Divinity School dean emphasizes ‘global learning’ in UEM Global Talk
Rev. Dr. Jeaneth Harris-Faller, Silliman University Divinity School (SUDS) dean, explained how “global learning” can enrich theological education in her lecture for the United Evangelical Mission (UEM) Global Talks, June 29, 2021 via Zoom.
The Global Talks, organized by the UEM and the Protestant University of Wuppertal and Bethel, Germany, is aimed at regularly providing space for international discourse on topics related to theology, church, and political advancements in order to widen the theological perspectives of its partners across the globe.
As the Global Talks speaker, Faller shared her lecture titled “Why Theology without Global Learning is Irrelevant” to more than 50 participants around the world.
During the lecture, Faller elaborated on why theology needs global learning and how this could enrich the learning experience of church workers being prepared for the ministry.
Narrating from the experience of the SUDS that is now celebrating its centennial year, she was able to point out how necessary and relevant global learning is despite its downsides to indigenous theology, liturgy, and church music.
Faller said that during her student days at the seminary, global learning harmed, disempowered and stifled theological developments in the Philippines, leaving the Filipino indigenous theologies inferior to its Western counterparts in Europe and North America.
On the other hand, she also shared how global learning, with the coming of visiting professors who brought womanist and queer theology, intensified academic writing culture and introduced a character-focused ministerial formation and several other trends that, in one way or another, have enriched the theological education at the Divinity School.
Faller invited the participants to look into “Metanoia,” a faith tradition that seeks to turn away the matters that harm and pursue what is good. She affirmed through her lecture that the balance of global learning applied to theological education further improves the quality and type of theological education, as manifested in the experience of the SUDS.
Faller is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. At the formation center where she is presently connected, she teaches courses in Biblical Studies, Christian Education, and Liturgy.
She holds the following undergraduate degrees: Bachelor of Theology from SUDS, cum laude (1991) and Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the Divine Word College (Legaspi City, Albay), magna cum laude (1996). She completed her Master of Divinity (1999) and Master of Theology (2001) from SUDS and from the Southeast Asia Graduate School of Theology, respectively. In 2010, she finished her Doctor of Theology degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong.
(Report by Klein Fausto Emperado, SUDS Centennial 2021 Special Project Staff)
