Abstract
COVID-19 has thrown new light on the nature of inequality as a global problem. This has implications for reassessing what really matters in people’s lives, related to what theologians have sometimes called matters of “ultimate concern.” What do such reassessments mean for rethinking the role and function of religion, with a view towards what religion can contribute to the formation of feasible alternatives? The article concludes by spelling out some vital lessons for practical theology and related fields.
Highlights
This article begins with the situation in the United States from the perspective of a Euro-American theologian
If economic inequality is a key problem, how can we address it in our search for solutions? It can be argued that the new classification of working people that has emerged during the pandemic points in promising directions
I am challenging these assumptions and argue that worker and labour should be considered matters of ultimate concern instead, despite the fact that it has hardly occurred even to the 99 percent who have to work for a living that work is a significant topic of discussion, and it would occur to even fewer people that work has anything to do with what they might consider the “deeper things of life,” like religion
Summary
2020 was a difficult year for most people around the globe. It was marked, among other things, by the traumatizing experience of COVID-19, which affected all, but some more than others. I am challenging these assumptions and argue that worker and labour should be considered matters of ultimate concern instead, despite the fact that it has hardly occurred even to the 99 percent who have to work for a living that work is a significant topic of discussion, and it would occur to even fewer people that work has anything to do with what they might consider the “deeper things of life,” like religion. In the prophetic tradition of Israel, God is concerned that kings and others who exercise unilateral power over people present problems to the community.[19] In the New Testament, a significant part of the narrative of the Synoptic Gospels is that Jesus was raised as a construction worker in a family of construction workers This is Jesus’s past; even during the time of his ministry he never “moved up and out” and never turned his back on working people. Why has the broad topic of human work so rarely been considered a substantial part of theological study and our so-called “ultimate concern”?
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