| 8 September 2010 |
| An interview with the Rev Dr Lee Hong Jung, President of the Manila Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the Philippines. |
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Could you tell us briefly the origin and growth of the MPTS?
As you may know, in 1990, the Reformed Church of the Philippines Inc. a Korean Presbyterian mission enterprise, decided to put up a training institution for young Christian leaders, local church pastors and church planters all over the country. Its first name was Christian City Bible Institute, and in 1991 its name was changed into Reformed Church Bible Institute. Then in June 1993, the name changed to MPTS. Three years later MPTS campus was moved to New Manila in Cubao, then to Antipolo in Rizal in June 2000. Now its present location is at 4th FLR. RGH Bldg., No. 3 Panay Ave. Cor. Timog Ave., Barangay South Triangle, Quezon City. As of March 2007, there are 107 enrolled students, and among them 75 boarding students, attending Bachelor of Theology and of Christian Education. I have been seconded to MPTS as the new president in October 2006 by the Board of World Mission of Presbyterian Church of Korea.
What are the plans for the MPTS in the coming years?
Having a critical review of what MPTS has done during the last 16 years and in the light of the present situation of Filipino, Korean, and other Asia-Pacific churches-in-mission, the school has deeply realized that now is the time to make a rather ‘radical’ paradigm shift in its theological education with an ecumenical vision and evangelistic passion as follows:
First, from a denomination-bound missionary-centered structure, it will be changed to an ecumenically interdependent structure.
The school has been so far developed as a local seminary of Presbyterian Church of the Philippines as a missionary enterprise of Presbyterian Church of Korea. While the school faithfully maintains a ‘reformed’ faith tradition and a 16-year old relationship with PCP, from now on the school will also develop an ecumenical dialogue and partnership in theological education and mission with other mainstream churches in the Philippines and other Asia-Pacific region. In doing so, the school aims at being an ‘Asia-Pacific’, ‘international’, ‘ecumenical’ theological education community with an ecumenically interdependent structure based on inter-church cooperation in the Philippines, Korea, other Asia-Pacific countries, and other parts of the world. In order to reflect this change in the name of the school, the name MPTS will be changed to Asia-Pacific Christian College and Seminary from the academic year 2007-8, (its colloquial name will be “Christ-Outside-the-Gate Seminary”). The school is also planning to get the official acknowledgments from CHED, ATESEA, PABATS by June 2008.
Second, from a theory- and class-centered education, it will become an integrative praxis- and field-centered education.
The curriculum of the school has been so far formulated on the basis of a classical western theological classification with a lack of integration with culture- and context-bound ministries of local churches. Critically concerning about the ecclesial and missional struggle of local churches in the Asia-Pacific region, the school hears an unavoidable request of local churches for theological institutes to provide an integrative practical theological education for the Gospel-centered ortho-praxis through which local churches can transform local realities. The school will continuously develop timely relevant praxis-centered modules on missional and diaconal tasks in ever-changing diverse inter-local global contexts by mobilizing local Filipino resource persons in cooperation with churches and councils in the Philippines. The school believes that these modules can be used for a continuation education program of church leaders and in other theological institutes.
Third, from an urban half-boarding school it will be designed to an urban-rural ecological full-boarding community of life.
The present school located in Timog, Quezon City, Metro Manila, has provided the students an urban intense environment with ever-growing air pollution and noisy. Even in this unhealthy situation, a two-third of students are living in the dormitory and others commuting. Being an Asia-Pacific international institute, it is necessary for the school to become a full boarding school which would be located in an urban-rural ecological environment where the school can have both a good accessibility to city and a sufficient space for life-giving agricultural labor. In this new environment, the students as the members of the community of life will be educated as ecologically conscientized beings with the integrative spirituality of love and labor in the creation.
Fourth, from individual application system it will be responsible recommendation system from church and mission network.
The school has so far recruited the students through individual applications recommended by individual missionaries and church leaders, and the result has been found that the school can hardly identify the graduates in local churches and mission fields. Being a responsible ecumenical education community the school will recruit the students according to the responsible recommendations from church and mission networks in the Philippines, Korea, and other Asia-Pacific region. After a 4-year education the school will do our best to return the students to the church and mission network where they come from, so that the whole network of church and mission would be strengthened and empowered through the visible presence of the graduates and the continuation extension program on practical theological education.
