The Sydney College of Divinity Theology Research Network (TRN) exists to promote theological research. It draws together scholars from the diverse theological disciplines (systematics/doctrine, patristic, biblical theology, ethics, liturgy) within the SCD, and provides them with a forum and focus for theological research.

The video is an online presentation of Dr Sarah Bachelard’s paper, Interiority and Recovery. The paper is the sixth in the 2020- 2021 seminar series Theologising in the Shadow of a Pandemic, an initiative of the Sydney College of Divinity Theology Research Network.

In recent months, there’s been a boom in a literature of ‘recovery’ from Covid-19. In Australia, book titles in this genre include Upturn: A Better Normal After Covid-19, edited by Tanya Plibersek; Reset: Restoring Australia after the Pandemic Recession, by Ross Garnaut; The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism, by Hugh Mackay.

Overwhelmingly, the premise of this literature is that Covid-19 is (or could be) a crisis in the true sense of a ‘turning point’; the recovery both
calls for and opens opportunities to reform (even transform) Australian society. Yet, strikingly, there is very little sense that religious communities or theological vision have any distinctive part to play in generating the ‘better normal’ to which this literature aspires. In particular, there is no real account of how we move our way of being from ‘here’ to ‘there’.

This paper seeks to explore what, from a Christian perspective, is lacking in this literature and what the contribution of Christian vision, practice, and community might be.

The video concludes with responses from Iain Radvan.