I am wondering about theological education in London, and in particular wondering about this term ‘Christian university’. So I am off around the internet to find examples of thriving theological faculties in the hope that they will provide some inspiration. First stop:
The Doctor of Theology program provides students with academically rigorous training, comparable to the demands of the Ph.D., focused on the ministries and practices of Christian communities. The program centers upon areas of study such as worship, preaching, evangelism, and the arts. At the same time, as an integral component of its mission, the Th.D. program seeks to reconfigure the way in which such practices are brought into creative interdisciplinary conversation with the established academic discourses of biblical studies, historical studies, and theology and ethics. Moreover, the interdisciplinary scope of the program extends to other areas of the university and addresses fresh areas of research such as the intersection of Divinity and Health Care, or Peacemaking and Reconciliation.
How about Duke’s
Center for Theological Writing ?
Writing forms a constituent practice of the ministry, as integral as prayer and preaching, rather than a tool employed toward other ends. And like prayer and preaching, writing requires a lifetime’s commitment to growth and refinement. For the ministry, even more than other professions, words constitute the very terms of our existence; they are the medium in which we exercise both our beliefs and our fears, our power and our contrition. We sustain and transmit our Christian identity through the written word. The use of language in the Church itself can be rather uninspiring, whether because we appeal to the tired jargon of popular culture or artlessly repeat our own cliches. The danger is not only that the Church’s voice be drowned out by others less profound; it is that our understanding of and relationship to God are cheapened. Bad theological writing is an act of bad faith.
* * *
Duke has Stanley Hauerwas, Amy Laura Hall, Reinhard Hütter, Geoffrey Wainnwright, Ellen Davis, Richard Hays, Douglas Campbell and David Steinmetz. If I was able to kidnap and bring to London just one of these it would be Reinhard Hütter. Click on his ‘links’. Of course Geoffrey Wainwright is ours anyway, as are Sam Wells and Jo Bailey Wells.