What are the possible future tasks of the seminary?
In order to actualize the above new paradigm the school is basically planning to do the two things: first, in terms of the content of theological education, the school will develop an integrative praxis-centered new curriculum, mobilize local resource persons, and internationalize the faculty; second, regarding the infrastructure of theological education, the school will construct a new campus in a different socio-economic, cultural, and environmental setting, and establish an ecumenical consortium of locally-rooted theological institutes in the Asia-Pacific region, which have potential of transforming their local societies through theological education.
In a new curriculum, the school will distribute a 50% of the timetable to theoretical subjects including the CHED-requested subjects (remaking them relevant to Christianity); a 30% to praxis-centered modules dealing with the current contextual mission tasks with a mutually critical correlation with integrative theories; and a 20% to spiritual formation with culture-bound music, liturgy, arts, spiritual training and so on. Particularly for the first semester of the academic year 2007-8, the school will offer a set of modules on ecumenism in cooperation with National Council of Churches in the Philippines as follows:
1.A Common Journey of Faith
2.A Memory of Churches Together
3.Emerging Theologies in New Contexts
4.Reading the Bible with the Eyes of People
in Different Contexts
5.Encountering People’s Reality in
the Context of Globalization
6.Emerging G-local Mission Agenda
7.Envisioning the Jubilee of the Oikoumene
8.Being an Inclusive Community-in-Mission
9.Implying Missional Advocacy and Pedagogy
in a Local Church
10.Engaging in God’s Mission in a G-local Context.
In order to provide a culture- and context-bound praxis-centered integrative theological education it is necessary for the school to systematically mobilize local resource persons with an interdisciplinary manner according to their missional engagements in cooperation with Filipino churches and Christian NGOs. This diverse educational personnel resource network will provide mutuality and integrity to theological education through a team teaching.
As a qualitative ecumenical education center for churches and peoples in the Asia-Pacific region, the school will soon overcome a missionary-centered education structure by internationalizing the fulltime faculty including teachers from the Philippines, Korea, Asia-Pacific countries, and the other part of the world. In this way the school will better respond to an ever-changing mission context of the Asia-Pacific region, promoting an inter-subjectivity of hermeneutical and practical mission engagement bounded upon culture and context.
The school will construct a small-but-beautiful campus in Montalban as the “Outside the Gate” of the Metro Manila, a capitalistic and consumeristic power center, and as the neighbor society with Payatas and San Mateo where are many urban-rural poor people. In Montalban are the migrated hetero communities, so-called, the Erap Cities, urban and rural poor, indigenous communities, Muslims, miners, many non-school youth etc. The socio-economic and political security of Montalban is not so stable and the ecological and human health security is at risk. Basically Montalban is an agricultural-mountain area where are agri-forestry, quarries, dumping site, dams, flooding areas, deforestation-erosion areas, eco-tourism places, zoo, valley fault line etc.
The school will buy the approximately 3.5 hectares agricultural lot, and use the 40% lot for building construction, the 10% for fruit tree plantation, and the 50% for life-giving agriculture. For the new campus buildings, Montalban new campus. the school will construct the first building for dormitory, canteen, library, lecture rooms etc. by the end of 2007, and then it will be moved to the Montalban new campus. After moving to Montalban, the school will continue to construct the second building, Good Neighbors Diakonia Center for Healing and Reconciliation, and Church of Christ Outside the Gate, which will be fully open to the societies of Montalban, Payatas and San Mateo, and the third building, Center for Inter-Local Global Ministry which will be used for intensive continuation education programs and international programs, by the middle of 2008.
Once the Montalban campus is established, the school will make an effort to organize an ecumenical consortium of locally-rooted theological institutes in the Asia-Pacific region. On the basis of the consortium the school will make an effort to establish an Asia-Pacific Ecumenical Institute for Healing and Reconciliation through which the school can provide a graduate school program, so-called, Asia-Pacific Graduate School of Integrative Practical Theology, hopefully in cooperation with National Council of Churches in the Philippines and University of Philippines in Diliman.
What is the mission statement of the APCCS?
As a faithful instrument of God’s mission in education, Asia-Pacific Christian College and Seminary acknowledges the need of educating and nurturing students to be God’s visible hands and feet to spread the good news of salvation and liberation and to effect meaningful changes both in church and society. The school believe that our students should not limit themselves to be trained and excel academically; the school expect the students to develop their capacities to play a strategic role in the world’s life whose special contribution and energy must be tapped to meet the challenges faced at local and global, which the church also faces in the modern world.
