DOING THEOLOGY IN

CANADA DURING A TIME OF

PANDEMIC: PERSONAL
REFLECTIONS

THE CRISIS OF COVID-19

 DOING THEOLOGY IN THE MIDST OF A
PANDEMIC: THE CRISIS OF COVID-19

MY REFLECTIONS ARE LIMITED:

 I WON’T PRETEND TO SPEAK FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE BUT WILL
FOCUS PRIMARILY ON THE CANADIAN CONTEXT AS UNDERSTOOD
FROM MY CONTEXT IN TORONTO

 I WILL NOT REFLECT ON THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF COVID-19 BUT

RATHER ON HOW THE PANDEMIC HAS CHALLENGED OUR SELF-
UNDERSTANDING AS A NATION

THE QUESTION FOR ME ISTHIS : WILL THE THEOLOGY WE ARE DOING

RESULT IN THE WISDOM NEEDED FOR JUDGMENT AND ACTION IN THIS
PANDEMIC MOMENT AND BEYOND?
 WHAT IS THE CANADIAN CONTEXT IN WHICH WE DO
PANDEMIC THEOLOGY?
THE PANDEMIC HAS DEEPENED CRACKS THAT ALREADY EXISTED IN
CANADIAN SOCIETY

CALLING INTO QUESTION OUR SELF-UNDERSTANDING AS AN

INCLUSIVE SOCIETY WHERE ALL ARE EQUAL AND WELCOME

A SELF-UNDERSTANDING THAT VALUES PEACE, TOLERANCE,

MULTICULTURALISM
 THREE MAJOR CRACKS IN OUR SELF-
UNDERSTANDING
THESE INCLUDE AMONG OTHERS:
 INDIGENOUS CANADIANS AND THE ONGOING HISTORY OF SETTLER
COLONIALISM

 MUSLIM AND ASIAN CANADIANS AND VIOLENT OUTBREAKS OF

RELIGIOUS AND RACIAL INTOLERANCE

 MENTAL HEALTH STRESS AND SUFFERING PARTICULARLY AMONG THOSE

MOST VULNERABLE – THE ELDERLY AND CHILDREN –WITH A
SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
THE FIRST CHALLENGE: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND
SETTLER COLONIALISM
IN RECENT MONTHS THE DISCOVERY OF
215 UNMARKED GRAVES FOUND ON THE GROUNDS OF A
FORMER INDIGENOUS RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL
751 UNMARKED GRAVES FOUND AT ANOTHER
A FEDERAL REPORT RELEASED ON THE 1000+ MURDERED OR
MISSING INDIGENOUS WOMEN AND GIRLS

DOING THEOLOGY IN CANADA IN THE MIDST OF PANDEMIC

AND BEYOND REQUIRES US TO CONTINUE TO CONFRONT THE
PAST AND PRESENT OF OUR VIOLENT HISTORY AS A SETTLER
COLONIAL COUNTRY
 A VIOLENT HISTORY: RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS
FOR CHILDREN
 Residential schools operated in Canada for more than 160 years, with
upwards of 150,000 children passing through their doors.
 Every province and territory, with the exception of Prince Edward Island,
Newfoundland and New Brunswick, was home to the federally funded, and
majority church-run schools.
 The last school closed in Saskatchewan in 1996.
 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children as young as age 6 were removed from
their families and communities and put into schools, where they were forced
to abandon their traditions, cultural practices and languages. The
residential school system was just one tool in a broader plan of “aggressive
assimilation” and colonization of Indigenous Peoples and territories in
Canada.
A Shameful Part of our History: The Sin of
Residential Schools
Their Sin:

This assault on child and culture took on a

traumatic reality in the life of each child
separated from parents and community
and isolated in a world hostile to identity,
traditional belief and language.
 THEIR VIOLENCE
Their Violence:
From the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples:

“In the end at the point of final assimilation, „all the Indian there
is in the race should be dead.‟ The system of transformation was
suffused with a similar latent savagery – punishment…In the
vision of residential school education, discipline was the
curriculum and punishment an essential pedagogical
technique.”

