Unbinding Lazarus

This article proposes a Wesleyan theological rationale and practical recommendations for revitalized theological education, particularly in university‐based schools of theology. The approach integrates a rigorous life‐long learning system that includes curricular and co‐curricular programmes and contextual learning, with a strong foundation in missional ecclesiology and contemplative, kenotic spirituality. It takes seriously the formational needs of practitioners of emergence Christianity such as the new monasticism, missional communities, and the like, so as to reflect upon best practices of theological education to resource leaders of the inherited church while offering recommendations for empowering leaders of ancient/future expressions of church.     

Evangelism as Discipleship

This article gives attention to the challenges that the missional and conversational relationship of the church poses in the intercourse between evangelism, discipleship, theological education and leadership formation in its ministry and mission. This multi‐faceted and complex process brings together competing interests with different agendas that, in a number of contexts, have resulted in mis‐evangelization. This has called into question issues about human dignity and respect and the need for reciprocity to inform all missional response of the churches. The article argues that an appropriate model of theological education is needed to equip leaders for effective witness to the gospel. This necessitates the recruitment and mentoring of emerging leaders who have had a life‐changing encounter with the life‐giving Spirit of Jesus that controls their identity, vocation and witness. Some experiences of formal and informal theological education and formation within the Anglo‐Caribbean context were identified that disconnected and disorientated leaders from the Church's missional task of bearing effective witness to the gospel. This article calls for an overhaul of seminary‐ and university‐based theological education careerism, because they serve as an encumbrance to nurturing effective contextual witness of churches. The article argues that if Jesus calls and makes us into his disciples, then faithfulness in discipleship necessitates that (1) authentic evangelism must be grounded in humility and respect for all, (2) leadership formation must be infectiously relational, and (3) the gospel must be communicated through genuine interpersonal and community‐affirming relationships. The article ends with an invitation to all churches to embrace a missional model of witnessing that invests in living with, learning from and sharing with people in communities depending on the Spirit of God in Christ to lead and bear fruit in God's time.     

Missional Church: A Historical and Theological Analysis of an Ecclesiological Tradition

This article argues that an understanding of the development of a missional ecclesiology requires we recognize three closely connected and significant matters in 20th‐century mission history: first, the increasing appreciation of the interconnection of church and mission evinced at major ecumenical conferences in the mid‐20th century; second, the contributions of influential missiologist Lesslie Newbigin and his theological integration of mission and church; and third, the breakthrough of the phrase “missional church” with the 1998 publication of the book Missional Church. This article traces this three‐part development through both historical and theological analyses.     

The Future of Theological Education in Central and Eastern Europe: Challenges for Ecumenical Learning in the 21st Century1

The article focuses on the context of Central and Eastern Europe. The introduction surveys earlier references to this context in the activities of the WCC programmes on theological education. It then characterizes the situation regarding theological education in this region, especially after the changes of 1989/90. The central section summarizes the earlier discussions on ecumenical learning, especially in the WCC, and applies the insights gained to the field of theological education. The concluding part spells out some of the consequences for the future of theological education in Central and Eastern Europe looking especially at the situation in the Orthodox churches, the Protestant minority churches and the evangelical communities.     

Theological Education in a New Missional Era: A Personal Journey with Seven Theses

The author's personal journey in discovering, developing, researching and practicing adult theological education in the church is rehearsed, pointing out key learning moments along the way. Out of this praxis seven theses are offered that set an agenda for theological education in the new missional era in which the church finds itself.     

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.     

Support of Theological Education in a Cross‐cultural Setting

Based on recent reports on the global status quo of theological education, including a mapping of Danish organizations supporting theological education in a cross‐cultural setting, the paper asks how theological education is best supported. It argues that theological education, while referring to a historical heritage and sacred text, is also exposed to developments in church and society. Stretched between the historical and contemporary perspective, theological education includes a cultural component that we need to consider when discussing development and support. The paper argues further that support of theological education offered in a cross‐cultural setting is susceptible to failure if the cultural aspect is not considered, primarily through engaging in the cultural background of the supporting agencies. As a help to identifying the cultural element, the paper proposes four indicators, challenging agencies of the global North to face latent aspects of culture and secularization, presenting a global and social perspective of theological education. The cultural component visualized in cross‐cultural support reveals that we must complement the classical notion of theological education as Christian leadership training with an understanding of formation, where spiritual and cognitive aspects accompany social and cultural critique of totalitarian regimes both inside and outside churches. Critique in this setting is not a matter of giving in to secularization, but rather expresses an openness to historical and contemporary perspectives and a commitment to the sources of faith.     

