华东神学院建校20周年庆典在沪举行

华东神学院于2005年11月8日-9日,假上海国际礼拜堂举行建校20周年庆典活动。来自福建、山东、浙江、江西、上海四省一市的华东学子汇聚申城,同唱赞歌、共颂主恩,感谢慈爱的上主20年来对华东神学院的带领和眷顾。1984年,华东地区山东、浙江、江西、福建四省基督教两会与上海市基督教两会共同发起联合筹建一所为参办各省市教会服务的神学     

Metaphorical Mapping: The Arts in Graduate Theological Education

Doctoral students in Bible, theology, ethics, history, preaching, worship, pastoral care, and Christian education come together for a required seminar in teaching. Assignments include reading and discussion, student‐led teaching demonstrations, and the ‘metaphorical mapping’ of each student's field of study. In developing their ‘metaphorical maps’ students use artistic and expressive media to demonstrate their understanding of their field. The assignment has been successful in establishing an open and mutually respectful climate in the classroom, in fostering a pattern of critical reflection on teaching, and in demonstrating appropriate inclusion of personal experience in the academic classroom.     

De‐schooling the Theological Seminary: An Appropriate Paradigm for Effective Ministerial Formation

The most common paradigm of contemporary Protestant theological education for ministerial formation is that of schooling, seen in the institution of the theological seminary/college. This article notes the limitations of the schooling paradigm for educational intervention in the range of domains inherent in effective ministerial formation; recognizes that teaching and learning take different but still legitimate shape when used to describe educational processes in this context; and argues for an integrated, formational, and missional community paradigm modeled especially on the relationship of Jesus with his disciples as being both more consistent with biblical precedents and more effective educationally. The implications of this for the role of faculty of theological institutions are explored.     

基督教必须深深植根于所处的文化土壤中--金陵协和神学院邀请美国著名神学家柯布教授演讲

中国基督教三自爱国运动委员会名誉主席、中国基督教协会名誉会长、金陵协和神学院院长丁光训主教于2005年10月18日亲切会见了美国著名神学家、当代西方过程神学的代表人物柯布教授(JohnB.Cobb)。柯布教授是美国过程研究中心(CenterforProcessStudies)创始人兼主任,美国中国后现代发展研究院院长,克莱蒙研究生大学终身教     

Teaching Music in the Seminary

Teaching music in certain seminary contexts poses particular challenges for teaching and learning. The theme of disjuncture between teacher and student in courses that aim to incorporate music in the seminary curriculum are more vital than ever before because of the extreme cultural diversity of our population and integral nature of music in the worship life of religious communities. This essay tackles the difficulties associated with teaching worship music in seminaries where there are a plurality of religious traditions represented and a host of expectations held by diverse student bodies about what connotes worship music. Topics addressed include issues concerning terminology, repertoire, pedagogical methods for teaching worship music, and current issues in church music.     

Improving Graduate Theological Instruction: Using Classroom Assessment Techniques to Connect Teaching and Learning

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) offer immediate, relevant feedback to professors on the teaching process as well as feedback to students on the learning process. While Classroom Assessment Techniques have been introduced, studied and analyzed in undergraduate education, application to graduate theological education has not been advanced. The author describes a recent research project that discerned faculty attitudes toward the implementation of Classroom Assessment Techniques in a seminary setting in hopes that more effective faculty development programs can be designed by implementing CATs.     

Rethinking Classroom Diversity: Three Student Cultures in a Mainline Seminary

Abstract. Discussions on teaching and learning within theological seminaries often center on the question of student diversity, focused primarily upon issues of race, gender, and ethnicity. At the same time that seminaries are challenged to deal with a multitude of pedagogical suppositions emerging from increasingly diverse learning goals, seminaries must also pay attention to the ways their students challenge an institution's core mission to train ministers for service in churches and denominations. Based upon the author's experience teaching in a mainline Protestant seminary, the essay discusses three student cultures that often overlap among today's seminarians. These three student cultures, referred to here as “church seminarian,”“new paradigm seminarian,” and “vocational seminarian,” carry very different understandings of the seminary's role to prepare students for ministry. A critical discernment of these cultures might challenge seminary faculty to reevaluate their educational and missional suppositions amidst divergent student career objectives.     

Teaching Theological Reflection Well,Reflecting on Writing as a Theological Practice

Abstract. In order to teach theological reflection well, it is necessary to teach students how to write it well. This paper probes the writing of theological reflection as a rhetorical process and a theological practice by (1) situating theological reflection broadly within a “correlation” model, adapted for theological writers; (2) identifying two “generic” styles of theological reflection papers, the pastoral reflection paper and the systematic reflection paper; (3) following a writer's progress as she writes a one‐page pastoral reflection paper and constructs a working theology in the process of writing it. In conclusion, the correlation‐based “Reflecting on Paper” process provides a pedagogical bridge between the writing and teaching of “pastoral” and “systematic” theological reflection, and exemplifies the dynamic interplay between teaching theological reflection and reflecting on writing as a theological practice.     

Nietzsche as a Theological Resource

If theology interprets itself onto-theo-logically and God is the highest being, it will have no use for Nietzsche as a resource. Such a theology would demand that God should always make sense to our intellects in their present (finite and fallen) condition — thus subjecting itself to Feuerbach's objections. Nietzsche is a resource, not like Scripture and tradition, but like a prophet whose perspectivisic hermeneutics of finitude illuminates our creation and whose hermeneutics of suspicion illuminates our fall. A number of objections are addressed, including whether this is not bringing coals to the Newcastle of theology practiced at the American Academy of Religion.     

Towards a Theological Metaphysics of Death

Death is an inescapable event. It defines our existence as mortal. It is both a marker of our finitude and a portal to a deeper mystery: what awaits us in, through, and beyond this moment of ending? In thinking about death in the context of a theological dialogue, I identify two key questions: the phenomenological ‘What is death?’ and the philosophical ‘What is the meaning of death?’ as the beginning points of reflection. In general, it is the function of religion to provide some sort of answer to these questions, to give death both coherent definition and adequate understanding. The primary religious response is to articulate appropriate beliefs. But in their intellectual formation and construction, beliefs draw on metaphysics—the structures of logic, language, conceptuality and general worldview presuppositions by which we render all things intelligible and communicable. In this article I shall undertake an exploration of Christian viewpoints on death, which will require noting antecedents and corollaries in Judaism, then discuss possible metaphysical readings of death, that is, philosophical understandings of death that lie within and under, as it were, the otherwise stated religious beliefs about death. The aim of this article is not to present a fully developed ‘theological metaphysics of death’ as such; rather, in the context of an inter-religious dialogical engagement, to raise issues and perspectives from a Christian point of view that might contribute to a wider, more encompassing, theistically oriented understanding of death.     

Catholic Theological Education in a Religiously Pluralistic Age

Abstract. This article describes the transformation of Catholic theological education over the last fifty years from a highly defensive posture vis‐à‐vis other religions toward dialogical engagement with members of other religions and all persons of good will. Until Vatican II, most Catholic theologians and officials distrusted exploration of other religions as leading to a dilution of Catholic identity. Vatican II condemned anti‐Semitism and called for dialogue among religions in pursuit of common values. Since the Council, there have been developments in interfaith education on three levels: religious studies, comparative theology, and inter‐religious practice.     

Gerontology and Religion

Summary

This annotated bibliography provides resources for librarians in theological schools and in gerontology programs. It is divided into two sections: (1) Gerontology and Applied Practices; and (2) Theological Disciplines and Clergy Practices. A careful review of these useful annotations should guide the acquisition of significant materials for programs in religion and gerontology.