30th May to 2nd June 2021
The Gurukul Summer Institute-2021 on “Pandemic and Faith” was held at Lebanon Retreat Centre of Arcot Lutheran Church, Tiruvannamalai from 30th May to 2nd June 2021. All the faculty members reached at the centre on 29th evening and the programme began with morning devotion and inaugural session on 1st June. Rev. Dr. David Rajendran, the Director of Quo Vadis delivered a keynote address on the set theme followed by greetings from Rev. Joshua Peter, the Executive Secretary of UELCI; Rt. Rev. V. Samuel Kennady, Bishop-President of Arcot Lutheran Church and the other Executive members of ALC. Each day began with inspiring devotions and ended with joyful fun times in the evening.
The entire three days was spent for a rigorous academic reflections trying to find answers to the deep theological questions posed by the deadly covid-19 pandemic which has struck the entire globe more than a year now. Some of the hard pressing tough theological questions asked and reflected from multi-dimensional approaches were: ‘Why such deadly Pandemic?”; “Who is responsible for this Pandemic?’; ‘Has God gone against human?’; ‘Is this Pandemic punishment of God?’; ‘Is God disciplining the wicked human beings?’; ‘Where is God in this Pandemic?’, ‘If God is in control, why this Pandemic?’, ‘Why bad thing happen to innocent and good people?’, ‘Why does the just and loving God allow poor and vulnerable people suffer most?’
In nutshell, the institute tried to explore the ‘pain of Pandemic’ and ‘truth of Faith’ among faith communities, analyse the impact of Pandemic in the contemporary Church and society, and develop theological and practical resources for faith communities to face the crisis of Pandemic and its aftermaths. In order to arrive at these objectives twenty scholarly papers were presented by our own Gurukul faculty members(click the following link to view the titles of the presentations)
