Revisiting global awareness and engagement amid multiple pandemics (Lester Ruiz, ATS)

Learn more about the collaboration between ICETE and ATS, as well as the ATS Global Awareness and Engagement Initiative in this article from Lester Ruiz. Lester is the Director of Accreditation and Global Engagement with ATS and is part of the ICETE-ATS working group. The original article can be found on the ATS website.

“The pandemic seems to be posing a serious challenge to our fundamental assumptions more generally about and practices of human community and identity and more specifically in accredited graduate theological education. It may be interpreted as inviting us to revisit the best in who we are as a species, particularly in terms of diversity, solidarity, and community; of hospitality, social responsibility, and friendship; of trust, joy, and love; and, of resistance and struggle, as well as accountability, humility, kindness, forgiveness, trust, and decency. Whatever challenges, uncertainties, and dangers this pandemic has wrought, one thing seems to remain constant. Our world sorely needs a personal quiet resolve to be good and kind as well as an institutional commitment to be just and humble—all of which are made possible by what many faith- and religious-based traditions understand as the capacity of human beings to be accountable to ‘the good, the true, and the beautiful’ that are within and without each of us—with God’s help.”