Abstract
This article assesses the strengths and weaknesses of theological education within the evangelical, Spanish-speaking world of Latin America, using the findings of a survey in 2012 of protestant institutions in Bolivia as a case study. There is a particular focus on Pentecostals, since they form the majority of evangelicals in the continent. The study is placed in the context of historical developments, both globally and regionally, from which the involvement and influence of Western mission and models of education are critiqued. The claim by some of a crisis in theological education is examined, and the challenges for the future of evangelical provision are explored. These include the need for contextualization, the importance of a close relationship between churches and seminaries, and the centrality of mission at the heart of the theological curriculum. It is argued that there should be greater interdependence based on an intercultural model of theology. It is hoped that the conclusions provide some resonances for theological education globally.
Keywords
Introduction
How much is known about evangelical theological education globally? Every context now has such huge diversity and proliferation of provision from local church level to university level that it is very difficult to document. We do have a rich resource of information about the African context (Phiri and Werner, 2013), but in Latin America it is difficult to find studies which give an overall picture of what is happening, especially within evangelical theological education. This article sets out to provide at least some indicators of developments, and uses Bolivia as a case study. An ecumenical consultancy in La Paz, Bolivia, known as Educational and Theological Services, did conduct a survey of protestant theological education provision in Bolivia in 2012 (Preiswerk and Gutierrez, 2012), so this is reasonably up to date, although of course what is true for Bolivia is not necessarily the case elsewhere in Latin America. In this article, I am confining myself to the Spanish-speaking world, which excludes Portuguese-speaking Brazil, which is another case study in its own right (in fact Brazil is much further forward in theological education than the Spanish-speaking world).
But even within Spanish-speaking Latin America, the countries of the continent are so different, historically, culturally and religiously, and within each country there are huge variations. There is also significant variation in religious and ecclesial identity, although there are some general trends in Latin America as a whole, such as the dramatic increase in evangelical and protestant churches in the last 20/30 years corresponding to a steady decline in Roman Catholic allegiance. Pentecostals have done particularly well, whereas the historic churches such as the Anglicans and Methodists have grown much more modestly. Within Protestantism, there is also an ecumenical movement which has spawned a number of interdenominational seminaries. Even within Pentecostalism, there is a huge range of identities and a myriad of ‘denominations’ setting themselves up on every street corner, all no doubt claiming that they represent the closest approximation to the Kingdom of God. Protestants are sometimes generalized as ‘los evangelicos’, the evangelicals, meaning anyone who is not Roman Catholic. But of course ‘evangelical’ covers a multitude of sins, as indeed it does in Great Britain.
However, although it is impossible to make generalizations globally, it is hoped that the observations of this article will provide some resonances with other contexts, and enable us to draw some tentative conclusions about the state of theological education today. One thing all contexts share is the rapid pace of change; economically, politically and of course religiously. And often that change takes us by surprise and is so rapid that it generates what Alvin Toffler famously called ‘Future Shock’ (Toffler, 1970), which can paralyze us into doing nothing. So even if we can identify with some certainty what is happening today, who knows where we will be even in five years’ time? There are some suggestions – and here is a generalization we may want to challenge – that there is a looming global crisis in theological education which could endanger the very future of world Christianity. The World Study Report on Theological Education in 2010 suggested that ‘the promotion of theological education is a life and death issue for Christianity particularly in Africa and Asia’ (Werner, 2011: 225). Is this overstated? Or is it the case that theological education has not kept pace with rapid church growth and is leaving churches vulnerable to heresy, theological naivety, and superficial discipleship? It is not difficult to find seminaries across the Global South which are created to meet the new growth which have libraries that are often small, and largely filled with Western books, a lack of accreditation or quality control which makes it difficult to establish common standards, and a very fragmented provision of higher level theological programmes. In Latin America, many pastors are appointed with the minimum of theological and pastoral training, sometimes from within the same family, creating dynasties of leaders from generation to generation. Ironically, some of the most successful Pentecostal pastors and leaders are people with very little formal theological education. Their priority is more on their ability to cast out demons and the spiritual gifts of the leaders than on their intellectual skills. This article explores whether there is indeed a crisis in theological education within Latin America.
