01/07/2026 09:00 - 11:10

HALL: Pola - A106

Contact: Welle J.

Chair: Lledo Gomez C.

The Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network invites proposals for an open call panel, "Prophetic Imaginations and Ecclesial Futures."


In his landmark text, The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Bruggemann writes, "The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented… the imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing." (40) This session aims to envision what church in a future may be or look like. What does it mean for the church to be prophetic or to have a prophetic imagination? What does this prophetic - or propheticist (Ignacio Ellacuría) - imagination look like in the future? How might church be like or look like in the future? What does it mean to "future fantasy" in the context of church? And what resources can a prophetic imagination bring to support or critique such a church?


Scholars are invited to engage this topic and these questions creatively and are not restricted to the questions covered in this CfP. Possible ideas that might be broached include theological questions such as how to think ecclesiologically about having a prophetic imagination, or what it means to be prophetic, or the relationship between imagination and implementation. Other questions can be raised on church and social issues such as how the prophetic imagination interfaces on artificial intelligence, transhumanism, technology-backed nationalism, ecojustice, migration, and other subjects. Further questions can also include intra-church or ecumenical matters such as how the church can prophetically re-envision, engage, or concretize synodality, diakonia, or church institutions and programs such as the New International Financial and Economic Architecture (NIFEA) initiative, and where they fit into the church in the future.


This panel is open to a maximum of four presentations.