Time-famine, resource obsession and the good life in a pandemic

Abstract

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper explores the argument that human action cannot be understood apart from embodied imaginations of what is good and of what it means to be living a good life. Drawing particularly on the thought of the sociologist Hartmut Rosa, it explores how COVID-19 relates to the concept of ‘time-famine’, and how this thrusts many of us into a crisis of the good life. From this exploration the paper offers some open and preliminary thoughts about what impact this crisis of time and the good life has on local congregations.

This paper is adapted from chapter 12 of The Congregation in the Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time Against the Speed of Modern Life by Andrew Root © 2021 Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/ and is used by kind permission of the publisher.