The World Council of Churches and the Theology of Christian-Jewish Relations

This essay explores the approach of the World Council of Churches (WCC) to the theological questions involved in Jewish-Christian relations, while also noting connections between these questions and political factors. The first part focuses on WCC assemblies. At Amsterdam in 1948, a brief document emphasized four key issues: the relationship of the Jewish people to God and to the Church; antisemitism; mission; and the State of Israel. At subsequent assemblies, especially after 1967, with attention focusing on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the plight of the Palestinians, theological discussion of these questions was avoided. The second part of the essay turns to the discussion of these four questions at other levels of the WCC, also considering the wider context of this discussion in the varied approaches developed among WCC member churches. A major theme throughout the essay is that because of the spectrum of ecclesiastical and regional affiliations across member churches, theological discussion of these questions has been controversial within the WCC. If its output in this field of theological work has therefore understandably been limited in comparison with that of some member churches and ecumenical partners, the WCC does nevertheless have a unique capacity to play a convening role for discussion of these difficult questions between Christians of different traditions and from very different political contexts.     

The Missional Shape of Worship in Evangelical Lutheran Worship

Abstract : Mission stands out as an orienting concept in ELW unlike its predecessors. ELW has a missional theological framework as well as a practical missional orientation, a situation in which worship and mission are understood and practiced in relation to one another. It is possible that ELW will help congregations claim the missional character of worship.     

Chinese Folk Christianity and Its Possibly Missional Nature

During the last four decades, Christianity in China has grown quickly. There are about 50 million Protestant Christians in today's China. The majority of them, however, are in rural areas. This rural Christianity, or folk Christianity, is influenced by Chinese folk religion. This article explores the features and the missional nature of Chinese folk Christianity. It exposes several main features of folk Christianity, including its charismatic orientation, pragmatic concern, moral emphasis, and superstitious factors. Its main argument is that Chinese folk Christianity is missional in a situation where the absolute majority of the population is non‐Christian. Through describing and analyzing Chinese folk Christianity as biblical, historical, contextual, eschatological, and practicable, which are fundamental affirmations about the missional church, this article reaches the following conclusion: Although it is somewhat syncretic, Chinese folk Christianity, as God's people called in a particular context, has its missional nature. It is a contextualized form of Christianity. Given the particular Chinese context in participating in God's mission, it might be inevitable for Chinese folk Christianity to be syncretic to some degree. In the contexualization of Christianity, however, Chinese folk Christianity has raised some theological questions: How deeply and thoroughly contextualized can folk Christianity become? Are there limits to its contextualization? If yes, what are the limits?     

Pan‐African Women of Faith and a Vision of Inclusive Global Theological Education

This article provides an introduction to the Pan‐African Women's Ecumenical Empowerment Network (PAWEEN), formally established as a network in 2015, but which traces its origins back to the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Busan, the Republic of Korea, in 2013. PAWEEN provides an opportunity for a mutual invitation to deep listening and concerted engagement to make the realities of past and present living, of faith and agency visible. It is one example of a network under development, grounded in the liberating gospel message and committed to the aim of a transformative theological education, which extends this invitation to all who share this common concern and vision.     

Toward Epistemic Decolonial Turn in Missio‐Formation in African Christianity

This article is framed with the World Council of Churches' (WCC) mission statement Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes, which seems to be reviving academic interests in missio‐formation as an interdisciplinary field study. The mission statement, which is framed in a postcolonial missional discourse, seems to show interest in how missio‐formation as academic discipline can expose the intersectionality of questions of power, politics, and culture in Africa. The matters of agency, subjectivity, pedagogy, and rhetoric are perceived as central to the envisaged public missio‐formation discourse. Hence, this article argues that the nature of the mission statement must also be comprehended as means for decolonizing missio‐formation paradigm in Africa within a decolonial framework which gives critical attention to how missions have functioned as a colonialist mechanism for colonializing African Christian minds and subjectivity.     

A Eucharistic Understanding of “Fresh Expressions”

Fresh expressions of church are a growing and important example of emerging missional churches. They can be viewed theologically through the lens of eucharistic ecclesiology. This is because they mirror the theological logic of the eucharist – its nature as a gift, the dispersal of this gift, the appropriate sharing of the gift (appropriate to the context and the tradition), the eucharistic action of handing over the gift, the incorporation of worshippers into the whole church by means of the gift, the dying‐and‐rising transformation the gift makes possible, and the return gift to God in thanksgiving. The birth of these new Christian communities gives discipleship a eucharistic shape. The implication is that just as the eucharist is central to the church's life, so should be these new communities.     

Voices and Visions from the Margins on Mission and Unity: A disability‐informed reading of the Pauline metaphor of the church as the body of Christ

Disability studies from a missional perspective in the Indian context are rare. Mission and unity cannot be “talked” about without the active inclusion of those in the margins; rather, they are the subject of mission and unity of the church which, in Pauline language, is the body of Christ. With the help of a disability‐informed reading of the Pauline metaphor of church as the body of Christ, an attempt is made to understand the integral constituent of this “body” and its mission and unity. Our deliberations on the metaphor of body make it amply clear that “weaker” members are indispensable for the mission and unity of the church. They are the paradigm for the manifestation of God. Mission and unity of the church depend on the inclusion and equal participation of the margins—the disabled.     