My research has focussed on the evangelicals, in distinction to ecumenicals or Catholics, although of course historically the Roman Catholic Church has been much more involved in education right across the board. The first catholic university in Latin America was founded in Peru in 1533, and then another in Bolivia in 1624, whereas the first protestant universities were not founded until the middle of the twentieth century. The Catholic Church has founded many fine seminaries and universities, though there has been a crisis of vocations in recent years corresponding to their numerical decline. Amongst evangelicals, there is a widespread disconnect between the churches and the theological seminaries, and many churches set up their own little theological seminaries as a way of preserving their doctrinal identity and of making sure their own leaders are denominationally sound. Conversely some seminaries collaborate with churches to help them produce good quality ‘in-house’ theological education. Some evangelicals have gone into establishing what might be called ‘Christian Universities’, sometimes with state recognition. We will comment more on these trends in what follows.
It is a Western preoccupation to begin with definitions, so here is a good definition of theological education: ‘Theological education . . . aims at developing reflective Christian identity and practice, an informed and spiritually enriched access to the biblical tradition, and empowering people for participation in the mission of God in the world’ (Werner, 2011: 153). This seems to me to integrate well the personal, practical, intellectual, biblical and missional dimensions of what we are aiming to do in theological education.
We will begin by placing Latin American developments briefly in a global historical framework and suggest some key questions for theological education today which arise from that history. I want to look at the strengths and weaknesses of current provision, which is where the case study on Bolivia will be helpful. Also a particular focus on the Pentecostals will be important as they represent the largest proportion of evangelicals. Thirdly, I want to highlight some of the challenges for evangelicals going forward. Again, as I have suggested already, it may be helpful to think of our own contexts, as we try to identify the resonances, and discern what we can learn from what is happening in Latin America and Bolivia.
Historical Developments in Evangelical Theological Education
The Western missionary movement had a strong commitment to education, convinced that education went hand in hand with civilization and cultural transformation. They held together evangelism, education and health in a holistic understanding of the gospel. The more enlightened missionaries saw their educational task as empowering local people to resist the corrupting influence of Western culture and imperial ambitions. In Latin America, protestant missionaries created and developed primary and secondary schools because ‘it was impossible to compete with the Catholics without the power and influence of education’ (Fonseca and Santos, 2014: 214). However, within that vision for education, theological education was not prioritized. In 1938, at Tambaram, India, in the course of the meeting of the International Missionary Council (IMC), it was stated that ‘the worst element in all initiatives in Christian mission is theological education’ (Ortega, 2009: 25).
It was only after the Second World War that theological education in the Global South was prioritized and gradually more structured. Missionary Protestantism insisted on the importance of theological education to uphold the established interpretation of scripture, and to avoid the supposed excesses and fanaticism of the up and coming Pentecostals. Theological education became more prominent in the ecumenical movement through various organizations: the Theological Education Fund (TEF), the Programme on Theological Education (PTE), and the Ecumenical Theological Education (ETE) programme. Resources were focussed on centres of training to replace many small and weak ones. Examples include the Anglican Theological College in South India; Immanuel College, Ibadan, Nigeria; Trinity College, Singapore, and in Latin America, the Evangelical/Ecumenical School of Theological Studies (ISEDET) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ISEDET (www.isedet.edu.ar) was the result of a fusion in 1969 of two prior schools: The Evangelical School of Theology and the Lutheran School of Theology. Today, ISEDET is struggling to survive, since they lost government accreditation for their degrees and their student numbers are falling. So even for such a prestigious and historical place, there are no guarantees for the future.
There were calls for contextualization and the need to teach in indigenous languages, but ‘the missionary movement . . . has predominantly globalized a Western pattern, methodology and framework of theological education which only gradually (and partially) became challenged . . . after the 70’s and 80’s’ (Werner, 2011: 151). According to Lee Wanak, ‘Theological education in the 20C has been dominated by the West – its theological categories shaped by Greek culture; its educational patterns shaped by the university model; its attitudes influenced by modernity, industrialism, colonialism, and individualism’ (Wanak, 2000: 3).