APCCS as a Christian educational institution for higher learning emphasizes most importantly our students to develop and practice a circle of three-interrelated spirituality as a manifested Christian life-style. First, the school educates and imbues our students with the spirituality of Kenosis (self-emptying) under the cross of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5-11) as a process of metanoia (repentance). Second, the school trains our students, as being parts of one global Christian community and God’s one creation, with the spirituality of just interdependence by living together in our community of life as demonstrated by the early believers in the Acts of the Apostles as a process of koinonia (a costly fellowship) (Acts 2:43-47). Third, the school educates its students as a member of society with the spirituality of compassion for our neighbors, being called to participate in Jesus Christ’s mission at the periphery of society and going beyond any kinds of human-made boundaries, especially for those who are in need of our Christian love and justice as a process of mission-in-diakonia (social service) (Hebrews 13:12-16).
By empowering the inter-local global web of life, APCCS envisions a life-giving society where there is abundant life for all God’s people and also that of the Creation (John 10:10) and there is an absence of any affliction and suffering. Such kind of society is just, egalitarian, life-sharing and where genuine peace based on God’s justice reigns.
APCCS emphasizes the ministry of healing and reconciliation toward the fullness of life for all (Colossians 1:14-23) through a three-interrelated mission task: first, promoting the evangelization by spreading of God’s word (John 3:16); second, upholding human dignity by responding to the concerns of those who are poor, deprived and oppressed (Luke 4: 18-19), and third, promoting ecological integration by being good stewards of God’s creation and protectors of the sanctity of the oikoumene (Genesis 1:31; Revelation 21:1-5).
Through an inter-cultural praxis-centered education, APCCS motivates and empowers its students to participate in God’s mission in the Asia-Pacific oikoumene through various life-giving ministries in Jesus Christ’s way. In doing so, the school promote healing and reconciliation through kenotic mission; enhance a visible unity among local churches and societies in Christ; enforce an ecumenically sustainable local church growth by empowering the inter-local global web of life; enhance people’s security and sovereignty for life and peace; and integrate ecology and health for the wholeness.
Finally, APCCS as a faithful instrument of God’s mission in education strives to produce young prophets (Jeremiah 1:4-10) with an ecumenical vision and an evangelistic passion for the fullness of life for all God’ people (Joel 2:28), and to develop their inherent gifts (I Timothy 4:11ff) to be productive jars of clay channeling the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:7) to churches, societies, and the whole earth household.
Are you expecting support for your plans from the church and mission workers in the Philippines ?
During this transitional period, the school would like to sincerely appeal to church leaders and mission coworkers in the Philippines to support the new development of the school by recognizing its curriculum as theirs and sending new prospectus students with responsible recommendations from the networks of churches and mission institutions in the Philippines. The school will provide all students full scholarships and accommodation through financial and personnel support from church and mission networks in the Philippines, Korea, and other Asia-Pacific countries. The school expects 40 students for the academic year of 2007-8, and requires the following qualifications and documents:
1.Spiritual qualification in the Gospel of Mathew 5:3-10
Those who know they are poor
Those who mourn
Those who are humble
Those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires
Those who are merciful to others
Those who are pure in heart
Those who work for peace
Those who are persecuted because they do what God requires
2.Physical qualification
High School Graduates in the Philippines or other countries
Preferable age between 20 to 35. (Considerable exceptions)
Speaking both English and local languages
Baptized person with regular attendance of a local church
Pass of the two entrance examinations: one on the Bible, and the other on English
3.Required Documents
A Letter of Recommendation from a church and mission network to which the applicant belongs and returns back
Certification of High School Graduation and Credit (or its equivalent)
Certification of Birth and Family Document
Certification of Baptism
I deeply sense the calling of our risen Lord Jesus Christ from the outside of the gate where people are suffering and struggling for their divine right for life and peace; and that the Holy Spirit empowers us to renew and recommit ourselves to serve the people with the firm belief in God of Life against the death-dealing idols in our world. The school will commit itself to make its students become ‘radical’ disciples of Jesus Christ as faithful partners of God’s life-giving mission who carry out a kenotic Christian ministry of healing and reconciliation in this broken and wounded oikoumene.
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