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211055821/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg31_e.html as cited in Paulette Regan,

Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling and Reconciliation in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), p. 100.
 THEIR LEGACY
Their Legacy:
1 in 4 children in First Nations‟(Indigenous)communities live in
poverty;
Suicide rates among First Nations youth are 5 to 7 times higher
than among other young non-Indigenous people in Canada;
a First Nation youth is more likely to end up in jail than to
graduate high school.
Health and safety of students is a concern for 72% of First
Nations schools, and 32% of schools have an issue with
access to clean drinking water.

https://www.afn.ca/uploads/files/events/fact_sheet-ccoe-3.pdf
 THE EUROCENTRIC COLONIAL MENTALITY AND
CANADA
IS A MYTHIC STRUCTURE OF THE LATE 16TH C THAT:
 Includes an ethno-racial hierarchal classification of the European versus
the non-European. That means the imposition of the “white/European”
identity over all dimensions of power: economic, political, social, cultural,
and religious;
 Claims Europe as the sole author of modernity and, thus imagines Europe
developed the modern ways of knowing the world all by itself;
 Denies that colonial violence is ingrained in it, and instead,
 Lays blame for such violence at the feet of deviant persons or theories.
 Suppresses the narratives of others who were on the underside of this
violence deliberately convincing them of the truth of the European
narrative primarily by physical force and psychological manipulation.
THE CHALLENGE FOR ”DOING” THEOLOGY

“NON-NATIVES MUST STRUGGLE TO CONFRONT

THEIR OWN COLONIAL MENTALITY, MORAL
INDIFFERENCE, AND HISTORICAL IGNORANCE AS
PART OF A MASSIVE TRUTH-TELLING ABOUT
CANADA’S PAST AND PRESENT RELATIONSHIP WITH
THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF THIS LAND.”
 THE CHALLENGING WORK OF
DECOLONIZING MINDS
 The colonization process and its internalization by the
colonizer and the colonized took a long time.
 Decolonization then demands complicated, controversial
and contested changes in cultural practices.
 Decolonization of the mind and the imagination involves
debunking the regimes of truth imposed by the colonizers
and the collaborators; dislodging the mind from familiar
thinking patterns, disintegrating seemingly coherent
discourses, displaying silences and closures of texts,
decomposing the garbage that has filled the brain cells for
too long, and much more.
Kwok, Pui Lan, “Response to the Semeia Volume on Postcolonial Criticism”, 1996, (75), 211-212.
 WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR DOING
THEOLOGY IN CANADA
Identifying and challenging the ways in which European
Exceptionalism as manifest in Settler Colonialism
continues to permeate so much of our common life- our
legal system, government policies, social institutions
such as the police force and social welfare system. It is
also embedded in our theology, our curriculum, the
research/theology we do, how we collect, organize
and profile knowledge, including what we value as
knowledge (e.g., written vs oral)

Working boldly to re-story our theological traditions,

especially including a willingness to listen to and accept
counter-narratives.
 A SECOND CHALLENGE FOR DOING
PANDEMIC THEOLOGY
2017 SIX PEOPLE KILLED WHILE AT PRAYER IN A QUEBEC MOSQUE –
FIVE SERIOUSLY INJURED
2021 A MUSLIM FAMILY OF FOUR OUT FOR AN EVENING WALK RUN
DOWN BY A TRUCK
2020 -2021 ASIANS ATTACKED AND TOLD TO GO BACK WHERE THEY
BELONG

DOING THEOLOGY IN CANADA REQUIRES US TO CONFRONT THE

ROOTS OF RELIGIOUS AND RACIAL INTOLERANCE AND ITS VIOLENCE
 A THIRD CHALLENGE FOR DOING PANDEMIC
THEOLOGY

Schools/day cares have been closed for long periods during the
pandemic leaving children isolated without a positive social and
learning environment;
Eighty percent of deaths from covid in Ontario were the elderly in
under-regulated long-term care facilities;
Front line workers, those in health care, emergency services, food
services etc. have suffered high rates of depression and burnout;
Levels of loneliness, harmful alcohol and drug use, self-harm or
suicidal behaviour are high; an opiod crisis exists in many of our
cities
 THE RESULT: A HUMANITY NEGATIVELY AFFECTED –
VULNERABLE - LONG TERM