There is no shortage of mission historians who emphasize the influence of Western missionaries, theology and pedagogy on theological education: for example Dietrich Werner comments:
In the past 100 yrs of mission history there was a predominant trend to export models and curricula of theological education from the West (which have been formed in a constantinian or post-constantinian church setting) into contexts in the South which in most cases have a pre-constantinian setting. Many of the problems and unsolved challenges for contextualization of theological education in the churches of the South are related to this background. One of the fundamental tasks of the global missionary movement today is to strengthen the self-reliance and independence of theological education institutions and curricula in churches of the South which have to adapt themselves to a pre-constantinian setting. (Werner, 2011: 193–194)
In Latin America, theologians in the 1960s called for a drastic revision of the curriculum of theological institutions which had been up to then patterned after the Anglo-Saxon system, so that they could be more shaped, according to Samuel Escobar, by the ‘rediscovery of the missionary nature of the church’ in their own contexts (Escobar, 1996: 108).
In relation to Pentecostalism, Juan Sepulveda, a Pentecostal Chilean theologian, comments on the myth of a disconnect between Pentecostalism and theological education (Sepulveda, 1999). When he looks at the roots of Pentecostalism in the USA and the UK, he finds an abundance of theological literature arising from debates in the early days with important academic centres of theological learning. Anglo-Saxon Pentecostalism created their own centres of biblical and theological formation, and today some of the main international centres of theological formation belong, or have association with, important Pentecostal denominations in the USA. So for Sepulveda, it is a myth to say that there has been a divide historically between Pentecostals and theological education.
But it is true that in more recent years in Latin America, there has been a suspicion or even outright opposition from some Pentecostals to formal theological education. There are both historical and socio-cultural roots to this antagonism. Sometimes it was felt that theological knowledge was used to discredit the spiritual experience of Pentecostalism, and some even saw formal education as a tool of the devil to rob the church of its purity. Norburto Saracco, an Argentinian Pentecostal theologian, observes that pastoral ministry can sometimes be described as ‘anointed ignorance’ (Saracco, 2011: 121). Many pastors and leaders in Latin America, he observes, believe that theology kills faith and prevents miracles. Again it is said: ‘if you want the church to grow, don’t go to seminary’. It is not uncommon to hear from the pulpit: ‘here, we don’t do theology’. So Saracco sees a clear disconnect between churches and seminaries. Again, I want to come back to this theme later.
However, from the 1960s onwards, Sepulveda notes that Pentecostals in Latin America recognized the importance of preparing pastors and leaders with adequate biblical knowledge and practical skills, and so they developed more systematic models of pastoral formation. This coincided with a better educated public, rapid social and cultural changes, social mobility in a new generation of up and coming Pentecostals, the influence of models of Pentecostal ecclesiology which came from missionaries who had their own centres of formation, and greater interchange between Pentecostal pastors and traditional protestant leaders. Pentecostals, however, lacked experience of theological education, and often lacked the resources, so they looked to others to help them. They looked to the seminaries or centres of biblical foundation of Pentecostal denominations of missionary and foreign origin, or to interdenominational centres.
From this brief review of historical developments, the need arises to ask some key questions of theological education in Latin America today: the extent to which is still heavily influenced by both Western and North American models and theologies; whether evangelicals and Pentecostals have been able to develop truly contextual models of theological education; whether there is a crisis in theological education, and perhaps especially in the relationship between churches and seminaries; and we want to ask as missiologists what priority is given to mission in the structures and curriculums of their seminaries.
Current Developments: The Case of Bolivia
We have already referred to the survey conducted in 2011 by Preiswerk and Gutierrez. They realized that there was no exact data on the numbers of places offering theological education in Bolivia even at an advanced level (bachelors level and above). I suspect this is true of most other countries in Latin America: how much do we really know about what is happening in any one context? Even then, their survey focussed on ‘evangelical’ institutions, thereby excluding Roman Catholics. They identified 30 main seminaries and universities. Some did not want to participate for various reasons, so they ended up with 23 institutions willing to participate in the survey. Within this, there was a sufficient spectrum of size, age, church identity, modes of study etc., to be able to form some picture of what is happening generally. But the results can only be interpreted as tendencies and not exact figures; so there are significant limitations in trying to interpret the results of a survey of this nature.
