ASIAN VOICE AND PRESENCE AT THE GTU

Partnerships is working to focus attention on Asian and Pacific Islander issues and experience at the GTU. The project has sponsored Town Hall meetings of Asian, Pacific, and Asian American students and faculty, offering a forum for celebration and for voicing concerns and interests. It also convened meetings for students from various language and cultural affinity groups, such as Filipino; Asian American; Vietnamese; Thai, Burmese, Malaysian, and Singaporean; Asian Indian; Chinese; Japanese; Korean; and Pacific Islander. 

Partnerships is also committed to sponsoring visiting lecturers and scholars and ensuring that Asian/Pacific events and opportunities are effectively publicized throughout the GTU.

2006 Partnerships Bulletin

Partnerships is sponsoring an annual faculty seminar at the GTU to explore the challenges and opportunities for addressing Asia more effectively across the theological curriculum. The first seminar was convened in spring 2005, with fifteen faculty representing seven GTU schools. The second seminar occured a year later.

PARTNERSHIPS WITH FACULTY AND INSTITUTIONS ACROSS ASIA

Despite the vitality of the church in Asia, Asian theological education all too often continues to follow a Euro-American model that fails to give voice to and empower contextual theological efforts and practices of increasing numbers of Asian theologians and church leaders. The GTU is working with faculty and leaders in a number of institutions across Asia, who have invited us to join as collaborators and conversation partners to address recent theological developments in Asia. The first workshop, held in January 2005 in Singapore, included theological educators and church leaders from Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the GTU. Workshops and conferences have since been held in Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, Japan, and American Samoa to continue these conversations and collaborations.

INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES OF ASIAN CULTURES AND THEOLOGIES (IASACT)

Partnerships is participating in the Institute for Advanced Studies of Asian Cultures and Theologies, a seminar of Asian faculty and advanced doctoral students held for five weeks in the summer in Hong Kong. IASACT is in partnership with the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, based in Hong Kong, and under the leadership of a faculty committee representing many countries in Asia as well as the GTU. The GTU and its member schools send four or five faculty or advanced doctoral students each year as seminar participants, and some of our faculty serve as mentors and lecturers. This Institute serves as another venue for the development of contextualized Asian theologies, and for the development of faculty who can transform theological education in Asia, the Pacific, and North America.