Afraid, angry, confused, distrustful of political leaders and their

decisions in the midst of a first, second, third (will there be a
fourth) wave;
Experiencing mental health issues as a result of repeated lock
downs that have meant isolation from family and friends
especially the anxiety that we or a family member will die alone;
Worn out trying to keep hope alive in the midst of the economic
and family challenges that confront them daily.
THIS REQUIRES A THEOLOGY THAT
FOCUSES ON THE PANDEMIC’S LONG-TERM PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL
EFFECTS
CONFRONTING THESE
CHALLENGES AS
CANADIAN ACADEMICS
THE TORONTO SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AS
ONE EXAMPLE
 INTRODUCING THE TORONTO SCHOOL OF
THEOLOGY
 The TST is a community of seven Christian seminaries pursuing rigorous
and innovative theological research and transformative teaching and
learning.
 The TST community also includes many who intersect with Christian
dialogue. Here you will find dedicated Christians engaged with equally
devout Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs. There are students and
faculty of indigenous heritage and others seeking right relations with
indigenous communities, knowing much needs to be done.
 In a variety of venues, we focus on questions that will shape the future of
Canadian religion and society, the future of the planet, intercultural
engagement, ecumenism and interfaith relations, sexuality, conflict,
justice, peace, to name a few examples.
https://www.tst.edu/about/director%E2%80%99s-welcome
 FACING THE CHALLENGING CRACKS REVEALED
BY THE PANDEMIC
Early in summer 2020 TST began a
Virtual Forum for Doing Theology during a time of Epochal
Change;
The forum met monthly through the 2020-2021 academic
year and will continue to do so in the 2021-2022 academic
year.
Its monthly presenters include the diverse multi-discipline
TST faculty (which includes Canadian, US, Asian, Latin
American and Caribbean scholars) – as well as faculty
teaching in eastern and western Europe, and Latin
America. Our hope is next year to engage scholars from
Africa and Asia.
 SOME OF THE TOPICS ADDRESSED IN 2020-
2021
MENTAL HEALTH AS A THEOLOGICAL CHALLENGE
COVID-19, EPOCHAL SHIFT AND A CIVILIZATION
CRISIS: INDIGENOUS INSIGHTS, INSPIRATIONS AND
CHALLENGES
AUTO-BIOGRAPHICAL THEOLOGY: FEMINIST, POST-
COLONIAL, DECOLONIAL THEOLOGY
THE AGE OF THE ANTHROPOCENE: THE THEOLOGY
OF CLIMATE CHANGE
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION IN 2021-22

DOING THEOLOGY: A NORTH/SOUTH

DIALOGUE
EUROPEAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND ITS
CURRENT MANIFESTATIONS
ECCLESIOLOGY AND THE PRESENT CRISIS
THE ROLE OF ETHICS IN CREATING A
BALANCED POST CORONA WORLD ORDER
 TST AND THE DECOLONIZING PROCESS
The Calls to Action of Canada’s National Truth and Reconciliation Commission
In order to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian
reconciliation, in June 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada published 94
Calls to Action. In summary, theological schools are asked to educate students (and others)
about the following:
the history of the churches in colonization; the legacy of residential schools; religious conflict in
Aboriginal families; the need to respect Indigenous spirituality; the responsibility of the churches to
address spiritual violence; concepts that have justified colonialism and settler sovereignty over
Indigenous peoples, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius; and the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
 Just before the pandemic began TST and NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Centre began a
relationship of affiliation in which TST committed to working with NAIITS to decolonize
theological education
RECENT DISCOVERIES OF UNMARKED GRAVES AND THE VIOLENCE OF MISSING AND
MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN AND GIRLS INDICATE IT WILL BE A LONG-TERM AND
PAINFUL THEOLOGICAL JOURNEY
 TST AND INTERFAITH STUDY AND PRACTICE
ONE OF THE TST SCHOOLS HAS EXPANDED ITS MISSION AND FACULTY TO
INCLUDE PROGRAMS FOR CHRISTIAN, BUDDHIST AND MUSLIM STUDENTS
THAT SEEK
To form students to be more deeply rooted in their own
religious or spiritual traditions while engaging the beliefs and
practices of people of other traditions.
To equip leaders and scholars for rigorous theological
inquiry and for inclusive practices of justice and care,
contextual analysis, creative activity, and interfaith
engagement.
To encourage faculty and students to learn and practice
hospitality and respect across distinct faith traditions.
IT IS A BEGINNING FROM WHICH TST AND CANADA WILL
BENEFIT
 TST AND A THEOLOGY OF HOPE

