CCC&TSPM held an online theological education conference with the Trinity Theological College (TTC) which is in Singapore.
This was the first video conference between them since the establishment of the new leadership team of TTC in July 2020, according to CCC&TSPM.
On December 6, Rev. Wu Wei, president of the Chinese Christian Council (CCC), stated that more than 20 teachers from 11 seminaries had studied in TTC, and was looking forward to closer cooperation in the future.
Rev. Dr. Edwin Tay Ed Min, new principal of TTC, expressed his pleasure to meet with the Chinese team via video link. He claimed that it was a great honor and responsibility of TTC to have participated in the ministry of theological education in China by training international students over the past 30 years. He also introduced that how the college carried out online education and offered a digital library in the context of COVID-19.
Rev. Wu said in a speech that since 1993, CCC&TSPM sent theological students to TTC for further studies, and they now served in churches and theological seminaries in China after graduation. The Singaporean college had a strong faculty team and abundant academic resources, which was God’s blessing and would be of great benefit to churches in Asia and the world, he continued.
After the speech, Wu introduced three things Chinese churches focused on: to promote the Sinicization of Christianity; to carry forward the implementation of laws, regulations, and church rules to keep up with society; to continue to strengthen the nurturing of pastors whose quantity and quality had been increased. The leader of CCC shared that he thought at least two out of these three tasks could be shared with TTC, such as how to seek the indigenization and contextualization of Christianity, as most countries in Asia had the experiences of colonialism and imperialism. He expected the seminary to share more academic achievements with them in this regard.
During the meeting, Rev. Shan Weixiang, vice president and director-general of CCC, shared that there were 22 seminaries and more than 3,300 theological students in China, with more than 1,000 graduating each year. Beginning in 2016, CCC&TSPM carried out teacher qualification certification, and more than 300 had gained teaching certificates. The professional title evaluation of seminary teachers was also conducted, starting from the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, and gradually extending to schools across the country. In addition, teachers were encouraged to apply to other universities for further studies and obtain master's and doctoral degrees.
Rev. Lin Manhong, deputy director-general of CCC, talked about the basic situation of Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, which has 21 full-time teachers and has trained nearly 30,000 correspondence students, as well as undergraduates, masters and doctoral students. It has the largest number of seminary students, she added.
- Translated by Abigail Wu
