The Rev. Dr. Lewin Willliams, president of the United Theological College of the West Indies, makes a point during a Gleaner interview. - Ricardo Makyn / Staff Photographer AS ORDINARY church folk continue to avail themselves of opportunities to study theology for lay ministries, there seems to be a decline in persons who are offering themselves to be trained for full-time pastoral ministry.
So says the Rev. Dr. Lewin Williams, president of the United Theological College of the West Indies (UTC), during an interview with The Gleaner last week where he gave an overview of some of the activities taking place on this renowned campus established in 1966.
"We at the UTC do not recruit students. We leave that mainly to the member churches that came together to form this school. At the moment, these churches are having problems recruiting students. For some time, not as many are coming forward to be trained for ministry. That is due to a number of things.
"Firstly, work in ministry is not as enticing as it used to be. People are finding all kinds of challenges elsewhere that they prefer to tackle. It has to do with money again.
"Secondly, it is hard for ministers to get their degrees and not get a commensurate salary adjustment. Thirdly, the churches demand more and more from its ministers and a potential ministerial student, seeing the magnitude of work, sometimes decides 'this is not for me'. Such a student would say perhaps, 'I can't do all this work for as little as the church pays.'
FEWER BACHELOR'S STUDENTS
The UTC has an enrolment of 57 students pursuing its Bachelor of Arts degree in Theology. This is 10 less than the number for the previous year. The school has 44 students in its two Master's programme in theology; seven who are doing the Ph.D. and 26 who are doing the Doctor of Ministry programme, which is offered by Columbia Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, in partnership with UTC. The institution's evening institute is also abuzz with activity with an enrolment of 43, up from 38 in the previous year.
The institution does not, like some seminaries, ask potential students and teachers if they have been born-again.
"We don't ask questions like that. We take it for granted since you are coming from the church that you must have passed that stage of your development for you to be working with the church," the Rev. Dr. Williams said.
The UTC, the Rev. Dr. Williams said, is a liberal but not radical theological seminary. It is, he stressed, an institution in a continuous quest to offer courses that are contextually relevant. UTC remains predominantly a pastor-training institution despite the growing interest of some students to become missionaries, evangelists, guidance counsellors and youth workers.
FOCUS ON LEADERSHIP TRAINING
Despite an increase in course offerings to cater to people who do not intend to become pastors, the UTC is also a leadership training institution that is relevant and doing a useful service, the Rev. Dr. Williams said.
The Rev. Dr. Williams, who was officially inducted in the presidency of this theological school on October 22, joined the UTC staff in 1990. He was appointed deputy president in 1993. He succeeds the Rev. Dr. Howard Gregory, who last year demitted office to become the Anglican Suffragan Bishop of Montego Bay. The Rev. Dr. Williams has plans to make UTC become more responsible for its own accreditation. As it is now, he explained, UTC has depended on the University of the West Indies (UWI) accreditation.
"The UWI has limitations in terms of what we can teach for degrees - I think we can be a lot more innovative when we develop our own courses. In five years I can see the UTC developing courses such as a Bachelor degree in Divinity and Master in Divinity. In this way, we can better compete with a number of other theological schools in the region." He is also seeking accreditation for the school's evening institute.
REAL QUALITY
Ultimately, the quality of any institution is assessed by the quality of its graduates. While pastors are trained in theology in seminaries, many believe they should be extensively trained in administration/management - as such skills are often greatly needed in ministry.
The Rev. Dr. Williams, while affirming the wisdom for pastors to be trained in administration/management, acknowledged that such training is not adequately dealt with at UTC as indeed many local theological training institutions.
"I am not sure when the time will come when we will offer, for example, a B.A. in Management. But at the moment we do offer management skills through the regular B.A. in Theology programme at UTC."
He continued: "Members of faculty from time to time, intentionally inject management issues into their lectures - irrespective of the course that they are teaching."
The UTC is well-known as being in the forefront of reflection that seeks to decolonialise theology and thus to make it more indigenous - more Caribbean. To that extent it has in recent years introduced programmes such as Caribbean Theology, courses to do with Latin American Liberation Theology, Feminist Theology and Black Theology.
The global inter-faith dialogue has also influenced the course offering at the institution. No longer is Comparative Religion taught.
"With Comparative Religion, there is a tendency to say just what you think is wrong with someone else's religion and never what is right with that religion. We feel we need to be co-operative rather than adversarial so we have changed the name of the course from Comparative Religion to History of Religions. This means that you take everybody's religion on board. The investigation has to do not so much with what is wrong with it, but how we may work together with it. If we had that as a worldwide concern - September 11 would not have happened- I do think there is enough in the breadth of Christianity to warm up to other people," the Rev. Dr. Williams said.
SPIRITUAL MATURITY
But perhaps the single most important thing that is required of a graduate of a theological school is evidence of spiritual maturity, a.k.a. spiritual formation. How does UTC secure the spiritual formation of its students?
"It is very difficult to measure spirituality," remarked, the Rev. Dr. Williams said.
"We are doing academics here at UTC, but we say to our students, 'grades are not the only thing that we are interested in.' Every denomination that operates here sets a warden over their respective denominational students. The wardens are responsible for their spiritual care. We have also developed a paper entitled 'A Call to a Holy Life.' We encourage students to read it. We discuss it. There are things in there that has to do with sexual conduct. We have ecumenical sessions where these things are discussed. We encourage our students to have a strong prayer life."- Mark Dawes