What is the Range of Provision?
Of the institutions surveyed, 57% describe themselves as ‘seminaries’. Seminaries mostly have a very specific and limited relationship with one church or denomination. They are created mainly to prepare pastors for their own denomination. In total, 17% offer degree courses or university faculties, or they may call themselves ‘institutes’ if they have some link to the university system but do not offer university degrees . That applies to 13%. Some self-describe as ‘centres’, which doesn’t commit them to any official status. In terms of denominational identity: 70% are governed by a single denomination, and this includes all of the ‘seminaries’, 17% are denominational but have autonomy, and only 13% are interdenominational. However, in spite of strong denominational identity, most seminaries accept students, and even teachers, from other denominations, so there is a range of self-description and identity. In Latin America more generally, there are four main ways for evangelicals to get a theological education:
Local denominational seminaries, usually using the space in the churches that have set them up, focussing on reproducing their official teaching and developing their own leaders. This is ‘in-house’ training and it focuses on a ‘how to do it’ approach to ministry. Critical thinking or a wider ecumenical approach is not high on their agenda. This forms the majority on the continent. There are thousands of these local church seminaries, all doing their own thing!
Larger established institutions set up under the patronage of a large, well established denominations such as the Assemblies of God. Some of these seminaries have a good academic level, although they perhaps do not reach the level of other well established institutions in Latin America. There is, for example, an Evangelical Centre of Pentecostal Studies in Chile, which has a good reputation.
Evangelicals can study in a range of ecumenical or interdenominational institutions, including universities. There is a trend for larger evangelical seminaries to adopt university status. This gives their degrees state accreditation and there is undoubtedly status in being recognized as a university. In Latin America 32 new Christian universities have arisen since 1990, and 15 of them are protestant (Carpenter et al., 2014: 117). However, it is very complicated and costly to get university status, and in some cases can take up to 10 years. Also, seminaries have to broaden the range of courses they offer, and experience of Christian higher education globally shows that universities gradually become secularized and lose their distinctively Christian character (Carpenter et al., 2014: 279ff).
It is increasingly more possible to do some form of distance learning including accessing courses through the internet. Theological Education by Extension (TEE) has a long history in Latin America including SEAN (Study by Extension to All Nations: www.seaninternational.com) which was birthed in Latin America.
In Bolivia, just over 50% of institutions have legal recognition and of those who don’t, it is the seminaries belonging to a single denomination which form the vast majority. 30% have a formal recognition from the Ministry of Education, and it is known that in the whole of Bolivia there are no more than nine who have this status. Five places offer bachelor degrees without official recognition, which runs the risk of severe sanctions. The relationship between church and state in some countries has become strained as the state has tried to clamp down on institutions offering ‘degrees’ which are not recognized or accredited. They insist that seminaries do not have the right to award ‘degrees’ unless they are officially recognized. Many see governmental regulation as a good thing: it forces seminaries to have high pedagogical standards, they have to defend their programmes as coherent, it develops critical thinking and encourages curriculums which engage with the realities of their country.
The places surveyed in Bolivia are all located in the main cities, 77% can be found in the three biggest cities of Cochabamba, La Paz and Santa Cruz. Because of the size of the country (it is twice the size of Spain and necessary to fly between these cities if you want to avoid a long journey), it means a big commitment for anyone from a rural area wanting to study if they want or need to be residential. So what happens to the theological training of indigenous pastors in remote rural areas? Of the courses, 87% require the regular presence of the student in the classroom, 43% are offered on a part-time basis, and only 8% of courses are offered by distance learning through the internet. So Theological Education by Extension (TEE) is an exciting possibility, but many do not have good access to the internet. However, online courses are growing rapidly in Latin America. It is now possible to access master’s degree programmes online, for example through the ProMETA programme based in Costa Rica (Programas de Maestria en Estudios Teologicos Acesibles [Masters Programmes for Accessible Theological Studies]: www.pro-meta.org), which is far ahead of the field in this provision.
