My six years of theological journey has given me a serious thought on theological education as praxis and not something abstract.And I would like to clarifyone of the false notions regarding theological academy. In the theological circle, many doubt and question how to implement theological education in ministries or in day to day life activities saying, “These are simply theoretical and bookish!!” But I see a whole lot of praxis in the books and theories provided that we contextualise it.
As an academic community, we teach, read, learn, study, and write. To some extent, we are armed with solutions and responses for questions and issues. But the question is how far are we implementing it?For e.g. we do so much onpost-colonial readings in all the disciplines, be it biblical, communication, ethics, history, mission, counselling, ministry, religion, or theology. We critic Euro-centrism and emphasize in looking at things from our experiences. But how far are weimplementing it? Are we just a solution learner or solution giver rather than solution implementer?If we do not implement what we are learning then we are adding fuel to the fire onthe false notion that theological education is bookish and nothing practical. Unless we contextually apply the academic studies, we will continue to be a bunch of people who have a pot full of rice not knowing how to cook and eat. I want to bring home my thought by noting that knowledge is like the rice, contextualising the scholars’ views in our experiences is like cooking, and implementing it, is like eating the rice. Until we apply the theories in life’s activities, we cannot givea chance to theological education to live with us.The fruitof education does not contain in the grades that we score or in the degrees that we hold, rather it contains in the constructive changes we bring by implementing what we learn. We will be in a sorry state if we consider education as mere bookish or mere degree supplier.
Theological education is never static, and we cannotdemarcate academic learning from ministries or life’s activities.Education is alive, ready to push us, if wecan relate it in our daily life experiences. Therefore, as many theological academiesprepares for the graduation and as we venture into different fields and ministries, may we be always reminded that we are to contextualise our learning, give life to the theories and testifytheological education as praxis.
SentinaroLongkumer,
CTC (Department of Christian Communication)