PSYCHOTHERAPY AND SPIRITUAL COUNSELING DEGREE AND DIPLOMA PROGRAM

 A program that prepares and credentials graduates to work in counseling
practices, chaplaincies in hospitals, prisons and the military and in other
places of need such as homeless shelters and among people living on the
street.
 The student body is Christian, Muslim, Buddhist plus other religious traditions.
 Its graduates have been serving on the front lines of COVID response. Long-
term care homes, prisons, homeless shelters were particularly hit hard by
COVID-19, many being understaffed and unprepared to deal with the rapid
spread of the virus.
 Stories about the work our graduates are doing to alleviate suffering – many
at a risk to their own health – serving as a pastoral presence in these places of
greatest need encourage faculty to focus more of their research on psycho-
spiritual health
FACING THE CHALLENGES:
THEOLOGY FROM THE
GRASSROOTS
TWO EXAMPLES: The International Association of
Women Ministers (IAWM)and the Presbyterian
church in Canada (PCC)
 THE NEED FOR A FEMINIST RESPONSE
THE STRESS OF PANDEMIC ON WOMEN INCLUDES
 Additional responsibility for their immediate and extended family,
 A professional life disrupted by the needs of children, elderly parents
etc.
 Job losses among women have increased at a worrying rate
throughout the pandemic.
 Experiences of increased family violence
 Anxiety about keeping their families fed etc.
 Vulnerability to the other “isms” that threaten women’s health and
safety
“Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to
social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for
women and girls simply by virtue of their sex,” says a United
Nations policy brief.
“With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says the UN, “even
the limited gains made in the past decades are at risk of being
 FEMINIST TOOLS FOR PANDEMIC THEOLOGY
 READING OUR CONTEXT WITH A HERMENEUTICS OF SUSPICION
Recognizing that societal structures, i.e., political, economic,
family and religious structures are culturally created yet lived as if they are
normative. A time of pandemic calls us to question normativity, for the sake of
our families and communities, to name unjust structures and cry out for new
possibilities.

 READING THE CHURCH WITH A HERMENEUTICS OF SUSPICION

Remembering that religious patriarchy as enshrined in church leadership,
imagination and practices often presents a greater difficulty than its cultural
counterparts because it understands itself to be divinely ordained.*
*Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroads, 1994), p. 23.
 FEMINIST TOOLS FOR PANDEMIC THEOLOGY

 READING OURSELVES/OUR LIVES WITH A HERMENEUTICS OF SUSPICION

Recognizing that we are enculturated beings who tend to live what
has been ingrained in us, i.e., the need to question what is considered
normative and work to change it if it is harmful to women‟s lives.

 DEVELOPING A SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY OF WOMEN

Women recount the narrative of their lives from the perspective of their
experience “crying out together as one voice,” acting together for
redress and healing.
 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN
MINISTERS (IAWM) AND RACIAL INJUSTICE
Begun over 100 years ago in the U.S., (I presently serve as its
President), IAWM promotes, encourages and celebrates women in
ministry.
Our mission is to:
Support and develop relationships with our sisters in ministry
around the world.
Provide a forum in which women ministers from all races, nations,
and cultures can come together.
Advocate for the ordination of women.
Encourage women who are preparing for Christian ministry.
Preserve and honor the heritage of women in ministry.
 OUR RESPONSE TO PANDEMIC: A VIRTUAL ASSEMBLY
JULY 30-31, 2021[a follow-up assembly is planned for
2022]
"Holy Solidarity: Embracing Racial Justice as Women in Ministry"
From Brazil to Canada, from India to the United States of America, women in
ministry and scholars from across the world are committed to dismantling
systems of racial injustice.
Listen to the voices of women in ministry and scholars from Africa, India,
Cuba, Brazil, Palestine, Israel, Canada, and the United States of America
presenting the issues of racial injustice that they are facing in their contexts.
Hear how they are responding to these issues impacting their communities,
congregations, and the institutions with which they are working.
Engage in conversations with other women in ministry from around the
world.
Be refreshed and encouraged while strengthening a network of holy
solidarity of women working together towards racial justice in our world today.
INTERNATIONAL GROUP OF PRESENTERS

