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| AUSTRALASIAN THEOLOGICAL STUDIES |
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| AUSTRALASIAN THEOLOGICAL STUDIES |
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Volume 11, Number 2, June 1998 BEYOND 2000 Theological Education in an Ecumenical, Global and Plural Context
Contents, Abstracts, Notes on Contributors Articles JUDITH A. BERLING Abstract: This article offers an outline of the major challenges to theological education at the end of the millennium. The challenge of religious pluralism and the problem of denominational identity are given particular attention. Future theological education is anticipated also to demand greater attention to a new sense of tradition and identity formation. Finally, local experience and changes in culture and society have been too long ignored in theological education and need to be made part of the foundations of future teaching. J. DORCAS GORDON Abstract: This study offers an account of the origins and evolution of the D.Min. programme, with particular reference to the Toronto School of Theology and the influence of contemporary biblical hermeneutics. Inductive and deductive methods of learning are considered, leading to a discussion of a community model of learning. Theological education is also seen to require an integration of theory and practice. Attention is drawn to the nature of the student in advanced ministry studies today, and differences from the past. Finally, the requirements of teaching in such programmes are considered, with particular emphasis on the need for imagination, vulnerability and courage. FRANCIS J. MOLONEY S.D.B. Abstract: Modern critical biblical scholarship has long laboured under the belief that the object of teaching the biblical text was to communicate the original meaning of a traditional and canonical text. Contemporary criticism points more and more to the intertextuality of both text and reader in the interpretative process. The interpreter is inevitably inscribed in the act of interpretation. A reading of the Nicodemus material in the Fourth Gospel attempts to show that "autobiographical" readings need not abandon the achievements of more traditional forms of scholarship. Text, tradition, rhetoric and reader can combine to provide a reading of the text which continues and enriches Christian beliefs and practice. PAUL BRADSHAW Abstract: This study critically examines some traditional methods in liturgical theology . The author argues that liturgy is as much a human artefact as a divine creation, and therefore that liturgical theology needs to take the fruits of historical research and the insights offered by the social sciences much more seriously than it has generally done. He also rejects the notion that there is a single theological meaning within every liturgical act which can be read out of it as a doctrinal norm. On the contrary, liturgies are essentially multivalent, and doctrine shapes both the liturgies themselves and people's interpretations of them at least as much as liturgical practice shapes belief. TERRY A. VELING
Judith A. Berling is Professor of Chinese and Comparative Religions, former Dean of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California and Director of Incarnating Globalization, Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. Academically and professionally she is well qualified to set the context. Her article develops the theme and questions with which we must deal and offers interesting and possible means for various disciplines to re-orient their methodology for a new context. J. Dorcas Gordon is President of the Association of Directors of Ministry Education of North America and Canada and eminently suited to discuss the issue of advanced ministry studies and its place in theological education. Since the Melbourne College of Divinity established its Master of Ministry programme in 1990 enrolments have increased each year so that now over 150 clergy are studying for that degree and 12 for the newly introduced Doctor of Ministry Studies. But it has not been easy to provide the proper context, ethos, supervision or examination processes required. Dorcas Gordon shows how the transformative, integrative, and diversifying emphases of an advanced ministry studies programme can breathe new life into theological education. Francis J. Moloney S.D.B. is foundation Professor of Theology at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, the book review editor of Pacifica and a former lecturer for the Catholic Theological College, one of the MCD's associated teaching institutions. One of Australia's most respected New Testament scholars, Frank Moloney asks us to take seriously the paradigm shift in Biblical criticism from the text to the worlds receiving the text. Arguing that both text and reader are vital to the process, he suggests that we need not abandon the achievements of more traditional forms of scholarship, but do need to engage more seriously than ever in an interpretative process which is more an interpretation with, than an interpretation of, the text. Paul Bradshaw is Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Ill. and Director of its London Programme. A prolific and respected writer in the field of liturgical theology, he asks us to consider a different approach to a difficult subject. In our liturgy, the chapel and the classroom meet, or should. But the nexus is often broken, or never established, which is a tragedy for all whose participation in liturgy, high or low, is the major point of belonging, expressing, seeking or proclaiming their faith. Why is it that theological institutions insist that we study almost everything except liturgical theology, in whatever tradition we may be found? Paul Bradshaw asks us to consider more deeply the multivalent character of worship itself and the multiple meanings attached to the activity that co-exist within any group of people celebrating ritual together. Terry A. Veling teaches at the Catholic Institute of Sydney and raises questions about so-called 'practical theology'. He argues that a new orientation of theology ñ teaching in the name of the other ñ is required to bring theological education into serious engagement with the socio-economic, political and ecclesial contexts shaping our lives. It is our hope that this issue, and the conference which it introduces, will help shape and stimulate theological education, particularly in Australia, into a renewed or different orientation to face the challenge of contributing to both church and society beyond 2000 CE. |