Recovering Missional Ecclesiology in Theological Education

Abstract

The first part of this paper seeks to demonstrate how predominant Christianity, under Christendom, divorced mission from ecclesiology, and marginalized missiology from the theological curriculum. This is not only a problem for the west, as this model was then exported and replicated worldwide through the agency of the Protestant missionary movement. In the second part the paper explores the factors which have led us to a more adequate ecclesiology. Since we have recovered the missionary dimension in ecclesiology the paper argues that this must also be reflected in our theological curriculum.

Placing Holistic Mission at the Centre of Theological Studies: Curricular Options at a Brazilian Theological Seminary

“…Founded as an interdenominational seminary in 1994 by a group related to the Latin American theological fraternity, FTSA was fuelled and inspired by a holistic and contextual view of theology, mission and ministry. However, the school initially followed a basic template that is commonly found in Majority World seminaries: the curriculum was structured around an academic model celebrating a North Atlantic theological heritage, thus relegating holistic mission to the status of one among several disciplines (see, for instance, Laing, 2009;Tennent, 2007;Werner, Esterline, and Kang, 2010;Wright, 2006).…”

A reformed perspective on taking mission and missiology to the heart of theological training

“…A number of theologians have called for mission and missiology to be at the heart of theology (Bosch 1982;Jongeneel 1997;Laing 2009), reminding us of a popular dictum by Kähler (in Bosch 1991:16): 'Missiology is the mother of all theology.' Theological training, in both the minority and majority worlds, has failed to live up to this expectation.…”