Of those surveyed in Bolivia, 75% have an email address but only about a third of seminaries have their own website. This represents a big commitment for small seminaries, and some churches and evangelical institutions have been slow to get into the electronic media. All of them make use of computers (though mainly for admin) and more than two-thirds have the facility to show PowerPoint. But very few are able to buy computers for their students to access.
How Were These Seminaries Founded?
In total, 65% of the 23 surveyed were founded after 1987, this growth being in parallel with the growth of private universities in Bolivia. It also reflects the rapid growth of evangelicalism in that period, and corresponds also with the peak of neoliberalism in Bolivia.
Almost 40% were founded by missionaries, 35% by nationals and 26% by a combination of the two. That means that missionaries were involved one way or another in founding the majority. Before 1960, they were all founded by missionaries, but in the last 25 years that has dropped to less than half. This indicates that missionary influence, at least structurally, is finally on the wane! Nearly 80% are governed exclusively by nationals, and none are now governed only by foreigners. This is encouraging: there is a marked movement towards nationalization: all of the institutions which were birthed by outsiders are now in the hands of Bolivian nationals. However, Preiswerk and Gutierrez comment that the growth in involvement of nationals does not guarantee that the theological education offered is more contextual or inculturated. These are words used more by Catholics than by evangelicals, who, when they think of ‘contextualization’ normally think of the socio-economic dimension, rather than cultural or religious dimensions (Preiswerk and Gutierrez, 2012: 24). Preiswerk thinks that very few evangelicals are engaging seriously with issues of culture and most do not enter into the debates, for example in Bolivia, about how to relate to indigenous cultures. However, at grass roots level, evangelicals are very good at contextualizing their mission: if there is a local need, say, for education, they will build a school; if there is poverty, they will set up a soup kitchen; if there are internally displaced people, they will care for them. It is not articulated, but there is a lot of practical contextualization quietly going on. It is at the academic level that Latin American evangelicals are not good at thinking contextually.
In relation to mode of delivery, 74% offer classes at night, as well as during the day, and this is a very popular way to study in Latin America generally. One has to admire the commitment of those who do a full day’s work, go to seminary for three hours at night, probably not getting back home until midnight, and then they are up again the next morning for work. This mode has its obvious limitations pedagogically, but many do not have the luxury of not working in order to study full-time.
What is Offered Educationally?
In Bolivia courses are offered at all levels, and generally the higher up academically, the fewer the courses and the fewer the qualifications which are possible. Just 8.7% offer master’s level courses and none of the institutions surveyed offer doctoral programmes. A little less than a third of the degrees offered have recognition by the Ministry of Education. At least six do not have a system of academic credits for any of their courses. It seems that various institutions are not integrated into the university system and do not know the mechanisms for recognition and accreditation.
Accreditation is a major issue, which raises the issue of quality assurance, although there are agencies helping institutions to get accreditation. One of the biggest in Latin America is the Evangelical Association of Theological Education (AETAL: www.aetal.com), which is based in Brazil. Many look to institutions in the States for accreditation, for example, the Association of Caribbean and Latin American Missionary Educators (ACLAME: www.aclame.net) is set up by Assemblies of God in the States, and has under its umbrella the Latin American Theological Association (ATAL), providing accreditation for Pentecostal institutions. Numerous universities in the States offer accreditation to courses in Latin America.
Who Are the Teachers?
Although almost all institutions in Bolivia expect their teachers to have academic degrees, this does not always apply in seminaries where pastoral experience is more important than academic level. Most seminaries are preparing their students for pastoral leadership, not to be academic theologians. About 10% of teachers have a doctorate, but most institutions do not require teachers to have further training in how to teach and what makes for good pedagogy. Preiswerk and Gutierrez (2012) comment on a general ‘pedagogical deficit’ which means that theological educators do not recognize or confuse the differences between different kinds of teaching resource. Many of the materials are copied, translated or adapted from outside sources than are actually produced from within Bolivia. It seems that many are simply reproducing the pedagogical methods which they themselves received as students, usually in lecture form from the front, with very little student interaction.
