Academic Program

Well I am very excited because we have finally been given more detailed information on the academic program and will be beginning next week. These last 2 weeks have been long and at times daunting, but they have been very informative.

We are given a choice between 4 modules/classes (social ethics, Biblical hermeneutics, ecumenical theology, and missiology and evangelism.) My first choice is to take social ethics, one of the main reasons being that Dr. Korad Reiser (the former general secretary of the WCC) is teaching it. My second choice was not such a clear choice. I originally wanted to take the theology class, but there is no professor at this point.

On Monday and Tuesday of next week, the students will be participating in the choosing process in that we will listen to the 3 candidates for the theology position and then give our feedback on who we find to be the best candidate. Our opinions, along with other opinions from representatives from various organizations will be taken into consideration when choosing the professor. There are actually two positions open, but only the theology positions effects this year. The social ethics position is also being filled because Konrad will only be here for this year (lucky us!)

In the end I chose the missiology and evangelism class as my second choice and theology as my third choice because we don’t know how the theology class will be structured and I think it will be inconsistent because if one of the candidates that lives outside of Switzerland is chosen, then that person must go home and pack their things and wait for a work permit before they can begin teaching. That means that another teacher will begin the class and the newly hired teacher will finish it. I’d rather not deal with that if I don’t have to.

As for my reasoning for choosing the missiology class over Biblical hermeneutics, I have a feeling the Biblical class will be a repeat of Intro. to HB and NT and therefor I decided to choose missiology and evangelism. Also missiology is taught by Andre Karamaga from Rwanda who leads the Africa desk at the WCC. He is mentioned in this artcle about this article on World Mission and Evangelism: http://www.presbyterian.org.nz/3617.0.html

We will not find out for sure what modules we will be taking until Monday, but I think I have a good chance of getting my top two.

As for other interesting things that have been going on…we went to Geneva on Wednesday to tour the WCC and the University of Geneva. There are pictures from the WCC below as well as a picture of our class in front of the Reformation Wall. It was nice to get away from Bossey for a day and we were able to sign out of dinner at Bossey and have dinner in Geneva. I had dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant in the old town with Nora, our Lutheran vicar from Germany, Kirsie, a blue angel from Finland, (yes her name is one letter different from mine which causes confusion especially since we have rooms right next to each other,) Avril from the United Church in Australia, as well as Linda and Anna both from the Church of England in the UK. It was a nice day out, but it was also expensive so I’ll not be doing that very often. I think I’ll stick to 8 franc panninis from the street vendor the next trip I make to Geneva.