It was great to meet my dear friend Israel on Tuesday evening. May God be richly blessing the school at Gulbarka.
As I reflect on Newbigin's ecclesiology I am struck at the context of his writing. He was resisting pressure to treaty the church as yet another community group, and perhaps this is why he is relatively quiet on how ben g community is inherent to being church.
Amongst other things we note the contextualisation of theology here. Although it is more traditional than TTS, there is an emphasis on Christian service and reflection. This may be assisted by
Prayer: there is so much to pray for. 'Lord, teach me to pray'. I think I quite often simply feel overwhelmed by all that there is to pray for. Maybe I need to develop new disciplines of prayer that can somehow address this.
After breakfast we again joined the college community at chapel, which began again with a traditional style song of praise and finished with We are Walking in the Light of God.
The musicians at the front (most people were to the right of the picture)
A very helpful conversation at the faculty fellowship followed. Points that arose:
- Newbigin was especially helpful at the time of the formation of CSI
- context has changed and developed but his writings continue to be of value
- there has been critical reflection on his work and I am hopeful of being pointed towards the papers of a symposium
- there has been much rethinking of al the theological disciplines, including ecclesiology, in the light of creation theology.
Mandy and I presented a copy of Bishop Stephen's The Nail, bringing his greetings, and Paul a copy of his Lesslie Newbigin Reader.
A very valuable day in the library.
At 11am we met the Principal Revd Dr J R John Samuel Raj
- 25 focused days per year (all together) on an area of mini story, followed by written reflection. Areas include Church based, NGO, healing.
- a 4 year period of study, enabling in-depth reflection.
Our own shift towards non-residential theological training is noted. Each have their advantages but those of 4 year residential are apparent.
Once back in Chennai, we will be visiting Madras Christian College on Monday. Paul and I have been asked to lead into a conversation about Pluralism in the Newbigin context. This quote from his 'A Faith for this World', 1966 p 65, may be useful:
'The real point of contact between Christian and non-Christian is not in the religion of the non-Christian but in his humnity.'
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