This is not helped by the fact that almost 50% of teachers have no involvement in the institution other than to teach. They come in, teach, and go away. Institutions rely on a high percentage of teachers invited in from elsewhere. In fact, the number of teachers who come from time to time far exceeds the number who are based at the institution. This undermines the continuity and quality of what the seminary can offer, and means that on average there is one teacher for every six students, but because many teachers just come and go, this does not automatically translate into a high level of teacher commitment to students since itinerant teachers have no realistic ongoing relationships with their students. So there is about one teacher actually based at the institution for every 20 students.
Of the teachers, 76% are men and 24% are women. Nevertheless, there are more women teaching in the institutions than there are pastors in churches. Also, women teachers do not have the same opportunities as men for leadership and administrative roles. In relation to women students, 66% are men and 33% are women. Some conservative seminaries of course do not recognize the leadership ministry of women.
In relation to age, there is a good proportion of younger teachers, which is encouraging: 42% are aged between 25 and 40, and 44% are between 41 and 55 years old. This meets an ever-younger student enrolment: 72% of enrolment is from young people aged 17–30 years.
It is encouraging that 93% of teachers are Bolivian and only 2.4% are North American and 2% are European. This again indicates an encouraging process of nationalization of theological education in Bolivia. However, there is an informality in the way teachers are contracted: only 30% are appointed through a selection process, and 82% are simply invited to teach, which does not necessarily mean that they are the best people for the job.
Another indication of the growing independence of institutions in Bolivia is their low level of support from external funding. Only 26% of those surveyed receive funding from foreign churches or missions, which is less than might be imagined. Many local churches, and the denominations, support their own seminaries. So in fact very few are exclusively dependent on foreign direction or support.
What Courses of Study are Offered?
In all, 70% of courses are dedicated to biblical studies, systematic theology and pastoral and practical theology. Surprisingly, only 6% deal with the history of the church or Christianity and not so surprisingly 4.4% of courses are dedicated specifically to missiology. Only one institution surveyed defines its identity and programme in relation to mission, although about half include mission in their documentation and some refer to the importance of integral mission and commitment to the Kingdom of God. It could be that in some cases mission is being taught under ‘practical theology’. But themes such as gender, sexuality, environment, poverty and AIDS never appear in course material. Reference to culture appears seven times, but there are only three places which have courses in anthropology and only one offers a course on archaeology. Anecdotally, it is said that very few evangelical seminaries have courses on culture or cultural related issues such as contextualization.
Preiswerk is very concerned about curriculum development, and has observed that for most seminaries, ‘curriculum’ simply means the list of courses on offer, and that there is very little understanding of how to develop a coherent curriculum. Again, many are borrowing curriculums from the ‘north’ or using course structures which sometimes go back to the 1960s. There is therefore not much original thinking in constructing curriculums. Bibliographies, for example, mainly point students to books from a Northern and Western context and many courses use materials which originate from outside the continent.
Conclusions
What conclusions can we draw from the case study which might have more general application in relation to the key questions we asked earlier on?
There are some indications of a growing independence from foreign Western and Northern influence. Governance, funding, and teaching resources are all largely in Bolivian hands. Some churches and theologians have actively resisted the North American influence. This growing independence resonates with the situation in Africa as reported by Houston and Nakah (Houston and Nakah, 2013: 386–392). They report a marked decline in the number of Western missionaries serving in evangelical colleges in Africa over the past decade. Where colleges offer doctorates, and sometimes master’s level courses, it seems that foreign expertise is still needed. But dependence of curriculum content on what has been handed down from the past or imported from abroad is gradually disappearing. Nevertheless ‘evangelical seminaries have been teaching institutions faithfully teaching material derived from the West, and have not generated new knowledge specifically related to African realities’ (Houston and Nakah, 2013: 390). Houston and Nakah note that there is a notable absence of courses such as urban mission and gender studies, and in another article, Houston observes that ‘lecturers tend to replicate what they learned in other curriculums and other countries’ (Houston, 2013: 110). In any context, lecturers always tend to adopt the same pedagogy by which they received their own theological training. However, Houston and Nakah see steady, if gradual, change, and they are quietly confident that there will be a significant growth in evangelical African scholarship, books published by evangelicals, and scholars exercising more influence in the curriculums, which will become more contextually relevant.
