches?

You are invited to join a series of reflections and conversations with Andrew Bingham and David Goa on For the Life of the World, Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church.

“For the Life of the World, Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church” is the title of a recent publication edited by David Bentley Hart and John Chryssavgis under the auspices and with the blessing of His All Holiness, Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch.

This document, long awaited, is a welcome opportunity to discuss Orthodox “social doctrine in terms appropriate to modern reality.” It provides general parameters, avoids nebulous abstractions and sweeping generalizations, simplistic, pietistic, or legalistic pronouncements. Anchored in the Gospel it calls us to consider and think about major issues facing the life of our fragile and struggling world with the mind of Christ, free of fear, ideological preoccupations and to do so both for our own healing and for “for the life of the world.”