Ecclesia and Ethics II!

I'm excited today to be sharing briefly about a conference I'm taking part in soon. 'Ecclesia and Ethics II' is an entirely online, two-day conference with the idea exploring a theology and ethics of the internet. 

The reason it is online is to break down barriers of access - geographical, financial, etc - and to make it as easy as possible to contribute and 'attend'. Whilst there are obviously limits to what an online conference can achieve (in fact, my own paper essentially touches on this!), I think EEII will be a fantastic event for a number of reasons:

1) Great Keynote Speakers

Over the various sessions, a range of people will be presenting papers, but there are some seriously interesting keynote speakers too. For me, I'm particularly looking forward to hearing Michael Bird, Ben Myers, Bill Mounce and Doug Groothius, but that barely scratches the surface of who's presenting. I reproduce below the promo image with the keynote presenters:

2) Good Ethics

For a conference with 'Ethics' in its title, EEII is encouraging in that it does appear to be upholding some decent ethics. For starters, doing it online negates air-faires, travel, and so on. Considering my first academic conference was in the States, and I live in the UK, that is a big win for me. Further, the conference fee (Thanks, I understand, to some generous sponsorship) goes towards a charity of your choice. Finally, presenters are diverse and from a range of institutions/perspectives, so it will be interesting to hear papers on this topic reflecting that diversity. 

Register here to read more about the charity element.

3) Good Bonuses

One of the things that can be most valuable about conferences are the connections and freebies one can get on the ground. It will be interesting to see how an online format will work for that - though I'd imagine it will be harder to lose contact details! For me, I'm probably going to make use of the offer from T&T Clark of 35% off their range of theology books (flyer below...) which is a pretty good thing - especially considering the conference fee is so low! Secondly, the fact that everything is done online means its easy to listen/watch again, giving the chance for real and deep engagement with what was said, in a way that just wouldn't be possible or feasible in an offline conference.

4) I'm presenting!

This could be a reason either way, depending on what you think of me, but given that you have read this far, maybe you are interested. I'll be presenting on March 1st, and you can read all the details here.

What am I reading, I hear you ask? I'm quite excited about this paper, as a subset of my interest in the Imago Dei; 

"Disembodied Relationality: contextualising an ethic of social media within an understanding of the Imago Dei"

Abstract:

The versatile Anthony Thiselton centers his understanding of the Imago Dei in Christ, as the peak of the twin themes of embodiment and relational capacity. From his sketch of the doctrine in The Hermeneutics of Doctrine , through his work on postmodernism and 1 Corinthians, he has arguably bequeathed the church with the tools to work towards an ethics of social media, as an application of one of the key Doctrines of Systematic Theology.

Thiselton’s sketch is in his own work immediately applied to ethics, especially “Emotion, Sexuality, and Other Gifts That Raise the Stakes for Living”, apply the twin themes carefully to areas of ethical controversy and discussion. This essay will seek to move from a sketch of Doctrine towards an ethics of social media, sited within the two trajectories of embodiment and relational capacity. Given the fact that social media is primarily experienced by individual bodies/beings, and represents a departure from relationships more directly in the physical world, a theological ethic must be suggested as a logical result of the doctrine of Imago Dei having daily and ethical relevance.

This paper will seek to demonstrate why and how social media can be seen as being a useful and valuable element of human interaction, but insufficient in understanding or underlining true humanity. The ground for this can be seen in Thiselton’s earlier work, Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self , with his later engagement with the concept of embodiment providing a helpful balance to the legitimate possibility of elevating social media presence to being constitutive of human being.

(Careful/regular readers might note that this has echoes of a previous paper I read at the Society for the Study of Theology Postgraduate Conference - I believe that this paper builds on my previous work, with ethical application and consideration being key)