Keynote Presentation: Traci Blackmon, USA

International Focus
Rev. Phyllis Byrd, Kenya
Nora Carmi, Palestine & Israel
Lori Ransom, Canada: Indigenous People
Rev. Eliad Dias dos Santos, Brazil
Rev. Dora Arce Valentín, Cuba
Rev. Dr. Monica Melanchthon, India
Dr. Linda Thomas, USA
Ritual & Reflection by Rev. Kwame Pitts, USA
 THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA (PCC):
A PASTORAL RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC
A high level of anxiety exists about the future of the church
The decline of the churches within Canadian society
already extensive pre-pandemic has led to increased
anxiety about the future
The finding of unmarked graves at residential schools run
by the PCC and other Christian churches
The inability of the community of faith to meet face to
face throughout the pandemic; will worship online be the
new normal
A lack of closure, a spiritual crisis, for those grieving loved
ones because of restrictions on all gatherings,
Worry about ongoing funding for the cost of ministry and
the upkeep of church buildings
CONFUSION ABOUT BELIEF AND PRACTICE: QUESTIONS TO
CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS
 WHERE IS GOD IN THE MIDST OF PANDEMIC? WHO IS GOD?

 WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE CHURCH?

 RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS: HOW COULD WE GET IT SO WRONG?

 HAVE I BELIEVED IN VAIN?

 WHO WILL BURY ME IF THERE IS NO CHURCH?

WILL WE HAVE THE WISDOM AND WILL NEEDED FOR WHAT COULD BE A
SEISMIC SHIFT?
 DENOMINATIONAL THEOLOGY FACING THE
CHALLENGES IDENTIFIED
 OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES: A new humility on the part
of the Christian church, a recognition that it needs to revise it exclusive
theology, that it needs to be more attentive to God‟s love for all creation;
 Commitment of time and finances to work for justice and reconciliation in all
areas where systemic racism vis a vis Indigenous peoples exists, e.g., unequal
access to health care, high rates of violent encounter with police, high
number of indigenous children in foster care systems, support;
 A denominational repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius –
major components of colonialism and renewed commitment to ensure that
the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is honoured and used
as a framework for reconciliation
 DENOMINATIONAL THEOLOGY FOR THE PRESENT
CRISIS
 OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR NEIGHBOURS: An increased willingness to understand that all faith
communities, indeed all and no faith communities stand together in the face of pandemic – no
one is immune; The pandemic has brought out our human capacity for acts of justice and mercy
in
 DEMONSTRATIONS OF OPEN HOSPITALITY, THE UNENDING SENSE OF DUTY AMONG FIRST-
RESPONDERS, HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS, RELIGIOUS GROUPS, NEIGHBOURS.
 NEW FORMS OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COOPERATION IN SERVICE TO THE COMMON GOOD e.g.,
restaurants and not-for-profits together feeding hungry people of whatever faith or no faith
 OUR ECCLESIOLOGY: A recognition that we are being called to a different model, perhaps a New
Testament model of church, one in which the church exists on the margins and engages a
mission theology that is invitational that begins with a balance between right action/practice,
and doctrine/dogma rather than orthodoxy controlling orthopraxy.
 ONE DECISION THAT HAS BEEN THE CAUSE OF GREAT DISAGREEMENT FOR YEARS WAS MADE THIS JUNE:
LGBGTQ PEOPLE ARE TO BE ACCEPTED FULLY AND HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS WITHIN CONGREGATIONS TO
MARRIAGE AND ORDINATION AS MINISTERS AND ELDERS
 THE CRUCIAL NATURE OF PASTORAL CARE IN A DIGITAL AGE: A renewed focus on pastoral care as
at the heart of what ministry is; it is not church administration or programs but a ministry of
presence. This has resulted in increased dialogue between denominational leaders and
seminaries about the formation of leaders for the church.
 MUCH IS BEING DONE, MUCH MORE IS NEEDED
THE QUESTION ASKED AT THE BEGINNING:
WILL THE THEOLOGY WE ARE DOING RESULT IN THE WISDOM NEEDED
FOR JUDGMENT AND ACTION IN THIS PANDEMIC MOMENT AND BEYOND?
YES AND NO
IT’S A START AND HOPEFULLY THE LESSONS LEARNED SO FAR IN THE MIDST OF
PANDEMIC WON’T BE LOST
ONE AREA THAT IS UNDERDEVELOPED AND NEEDING MUCH MORE
DEDICATED WORK BY ACADEMICS AND AT THE GRASSROOTS IS
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PUBLIC THEOLOGY THAT IS ROBUST ENOUGH TO
ENSURE JUSTICE AND EQUALITY FOR ALL IN TERMS OF ECONOMICS, POLITICS
AND SOCIAL PROGRAMS NOT ONLY WITHIN CANADIAN SOCIETY BUT IN
CANADA’S RESPONSE TO IT INTERNATIONAL NEIGHBOURS