Another little thought provoker from an old edition of Meanjin, this time from around 40 years ago (although most of it could have been written last week, or next week): Unlike those in Britain, Europe or America, our universities have never taken the study of religious thought seriously (Melbourne in fact explicitly excluded Divinity in 1890), and […]
A guest post from Anne Mallaby Coming to the end of a formal pastoral leadership at Box Hill Baptist Church creates a moment to reflect upon ministry as it has been experienced in the local church context, and in my involvement in theological education within the formal educative process. Often this may have appeared to […]
‘So what the Dickens is going on? Where are theological schools headed? Do we still have options that will not undercut the quality of education we expect and need for those going into ministry? This last question is the one that keeps me awake at night. Dan Aleshire, executive director of ATS and the wisest […]
What insights and gifts do various church traditions offer to each other, and to the world? Well, the Orthodox remind us that this girl is old, much older than you think. In fact, she’s a real nanna. The Pentecostals remind us that this girl likes to experiment. The Seventh Day Adventists remind us that the graffiti on […]
Alan P. F. Sell, The Theological Education of the Ministry: Soundings in the British Reformed and Dissenting Traditions (Eugene, OR.: Pickwick Publications, 2013). ISBN 13: 978-1-62032-593-3; 328pp. A guest review by Graeme Ferguson Alan Sell, who served for a time as Theological Secretary of the WARC and who taught in Manchester and Wales, has indulged himself […]
Call me theologically naïve, or ignorant, or not well enough read, but I simply do not understand some of the criticisms directed at Rowan Williams. Archbishop Williams is a person of deep faith and prayer, of contagious love for Christ, for the Scriptures and tradition which bear witness to him, and for Christ’s church, and […]
We continue on with citations from Richard Lischer’s Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery, and with another on theological education: ‘The congregation and I were insignificant figures in a larger and older pattern. The church has always identified its potential leaders, indoctrinated them, and then rudely inserted them in some setting or other […]
As one whose vocation concerns the formation of ministers, I am for ever on the lookout for resources that assist in this task. One such book is Richard Lischer’s Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery. Rather than write a review of it (Want a review? Just read the book! Repeat: Read the book! […]
‘At the end of the war, both seminaries [established by the Confessing Church] were reopened in order to make it possible to study theology both at state universities and in independent faculties. I still think this double strategy was a wise one, for one never knows from which quarter the freedom of theology may be […]
The World Reformed Fellowship has announced a conference on Global Theological Education (March 21 – 22, 2009). The conference will be held at The Reformed Millennium Center Jl.Industri Blok B 14 No.1, Kemayoran, Jakarta, Indonesia. The proposed schedule is as follows: Saturday, March 21 16:00 – 16:15 Greetings from International Director, Dr. Samuel Logan and […]
In Theological Reflection and Education for Ministry: The Search for Integration in Theology, John Paver observes that the credit for the definitive catergorisation in modern theology and its attendant implications for the training of pastoral ministers lays with Schleiermacher. He writes: ‘… including theology in a research university could be seen as a betrayal of […]
This afternoon, I had the joy of being at the wonderful Pilgrim Theological College and to share some words at the launch of Geoff Thompson’s fabulous new book, A Genuinely Theological Church. Below’s what I said, more or less. Thank you to Geoff and to folk here at Pilgrim for the kind invitation and privilege to be […]
There is a wonderful little documentary here on the Hermannsburg Mission and the work of the theological ‘bush camps’ organised by the Finke River Mission as part their commitment to the continuing education of pastors.
As the Dean of Studies for my teaching institution, part of my responsibility is to advise and educate my denomination (and others) about the academic requirements that our church has set for its own ministers – for those about to begin their training, for those who are obligated by their ordination to engage in ongoing learning, for […]
Alan P.F. Sell, Hinterland Theology: A Stimulus to Theological Construction (Studies in Christian History and Thought; Milton Keynes/Colorado Springs/Secunderabad: Paternoster, 2008). xvi+715pp. In his book Defending and Declaring the Faith: Some Scottish Examples 1860–1920 (1987), Alan Sell had already demonstrated his ardour and gift for bringing the dead back to life, for turning strangers into […]
Today’s Eureka Street includes a piece by Neil Ormerod on ‘Why universities welcome theological colleges’. He concludes with this warning: The movement [of theological education] to the university sector of course restores the ancient place of theology as a discipline within a university. But there are dangers in such a move. Theological colleges should be […]
‘The seminaries have produced clergy who are agents of modernity, experts in the art of congregational adaptation to the cultural status-quo, enlightened facilitators whose years of education have trained them to enable believers to detach themselves from the insights, habits, stories and structures that make the church the church’. – Stanley Hauerwas and William H. […]
At a recent meeting of the World Reformed Fellowship in Johannesburg, it was decided that during the following year all distance education course lectures for the Reformed Theological Seminary would be made available free over the internet using iTunes technology. This is great news for many thousands of students and would-be students around the world […]
Kuyper on Calvinism and the Arts: A Theological Reflection Jason Goroncy, February 2006 Unless otherwise stated, references are to A Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1931). Why didn’t reading Kuyper on the arts inspire me to go and write a song? Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), the founder of neo-Calvinism (or Kuyperianism), worked […]
Ross Langmead once suggested that to be human is to ‘find ourselves in the middle of a cosmic story’. He was, it seems, on a perpetual journey to discern and to celebrate the spirit of life in all things. And he discerned that spirit in communities, in movements of justice, in solidarity with the poor, […]
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