However, contextualization remains a challenge for conservative evangelicals and Pentecostals. Plenty of scholars see too much western dependency in theological education. Allan Anderson is convinced that ‘western hegemony remains in theological institutions and their curricula’ (Anderson, 2004). He also is not short of support for this view globally. He quotes Hwa Yung, who in commenting on SE Asia, notes that theological institutions there have been ‘conditioned by the methodologies, agenda and content of western theology’ (Hwa Yung, 1995: 1). He also quotes Jose Miguez Bonino’s view that Latin American Pentecostalism has been ‘too limited by some current theological formulations adopted from Anglo-Saxon evangelical circles’ (Bonino, 1994: 228).
To what extent is this true in Latin America? There are encouragements; for example, there is great excitement about the forthcoming Latin American Bible Commentary, with articles on every book of the Bible exclusively written by Latin American evangelical biblical scholars. However, the missionary movement left behind structures, methodologies, traditions, orthodoxy and pedagogy which are deeply embedded in the evangelical mentality, so change will be gradual. There is a new generation coming up which is better educated and understand more what education is about, so there are more educators and more awareness of the educational needs of students. We are talking about theological education, and that is not just about theology it is also about education! Sadly, some theologians know a lot about theology, and nothing about education! But Preiswerk still sees great dependence on the West and the North and an evangelical reluctance to develop new ways of doing theology. He sees theological education stuck in a paradigm which is theologically uniform, monocultural (i.e., predominantly Western), self-serving and isolated from other disciplines, patriarchal, and uncontextualized (Preiswerk, 2011). As a result, it is unable to respond to the socio-cultural diversity of Latin America.
In an unpublished paper in Spanish, Dario Lopez, an influential Peruvian Pentecostal theologian, analyses the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of his own Pentecostal denomination The Church of God. He observes that there is still prevalent ‘a theology dependent on patterns of thinking and ways of understanding evangelical faith somewhat foreign to the biblical perspective, and more related to the culture and ideology of many of the foreign missionaries’ (Lopez, 2014: 2). Pentecostal theological education in his view is often not engaging with the realities of people’s everyday experience of poverty, corruption and social issues. Also, teaching methods are not encouraging critical thinking which can help future pastors differentiate between God’s Word and the human thinking which governs contemporary society. He is encouraged however by the way in which Pentecostals have responded to the need for theological education with networks of bible colleges and flexible programmes of theological education by extension which have provided structures for pastoral formation. In Argentina, Pentecostal theologian Norburto Saracco has been instrumental in setting up FIET (International Faculty of Theological Education: www.fiet.com.ar) which is a highly regarded distance learning programme which seems to have found the right level theologically and has many thousands of students, mostly Pentecostals, now in seven countries of Latin America including Bolivia. Also in Argentina the Kairos Foundation in Buenos Aires, established by Rene Padilla, has a big distance learning programme CETI (Centre for Interdisciplinary Theological Studies: www.kairos.org.ar) with students in most countries of Latin America.
So in relation to Latin America generally, anecdotal evidence suggests that the influence of the West and the ‘North’ is gradually less significant, but there is some way to go before evangelical theology and theological education is genuinely Latin American. We need to bear in mind that the whole education system in Latin America was inherited from the West, so this is not just an issue for theology. They cannot deny this inheritance, and it did provide many educational foundations such as literacy. So, they can appreciate what they have received, but now need to move on in facing their own issues. One problem was that Western theologians brought their own particular issues, which were not Latin American issues, so Latin American evangelicals need space to identify their own issues and develop a theological language to speak to them.
