Society in Transition: Role of the Left and the Church in Shaping the Transformation?

Webinar by transform! europe and the Protestant Academy Bad Boll on the Christian-Socialist Dialogue.

Language: German

The Corona pandemic has made the ills of the capitalist system even more visible. The profit-oriented social infrastructures, hospitals and nursing homes are failing to protect the weakest in society. Corona can affect anyone and everyone, but especially those people who have to work and live in precarious conditions. At the borders of the EU, the brutality of capitalism is not only evident in Moria and Lipa. Yes, this economy kills. This sentence by Pope Franciscus sums up these facts succinctly and validly.

At the same time, the environmental crisis is intensifying and the need for a socio-ecological transformation of societies, which social movements like Fridays for Future had already placed at the centre of social debates before the pandemic, is increasing. It was civil societies whose actions put climate policy on the agendas of governments and international organisations.

But how can a socio-ecological transformation be implemented? How can movements that lead to a fundamental change in policy be mobilised? Can the experience of the Corona crisis, which showed with its lockdowns what political decisions can achieve, also be used to initiate a change of policy?

These are the questions we want to discuss.

The role of the left as well as the churches and church organisations will be discussed. But how can thoughts around religiosity and the integrity of God’s creation be reconciled with the ideas of a Green-New Deal and a practice of an eco-socialist transformation? Is Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato si” a step on the right path – also for leftists?

Think with us! In conversation with experts, we want to discuss the ideas of the controversial ecologist, theologian and philosopher Leonardo Boff.