Integrating Theology and Spirituality

8 December 2017

Integrating Theology and Spirituality

This is one of three inspiring courses offered in ETF’s Summer Colloquium, scheduled August 20 – 25, 2018. This international study week includes lectures, various workshops and times for meeting and reflection.

Registration is open until 1 June 2018.

Contemporary approaches to theology and spirituality reveal discontinuity at both philosophical and practical levels between theology as objective academic discipline and spirituality as subjective lived experience. This rupture leaves both domains as separate pursuits and raises questions in each of the value of the other to enlighten its work. Thus, modernity has introduced a division which separates the two in ways that reduce both.

Yet, the liminal world between theology and spirituality is the place out of which the church is called to think, speak and serve. Karl Barth claimed that lex orandi, lex credendi (the law  of prayer is the law of believing) was “one of the most profound descriptions of theological method.” Hans Urs von Balthasar urged that “as long as theology was the work of saints, it remained prayerful theology.”

Dr. David CoureyTaking these as paradigmatic statements, this course examines the historical unity of the two, investigating the roots of this dichotomy, proposing a synthesis which honors, the contribution of each and encouraging a rapprochement that will promote useful dialogue. The relationship between spirituality and theology in the emergence of a distinctly Pentecostal scholarship will be explored as a possible model for the broader academy.

Dr. David Courey is Dean of Graduate Studies at Continental Theological Seminary, Brussels, and Post-Doctoral Researcher Systematic Theology at ETF Leuven.

ETF’s Summer Colloquium in August 2018 features three inspiring courses which intersect theology, church and society. The two other courses are:

  • Engaging with Acts” by Prof. Dr. Christoph Stenschke (Biblisch-Theologische Akademie, Germany, and University of South Africa).
  • Voorgaan, vieren en verkondigen” (in Dutch) by Prof. Dr. Ciska Stark (Protestant Theological University, Amsterdam) and Drs. Filip De Cavel (DThM student Durham University, UK)

This international study week includes lectures, various workshops and times for meeting and reflection. Our Summer Colloquium is compulsory for ETF Open University students open to interested people with academic qualifications and can serve as additional in-service training for pastors, teachers, and other ministry professionals.

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