This divorce between church and theological education is identified by some as a key issue for Latin America. Churches look to the seminaries to train their ministers, but they do not want theologians, they want people who can preach and evangelize and do pastoral work. This is more about training and methodology than about theological thinking: it will give you five steps to plant a church. However, there is a great need for ministers who can think critically about theological issues which directly affect their congregations, such as spiritual warfare and prosperity theology. The churches need a more profound theology because in many cases, discussion of theology in the church is very superficial and very rare; there is a lack of biblical formation even when the church is growing, so many churches have a great poverty of theological thinking. So the challenge for the seminaries is: how can they make theological formation more accessible and more relevant to these issues?
The Bolivian study also suggests that we have some way to go before mission is at the heart of theological curriculums as an integrating theme in the way that many missiologists believe that it should be. Mission can bring Church and seminary together with a common agenda. Houston comments that ‘missiology migrates around trying to find a home, either as an independent subject or as a subset of biblical theology or practical theology’ (Houston, 2013: 113). This is as true of Western curricula as it is globally. Until we put mission at the heart of theology and theology at the heart of mission, this will not change. An exciting and recent example of this comes from Perry Shaw (Shaw, 2014), who has developed integrated curriculums at Lebanon Bible Institute, Beirut.
What of the Future?
So in the world of theological education we may be sure that things are changing very fast. Change can be a time of crisis or a time of opportunity. Some believe that there is a crisis in theological education in Latin America, and Preiswerk (2011) would be one of them, even if most seminaries do not recognize it. It is particularly true of the seminaries associated with the historic churches, which struggle for support and student numbers. Some seminaries do not survive. Pentecostal churches do better for numbers, but as we have commented they are often reproducing the same theologies which have served them for years, but not generating original thinking or critical theologies which engage with real issues of context. Many are also not engaging fast enough with the digital age. However, while some seminaries are struggling others are growing, especially in the provision of online courses. So for many the word ‘crisis’ is not appropriate and certainly not demonstrable.
Preiswerk’s challenge to evangelicals is to envisage a paradigm shift from a monocultural to an ‘intercultural’ model for theology which is essentially relational, integral and interdisciplinary. This would open up the possibility of theological engagement with Latin America’s cultural diversity, it would create an openness to dialogue across theological traditions and it would enable a much more contextualized approach to Latin American realities (Preiswerk, 2011: 227ff). It would create an interdependence cross-culturally with North America, as well as between cultures within Latin America, which would avoid the twin evils of dependency and isolationism. Dependency is an unhealthy inheritance of historic colonialism; independence, however, can be dangerous if there are no checks and balances which an outside framework of reference can provide. Anecdotal evidence suggests that sometimes when responsibility for a church or denomination has been handed over to Bolivians, the vision has been lost, theological compromises have come in, and the quality of the education and health programmes has fallen. On the other hand, some churches with North American influence have remained strong, so the relationship can be enriching and positive. A model of theological interdependence across cultures would be able to discern the positive and negative influences coming to Bolivia from the North; it would encourage mutual theological exchange; it would recognize a diversity of theological and cultural perspectives; it would encourage an interdisciplinary and integral approach to theology; all of which would characterize an intercultural paradigm for theological education.
Interdependence is a principal characteristic of Bosch’s emerging paradigm in which there is an ‘epistemology of participation’ (Bosch, 1991: 362). Andrew Walls argues similarly that, because we live in a globalized world, we need truly global Christian networks for the development of global theology in theological education (Walls, 2011: 235–240). This boldly envisages Latin American, as well as African and Asian theologians, being ‘powerhouses of Christian thought’, transforming Western theological thinking as they penetrate the Western theological academy. That’s a great vision if we can find ways to make it work in practice. In relation to modes of delivery, the residential model of training is everywhere coming under increasing strain globally. However as more flexible programmes develop, and there is flexibility of delivery and ever greater use of the internet, this gives students more options and more ways of getting into theological education. The extent to which evangelicals are able to take contextualization seriously will be a key, not only to the development of contextual theologies independent of Western categories, but also to the importance and centrality of mission, since authentic mission is essentially an exercise in contextualization. It is arguable that teaching students how to contextualize the gospel in a discerning manner, faithful to the mission of God witnessed in the Scriptures, should be the central task of theological education in every context.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.