Abstract:
The article reflects on the challenges of theological education in the 21st century and in Africa.
Reputation, impact, success and funding have become the driving forces of the modern
university. However, we are living in the 21st century and in Africa with a subsequent frame
of reference that is holistic and faith-based. The article therefore argues for a multi- and
transdisciplinary approach towards the nature of a university and recognition of the unique
contribution theological education can contribute. Due to the inherently cooperative nature
of theological scholarship, theological education could be able to avoid the extremes of the
Scylla and the Charybdis, that is, fideism and secularisation, and therefore be able to survive
at an academic institution. Both sectarianism and scientism should be avoided. Theological
education in Africa needed to travel the same difficult road of theological faculties in Europe
in the previous century.
Description:
This article is a reworked
version of the keynote
address presented by Prof.
Dr Johan Buitendag on
08 November 2014 at the
69th Graduation Ceremony
of the Trinity Theological
Seminary in Legon (Ghana)
on invitation of the President
of the Seminary, Rev. Prof.
J.O.Y. Mante.
