Theological News On-Line

Issue 22 November 2003 (Please note: there was no TN On-line for August 2003)	'Promoting Biblical Truth by Networking Theologians'

Published by Theological Commission of the World Evangelical Alliance

Editor: David Parker dparker@pacific.net.au
email distribution: Dr.Paul C. Murdoch Murdoch@ead.de

Welcome to WEA Theological News On-Line - this is the on-line version of our printed quarterly, WEA Theological News (ISSN 0260-3705). WEA TN On-Line is issued approximately monthly. The content of the printed and on-line versions overlap but are not identical. We also publish Evangelical Review of Theology. For more information, visit our website www.worldevangelical.org/tcpubs.html#ert

We welcome news reports on theological matters for both versions - they can cover theological institutions, conferences, publications, faculty, trends and developments, etc. of interest to evangelical theologians around the world.

For more information on the work of the Theological Commission, contact the Executive Chair, Dr Rolf Hille on r.hille@bengelhaus.de

In this issue:

•  Compassion Education and Training for the HIV/AIDS Crisis - Africa Conference Report
•  Living in Hope - Theological Education in Latin America - a report by Prof. Josué Fonseca
•  Myanmar Theological Association

Compassion, education and training for the HIV/AIDS Crisis

'Compassion', 'education' and 'training' were keywords for the church's response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, according to discussion in a conference of theological educators held in Pietermaritzburg Nov 4-7, 2003. The program and discussion by participants continually emphasized that the complexity, seriousness and widespread extent of HIV/AIDS in the region called for the greatest possible understanding of the crisis and its socio-cultural implications. But more importantly, it emphasized the need for the church and theological educators to respond with compassion in the name of the God who is known in the person of Jesus Christ, the one who cared for the needy. Participants found that there was a vast opportunity and as well a serious responsibility for churches to serve the community which was so widely pervaded by the impact of HIV/AIDS.

The conference, sponsored by ACTEA (the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa) and ESSA (the Evangelical Seminary of Southern Africa) and held at the African Enterprise Centre on the outskirts of the city, was attended by more than 70 people from 19 countries. The Coordinator of the conference, Bill Houston, Principal of ESSA, said that the aim was to provide representatives of theological seminaries across the continent with an opportunity to share information, resources and experiences and to learn from expert practitioners so that their institutions could set a lead and offer practical help for their churches and communities.

The 'cafeteria' style of the conference room, plenty of free time, displays of resource material and the wide range of experienced personnel resulted in dynamic interaction amongst the participants who went away with an enhanced sense of partnership and a plentiful supply of ideas, contacts and curriculum samples. Many of the papers and materials from the conference were included on a CD-ROM made available to participants at nominal cost. A grant covered most of the expenses of the conference.

A report from Dr Ivan Hermans of the UN AIDS desk on the opening day showed that 42 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS, and that during 2002, there were 3.1 million deaths and 5 million new cases (which equals 14,000 a day, about half of which fell into the 15-24 year age group). The biggest age groups for deaths were 20-29 and 0-4 years. His report also stressed the economic and social implications of the crisis in Africa, which was destroying social capital, weakening institutions (such as the home, government, education, law and order, armed forces, agriculture and private sector growth) and leading to even greater poverty.

Other sessions included a dramatic presentation highlighting the dilemmas of dealing with AIDS on a personal and church level, curriculum resource sharing, and reports on the many AIDS programs currently operating in churches and seminaries. Of particular importance were sessions dealing with gender issues (highlighting the vulnerability of women in particular) and the impact of AIDS on children. One of the most moving presentations was the personal testimony of a lady infected with HIV who had persevered with her family life and trained as a AIDS worker in the face of overwhelming difficulties. Several visiting speakers from local organizations presented details of their programs which included a system to assist orphans with 'memory boxes', listening skills for effective personal relationships, pre- and post-HIV-test counselling, development of life skills and a system of home-based care.

A lengthy session was spent on theological reflection, using a draft paper prepared by Dr Phillip Marshall, HIV/AIDS Consultant with SIM International and soon to take up the position of Lecturer in Missiology with Morling College, Sydney, NSW. Dr Marshall will revise his comprehensive paper for publication in the light of the discussions.

