Youth's Dilemma: To Be or To Become

Youth should be engaged in three basic intellectual and moral activities: (a) selecting life purposes, (b) limiting their concern for immediate satisfaction, and (c) striving to become their highest and best potentiality. Teachers and counselors have a responsibility to aid growth in confronting the dilemmas inherent in these problems.     

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 the Fullness of Christ: A Catholic Vision of Ecumenism

This article locates the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's recent document Dominus Iesus against the background of great ecumenical advance in North America and elsewhere and a series of highly encouraging ecumenical statements published by John Paul II. Its most contentious statement is a reiteration and clarification of the Vatican II teaching in Lumen Gentium that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. It distinguishes among churches in the proper sense, with valid episcopate and eucharist, and defective ecclesial communities. The church of Christ cannot subsist in them but only in the Catholic Church. The article points out, nevertheless, that since all these bodies are recognized as having elements of the church, the operation of grace is still ecclesial and not individual and secondly that a pneumatologically orientated Christology sees ecumenism as a response in grace to the divine economy.     

Theological Reconstruction in China: Ecumenical Accompaniment in the Self‐Theologizing Effort in Theological Education

In 2007 Protestants in China celebrated the 200th anniversary of their journey of faith. The continuing concern of Chinese Christian theological educators is to rejuvenate Christianity in China by critically adapting to the contemporary socialist order and the best religio‐cultural tradition of Chinese society. Chinese Christians have been challenged by the socialist order of society particularly because of the political and social changes that have taken place in China since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and the changes brought about within Chinese society. With the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and the change of political atmosphere in 1978 there has been once again an opening for public Christian activities within the confines of certain state regulations. This change has provided scope for pursuing the reconstruction in China of Christianity initiated in the 1950s under the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). Besides the revival of TSPM, the Chinese leaders have set up another instrument, the China Christian Council (CCC) especially to cater to the surging pastoral and congregational needs. This article briefly surveys the development of the vision of reconstructing Christianity through “theological reconstruction” and the need for ecumenical accompaniment.     

A New Theological Vision: A Call to Join the Forum for Religion and Theology

On the 26 and 27 September, a group of theologians met at Liverpool Hope University College and reflected on the state of contemporary British theology. The following statement was the result. This statement was widely circulated inviting colleagues throughout higher education to become signatories.     

Las Casas as Theological Counteroffensive: An Interpretation of Gustavo Gutiérrez's Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ

Peruvian liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez's massive work, Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ, should not be read as a defensive or retreating move for liberation theology in the face of two decades of opposition. Rather, it is best understood as a creative and strategic counteroffensive to advance liberation theology in terms that the Vatican can only find difficult to counter. Nevertheless, liberation theology struggles with the difficulty of intellectually justifying itself on nondependency and non-Marxist grounds. In any case, the struggle for the work of liberation in Latin America continues.     

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.