Theological Education in Historical Perspective

Explores: Historical development of modern theological education in African contexts, within era of colonialism and modern European Christendom missionary impetus; into post-colonial eras and emergence of contextualisation theory, circa 1972:

1. Colonial Era

   Colonialism and Christendom · Western Mission · African Christian Identity

2. Post-Colonial Era

   Vernacular Christianity and Nationalism · National Christianity and Western Partnership · Emergence of Contextualisation Theory

Modern theological education, as typically practiced throughout the last two centuries, is essentially a post-Enlightenment concept that became a global prescription due to the highly successful expansionism of Western missionary efforts. With the shape and character of Christianity changing radically and significantly in the wake of the demise of Western colonialism and concomitant rise of ‘World Christianity’, there is an opportunity for a radical reassessment of how theological education and scripturally-based discipleship praxis might be reformed, in order to more-appropriately equip congregations and missionary movements of the Majority World. Wilbert Shenk writes,

An unexamined assumption of the modern mission movement was that theological education was essential to the well being of the churches being established across the world … The argument put forward … is that modern western theological education, exported throughout the world as a part of the modern mission movement, has proved to be a serious impediment to training church leaders in other cultures whose task it was to develop contextually appropriate churches. Everything about this theological educational program was geared toward inculcating western ideals and values (Shenk 2013, 1).

Modern theological education grew out of the hybrid soil of European Christendom — a syncretistic combination of imperialism and missionary expansionism. Consequently, theological education was shaped by an Enlightenment-bound, Western hegemony, comfortable imposing itself in other contexts, confident of an innate cultural superiority that elevated reproduction of European Christendom to a status of divinely-ordained destiny, such that colonising and civilising ‘benighted’ peoples came to represent a godly duty of European civilisations (Bevans and Schroeder 2004, 214).

It was not until the crisis of post-colonial nationalism took hold that the glaring inconsistencies of this worldview with the biblical mission of Jesus became fully appreciated. Contextualisation theory is central to this change of perspective (Shenk 2013, 2). This relatively recent, innovative theory lays claim to biblical imperatives that shook the foundational assumptions and underpinnings of Christendom and Western mission and, in particular, its theological, financial and structural hegemony.

Unified bibliography.