The WEA Theological Commission was represented at the conference by Dr David Parker, its Director of Publications and Administration. The ACTEA Council met in association with the conference which was its Southern Area Regional event for the year.

For more information contact 

Bill Houston, ESSA
PO Box 2400
Pietermaritzburg 3200, South Africa 
essaseminary@mweb.co.za 
ph: +27-33-3941679 
fax: +27-33-3940034

or

Scott Cunningham, ACTEA
sbcunn@hisen.org

Living in hope - Theological Education in Latin America

A report by Prof. Josué Fonseca (edited by David Parker)

'We theological educators live always out of hope, and hope in Christ our Lord,' according to Prof. Josué Fonseca, Dean of the Baptist Theological Seminary in Chile, in a recent report to the Baptist World Alliance. In a rapidly changing situation which needs insights and faith nurtured by prayer for progress, Prof. Fonseca spoke about the advances made by the new organization known as RIBET (Red Instituciones Bautistas de Educación Teológica America Latina www.ribet.8k.com) which was formed in 1999 in response to the withdrawal of Southern Baptist Convention missionaries from Latin American seminaries. He said, 'In most places the institutions were fully subsidized and dependent on SBC policies. We saw the future of most of our Baptist institutions was in jeopardy because in decades of SBC activity, no local faculty had been trained to replace the missionaries. In a few years, RIBET (which covers about 75 seminaries , 10,300 students and 1300 professors), has brought new insights to our Baptist national commitment to theological education, and institutions are starting to empower themselves with the help of the others to continue the task of forming a new generation of Baptist leaders for the sake of our future.'

Rapid growth is one of the most obvious features of the Latin American area which includes countries and groups of people that share Latin-rooted languages and cultures, mainly Portuguese and Spanish, together with native-original-pre-Columbus cultures, such as Aztecs, Mayas, or Incas. The latino population of USA, now the third or fourth largest Spanish speaking community in the world is also included in the sociological and geographic entity known as 'Latin America,' The largest growth over the last two decades include Guatemala (28%), Chile (21%) and Brazil (17%). This kind of growth (or 'awakening') has attracted a great deal of political, media and sociological interest. Several theological issues have arisen in this context. .

In his report, Prof. Fonseca emphasized three particular issues of concern. He said, 'In my opinion, ecclesiology is becoming the main issue. What is the church, or better yet, who is the church? what are the doctrinal essentials of the church?' He said that parachurch organizations, Christian centres, fellowships, cell groups, media ministries and others all claim themselves as 'church'. SBC missionaries, for instance, are promoting cell ministry as if they are 'church' but these are often only temporary and work apart from local churches, promote homogeneous attendance, have no accountability or pastors or cultural mission, and conduct Lord's Supper and baptisms at large. He said, 'In other words they put together an occasional home Bible study claiming that it meets the entire requirements of a biblical church. The situation is even worse in Neo-pentecostalist movements, where there is a strong trend towards hierarchical authority, clerical ministry, antidenominationalism, and the 'apostle' as a position of power in the churches. Let also take account of the many traditional churches which are fading and withering because of wrong understanding of tradition.' Prof. Fonseca also mentioned the need for cooperation and unity in the Body of Christ because ecumenism was still a problem for many evangelical bodies in Latin America.

A second area of concern was theology of worship. He pointed out that the Latin American 'awakening' is flooding over many countries with worship-recital style of liturgy, TV performance and entertainment type services, mass manipulation, the theology of prosperity, religious marketing and empire-building ministries. He said, 'We lack cultural embodiment in our worship, meaning that we (especially in Brazil) still reject methodically the uniqueness of our ethnic roots in worship, theology and ministry. We latino people are active, outgoing and extroverted, and worship should express our psychological identity. However, this fact does not mean freedom for excesses and immoderation, especially when enthusiastic emotional worship pushes aside the ministry of the Word of God. Worship should not be a "people-centered" experience, but God-centered. Worship should not be mixed up with syncretism, popular religiosity or even fetishism.'

