Dear Friends,
Abstracts are invited for a two-day conference on the theme ‘The Newness of the Old’: Tradition, Doctrine and Christian Life between Preservation and Innovation, to be held at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge (UK), 31st August – 1st September 2018. We would be grateful if you could kindly disseminate this message and/or display the poster in the attachment (last page).
Please send your abstract of 400 words for a short paper of 20 mins to cs300@cam.ac.uk. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 30 April 2018. Please provide the following information when you submit your abstract:
• Highest degree received
• Year degree was received
• Academic affiliation
• Academic position
• Religious/Church affiliation
Keynote speakers include:
• Dr Brandon Gallaher (University of Exeter)
• Revd Prof Nikolaos Loudovikos (University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki)
• Revd Prof Andrew Louth (Emeritus Professor, Durham University)
• Prof Jens Zimmerman (Trinity Western University)
Conference Abstract
In Christianity, preservation of tradition and innovation are complexly intertwined. On the one hand, an act of resistance to change can turn out to be an original move that outperforms fashionable new ideas and practices. On the other hand, the audacious introduction of the ‘new’ is at times the only way to safeguard the faithful continuation of tradition. Yet innovation can also weaken tradition and lead to its destruction, and faithfulness to tradition may degenerate into an ossified and lifeless traditionalism. A consistently Trinitarian theology and practice must transcend any simplistic dichotomy between a conservative and a progressive outlook on life. Paradoxically, it is precisely the ‘old’ that manifests itself as the ‘ever-new’. The question as to how to balance the interplay of continuity and discontinuity remains one of the main challenges for Orthodox theology in the twenty-first century. The aim of the conference is to explore how the complex interrelationship between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ is to be conceived of.
Speakers are invited to address one of the following topics:
1. Tradition in the patristic era: continuities and discontinuities
2. Tradition in Continental and Analytic philosophy (e.g. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Alasdair MacIntyre and Paul Ricoeur)
3. Historical case studies about successful/failed attempts at innovation/preservation
4. Development of doctrine?
5. Tradition and imagination
6. A Trinitarian approach to tradition
7. Tradition and social change: between proaction and reaction
Participants who wish to attend can enrol online here.
Detailed information on the daily programme of the Conference will be made available shortly.
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You may download the call for papers at the link below.
Call for Papers – The Newness of the Old
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