Orthodoxy and Science

The Orthodox Church is uneasy about contemporary science. What causes its uneasiness is not exclusively its slow reception of modern culture. An important cause is the fact that contemporary research sidelines ethical and spiritual criteria. The practical application of scientific discoveries in the area of biotechnologies provides abundant evidence for this. That said, progress is being made in regard to the Orthodox appraisal of modern culture and contemporary science and toward self-assessment against current cultural trends. This progress cannot make an impact, however, without an authenticating framework. Fortunately, three documents of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church provide an implicit framework for addressing matters such as the Orthodox attitude toward science, especially biology and its related branches, in light of theological anthropology and traditional ethical and spiritual criteria. A shared particularity of these documents is that they consider modern culture and scientific research in a missional perspective.     

Theological Education at the Crossroads

Theological education and ministerial training must prepare people for a post‐Christendom context. Moving on from the subject‐object dualism of modernity, where ministry is seen as a professional task done to and for others, this article proposes that attending to the subjectivity of others is necessary for the formation of mature community, and for genuine missional engagement. It proposes a contextualised training in which students learn theologically reflective practice from the heart of Christian community.     

Churches in Ecumenical Transition

This is a brief introduction to the contribution of the Ecumencial Network for Multicultural Ministry (ENFORMM) to the new WCC affirmation on mission and evangelism, which was specifically commissioned by CWME in 2009 and will be fed into the new WCC affirmation on mission evangelism. Recognizing the critical significance of the emerging multicultural and migrant churches to mission and ministry in the twenty‐first century, CWME is keen that the new mission statement adequately reflects that important development. Clearly, the ministry and ecclesiology of migrant/multicultural churches are integral to the future mission and existence of the Christian church. “Cultural diversity as a fact of human existence”: This text assumes that cultural diversity is a fact of human societies, and migration is a fact of human existence. Throughout human history, societies have always enjoyed varied degrees of cultural pluralism largely because migration is a natural human predisposition. Migration is by no means limited to movements from South to North. People movements from South to South and North to South have equal importance and impact. With increased migration come increased cross‐cultural encounters and their attendant complexities. The paper highlights the unfortunate but pervasive and widespread misconception that migrants as such constitute the root cause of social tension and problems. The paper argues that “people movement around the globe (migration) not only calls for reframing the rhetoric on migration, it also calls for reframing the debate on mission.” “Cultural diversity as a fact of Christian communal life – migration‐shaped early church”:

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Travelling through Memory Lane: Theological Education in the World Council of Churches1

The paper highlights crucial stages in the development of the programme on Ecumenical Theological Education (ETE) in the World Council of Churches which in its earlier incarnations goes back to the Accra Conference of the International Missionary Council and the emergence of the Theological Education Fund (TEF). In referring to the Oslo world conference on theological education 1996 some key areas of the mandate of ETE and of its future perspectives are developed, including its relation to the WOCATI network and its strategic importance for the WCC.     

Newbigin's Trinitarian Missiology: The Doctrine of the Trinity as Good News for Western Culture

This paper explores Newbigin's trinitarian missiology by first evaluating its theological basis, and then looking at the practical implications for the church's mission within Western culture today. Newbigin claimed that “the doctrine of the Trinity … is the necessary starting point of preaching”. This statement actually involves two mutually related claims that are discussed using the resources of recent trinitarian theology. First, evangelism begins with describing the triune God, and second, the triune nature of God is irreducibly bound up with the substance of the gospel. This discussion evaluates these bold claims using the resources of trinitarian theology, taking the claims in reverse order because the second impinges upon the first. The second part of this paper applies the fruits of this discussion to the church's mission within Western culture. It briefly articulates a relational ontology based on the doctrine of the Trinity, and then describes a relational anthropology based on the imago Dei. Next it explores Newbigin's theology of the inter‐relatedness of all life as the clue to understanding missional election. The practical implications this has for ecclesiology and missiology vis‐à‐vis Newbigin's understanding of the congregation as the hermeneutic of the gospel conclude this exploration. They demonstrate the abiding significance of Lesslie Newbigin for continued theological, missiological, and practical reflection.     

Pan‐African Women's Voices across Borders

This article is structured from the epistemological vantage point of framing theological education within the context of Pan‐African women's experiences of migration, where theological education is defined in the widest sense of creating knowledge, ethos, and practices from within different versions of Christian tradition, as opposed to transmitting a static corpus of knowledge. It begins by examining the deconstructive potential of Pan‐African female migrants, particularly with regard to gendered patterns and projections of theological education. It then describes and analyzes the impact of Pan‐African female migrants on the project of contextual theological education as an act of birthing and bringing to life the dimensions of seeing and interpreting the one life‐giving story through the lenses of the lamenting, celebrating, and transforming stories of many. The article concludes by presenting Pan‐African female migration as an opportunity to revisit theological education as a creative, ecumenical, and intercultural enterprise, seeing the empirical location of Pan‐African female migrants as a paradigmatic lens for revisiting theological education as intercultural enterprise, and not (exclusively) as a contextual – and hence exceptional – historic experience.