The Expository Times

The article highlights historical and programatic aspects of the Programme on Ecumenical Theological Education of the World Council of Churches. Special importance is gven to new insights and challenges which were identified during the Edinburgh 2010 centenary conference. Key convictions which underline the urgency of more international cooperation in the tasks to promote faculty development and capacity development in theological education of the churches of the South are spelled out as well as some crucial tasks for common solidarity between churches, mission agencies and theological colleges worldwide. A number of new key resources and publications on issues of theological education in World Christianity are identified.

Readings from the Road, a British Academy-funded small research project, investigated the use of Contextual Bible Study (CBS) with a group of homeless and vulnerably-housed people at a soup kitchen in South-West England. The transient nature of the homeless community presented particular challenges in using this method, but the non-directive and democratic nature of CBS proved valuable. The authors discuss three themes arising from the study sessions: home and place, judgment and stigmatization, and the figure of Jesus. Participants’ linking of biblical themes with their own experiences and broader social events are explored. The authors note that consciously privileging the experience and knowledge of those whose narratives or reading sites are silenced or devalued by mainstream religious traditions is not unequivocally positive, but that the homeless participants’ liminal, insider-outsider relationship to the rest of society is a significant factor in their ability to query and subvert established discourses, providing flashes of imagery which might be deemed prophetic.

While it is clear that all Christians have received the Holy Spirit, many traditions, especially the Pentecostal, insist that there is an experience subsequent to conversion. While the work of the Spirit in justification enables a relationship to Christ, a second experience is enlivening, and primarily related to sanctification. This may be understood in terms of “filling”, which can be simultaneous with conversion, but should be repeated.