Finally, Prof. Fonseca referred to theology of mission. He pointed out that in Baptist circles in Latin America styles of evangelism from the 1960s and 1970s were still being promoted - 'one preacher evangelistic campaigns', aiming 'to win souls', and continuing to spiritualize the Gospel without a proper sense of the wholeness of the Christian mission. He said that latino leaders seemed unaware of the move to refer to 'evangelization' due to the fact that 'evangelism' had been discredited on account of its ideological and proselytistic implications. He also called for a sound theology of mission which would include cultural embodiment and transcultural ministry. Although it was a blessing that Latin America is actually sending missionaries all over the world, he said that mistakes from the earlier years of foreign missions were still being made by too many latino sending agencies.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of all, according to Prof. Fonseca, is the huge task of theological education for our pastoral leaders, only a handful of which have any formal instruction. He said, 'Growth without proper training is too dangerous. Integrity is also a huge challenge for leaders, not only in their Christian moral standards, but also in prophetic preaching and mission in our area.' He said it was a great challenge to produce pastors who could respond properly to the decline of Roman Catholicism and the rapid advance of Islam in Latin America. 'At this point I ask whether will we continue fighting the wrong opponent, seeing the Roman Catholic Church as the traditional enemy, instead of poverty, injustice, individualism, hunger, materialism, fatalism, spiritism and the cults.

He concluded, 'We have structural needs all over Latin America - lack of resources, weak finances, poor facilities, deficit in faculty (and also underpaid), deficiencies in support from our conventions, need for sound financial accountability, fragile institutions - but we still sustain hope with endurance. According to 2 Cor. 12:9-10, our vulnerability is and will be a base of our strength. In the midst of all these critical issues, both social and theological, we here in Latin America are experiencing hope and expectancy for a flourishing future. We theological educators live always out of hope, and hope in Christ our Lord.'

Editor's Note: see also, 'Evangelicals in Latin America' by Samuel Escobar (Evangelical Missions Quarterly, July 2003 Vol 39:3, 286-297)

Myanmar Theological Association

A vision to found the Myanmar Theological Association (MTA) came to Mr. Michael Chongluai (founder and president of Evangelical Bible Seminary) in September 1987. In order to air his vision and find a way to establish an organized MTA, he coordinated a special meeting held at Rev. Dr. K.T Vuta's house in Yangon in September 1987 where six evangelical theologians covering several different groups and denominations participated. At that time there were only three evangelical theological schools in Yangon and the leaders approved the founding of MTA, but they felt that the three schools were not strong enough to begin a new programme.

However, the idea was kept alive. It was strengthened when Rev. Thawng Za Mung, founder and president of Myanmar Biblical Christian Fellowship (MBCF) came to study at EBS in July/August 1989. In August 1992 Chongluai and Thawng Za Mung had a spiritual and mutual agreement to officially form MTA under the auspices of MBCF. It was agreed that MBCF would cover the work and ministry of MTA in all matters relating to government affairs since MBCF was a registered religious body with the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of Myanmar. Locally MBCF is the largest national evangelical fellowship in Myanmar and its basic stand is to encourage self-supporting, self -governing and self-propagating efforts in mission.

When more new evangelical theological schools were being established in 1990s and also after a firmer foundation for MTA had been laid, several other meetings were held. Some other strongly motivated schools joined MTA, such as ACTS Bible College, Yangon Bible College and Missionary Training School. The first two of these schools in particular shared a deeper interest in and understanding of the need for the existence of MTA.

Ultimately, all the evangelical theological institutions in Yangon were invited to join and participate with MTA when it was founded on October 17, 1997. There were nine original individual members, each one from their own theological school, lead by Rev. Michael Chongluai of Evangelical Bible Seminary as Founder and President.

Their vision was that MTA would be committed to strengthen and serve its members by various possible ways in the development of evangelical biblical theological scholarship through the use of a core syllabus and curriculum, local accreditation, library and research facility development, faculty development. It would also serve as a source for the networking and facilitation of evangelical theological education in Myanmar and the development of partnerships with a wider circle of Asia Theological Association or similar regional theological association outside of Myanmar.

Currently there are 17 member schools, representing about half of the number of evangelical schools in the country.

Contact Address: 

Rev. Dr. Michael Chongluai
President of MTA
54 Kyundaw Street
Sanchaung Township, Yangon, Myanmar
Phone: 95-01-502105 
Email: micluaiebs@mptmail.net.mm

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