The introduction to Islam raised a number of issues that were addressed in the Knowledge of God module, most importantly the nature of God as Trinity. This is possibly the root of most theological controversy between Muslims and Christians. Christians can be tempted to skim over the doctrine of the Trinity in order to make Christianity appear more reasonable to Muslims. But the Knowledge of God reminds us that not only is this impossible to do whilst remaining true to the Bible, but the lack of confident Trinitarian witness may well have been the major flaw in Christian witness to Muslims to date. The meaning of the Trinity and what that shows of God’Äôs essential loving character should appeal to community-oriented Muslims. Christians must not be ashamed of the Trinity as if it is something which Man made up. Throughout the history of the church people have tried to discard it, with disastrous effects, some of which have had an impact on Islam.
In evangelism, especially across cultures, of necessity we talk about God a lot and introduce him to people. How do we do this? It is so easy to pick up concepts of God from our own culture which are inadequate and misleading and so to export more of a Greek than a Christian understanding of God. It is so vital in all our presentation of the good news of the kingdom of God that we have a good understanding of who God is and how he reveals himself. The Trinity is a doctrine we could be tempted to leave aside since it is perceived as complicated, but that cannot be done without courting eventual disaster again, as people devalue 2 members of the Trinity.
In my placement setting up a team within the church to look after international visitors to the church and to the city, it was clear that Godly teamwork and leadership should be informed by knowledge of God as Trinity. It was vital to submit to one another and recognise each others’Äô distinctive gifts, all the time demonstrating love even when we might disagree.
The module on teamwork and leadership provided helpful reflection on teambuilding and team maintenance, a very real thing in the placement where I was trying to establish a team ministry in my church. It was good to be encouraged to see the great potential of a team as well as the problems which may arise. Most aspects of teamwork and leadership covered in the module were directly applicable to my placement situation. It was unfortunate that the teamwork module came when most of the placement was finished so I was unable really to apply any of the learning to the practical situation.
The Gospel in Cultural Context provided a healthy basis for thinking with local/global contexts in mind, and analysing the impact of culture on mission work and the proclamation of the good news and the interpretation of the Bible.
It was hard work doing both at same time but certain similarities reinforced each other. There were obvious links with other subjects and it’Äôs especially good when you’Äôre able to use the knowledge of Greek or Hebrew to get deeper into aspects of Theology.
Not significantly, only in helpful ways, e.g.: in mission ’Äì Islam & Gospel in cultural context. Not really much of an overlap but discussion about culture.
I greatly appreciated studying the biblical languages though they were hard work. The different way of thinking from the other theological subjects provided much-needed relief for the scientist in me! They also stimulated me to read the Bible more closely, which began to help the biblical studies and also other subject areas. It seems vital to me that a theologian is able to interact with the original languages of the Bible in an intelligent way, so as not to be completely at the mercy of what other commentators may rightly or wrongly say about the text.
The Missions modules complemented each other well. The gospel in cultural context providing a helpful way of looking at particular situations in many different contexts and working out both how the situation affected the presentation of the gospel, and how the gospel could impact the situation. The Islam module provided some examples of particular cultural and religious contexts for mission work and challenging ways of thinking. Also with the need to actually go and interview some Muslims about various issues it provided an opportunity to push us from academic to practical involvement which was perhaps daunting but vital. Cross-cultural Life and Ministry similarly provided a good hands-on approach to practical aspects of mission work ’Äì not so much the content but the practice of mission. Issues in Contemporary Mission then examined the big picture, giving an opportunity to see the large-scale dynamics which impact local situations in a variety of ways. That is helpful in understanding changes in missionary thinking, and planning local strategy with care.
Overall I was glad to have a nice variety of approaches to theology: Biblical, Practical, Missions, Belief & Thought. Too much of one would have been a frustratingly one-sided view of what it means to be and think as a Christian. There was a vital anchor point in the Biblical studies.
Not all lecturers seemed to agree, but that is not surprising, for example on how much and how to use Bible in class as opposed to just argument and using the writings of people who wrote about the Bible.
o I need to be better at reading: widely, summarizing, analysing, discerning significant arguments and significant writers from the less significant ones.
o Collecting different viewpoints and trying to synthesize them to work out the best way forward for a topic is one thing, but probably I need to get better at identifying opposing positions, setting them against each other and coming to some reasoned conclusion about my own position. Otherwise I can just end up looking for folk who agree with me or some line of argument and ignoring rather than intelligently interacting with people who disagree.
o Placement: struggled to know what was really being assessed since the placement was part of a greater work which I’Äôd have been doing anyway.
o Mission
§ Bible translation: what issues are involved in translating the Bible, finding key terms, what you translate first, how you present the Bible and who is involved.
§ Cross-cultural discipling and discipleship
o Biblical Interpretation
§ Good ways of suppressing bias and reaching objective conclusions
o Knowing God
§ How can we get to know God better
o Church: unity and diversity in the global church
§ How much unity vs diversity should we experience in the church and how do we handle this?
§ How to tackle conflict within the church: including large scale, as in Church of England, and small scale within one fellowship.
o Issues in Contemporary Mission: each issue ’Äì secularisation, pluralisation and globalisation is a global issue that everyone faces and which the media discusses all the time. These are contemporary challenges which bring tensions in the world and which governments have to wrestle with.
o Many ’Äòenlightened’Äô moderns can’Äôt really understand the way of thinking of people from other parts of the world and why they wouldn’Äôt necessarily want to become secular like us.
§ E.g. Muslims & middle east
o Pluralisation seems to be a cause for greater tension and everyone is wondering how to deal with this. Do we try to build segregated or completely tolerant societies? Both seem impossible. Should we just live with conflict then?
o Globalisation is a live issue ’Äì business people see it generally positively, and to ’Äòdeveloping world’Äô activists it is seen as wholly negative ’Äì the new imperialism.
¬ß The religious aspects are usually ignored, but that’Äôs a flawed ’Äòmodern’Äô approach, because the rest of the world doesn’Äôt necessarily think like the West even if they drink Coca-cola.
o Biblical Languages & Mission studies both hugely relevant to cross-cultural Bible translation and teaching. Other aspects of theology will be important to inform cross-cultural discipleship and evangelism I’Äôm involved in.
How have subject areas
Notes on ’ÄòGod is Black’Äô Channel 4 ’Äì 14th June 2004 in the evening.