in response to a recent post i wrote changing theological education a few people reacted in comments or e-mail or blogs. mark published his e-mail to me on his blog. it’s quite unusual for me to be seen to be defending the system. that wasn’t what i was intending to do. here’s a reply i put in the comments…

i understand what people are saying – that in an ideal world the
criteria would be different and so on. but we are talking about the
church of england here. it’s easy to forget what a large institution
she is and some of the changes taking place would have been unthinkable
5 or 10 years ago. overall i am encouraged. i think this is a move in
the right direction. i think that selection conferences for these new
candidates will have pioneer ministers on the selection boards and will
also be grouped together. once enough people start coming through the
system who are a different breed it will be very interesting to see
what happens. i suspect we may see the same thing as with the fresh
expressions/emerging church – once you create a new set of permissions
it will be very difficult to stop things changing. i like rowan
williams suggestion that the church gets renewed from the margins and
think that this is another step to let the margins renew things.

i have been to recent denominational things in places other than the
UK recently. and that made me thank God for what is happening in the
church of england. it could be a whole lot worse.

w.r.t theological education it’s all up for grabs really. we’ll see
what happens. various colleges are making bids i think. but modular
training (rather than residential) will also open up the market for
newcomers i think. two on the block in london are htb’s theology centre and st
mary’s bryanston square – both big charismatic anglican churches in
london with the resources to create their own theological schools. i
don’t see any reason why a bishop couldn’t approve ReSource as part of
someone’s training. fresh expressions are developing a series of year
long courses that will take place in various locations round the
country. of all the colleges at the get together the most equipped and
developed in terms of courses to equip people for missional leadership
i felt was the church army and possibly cliff college. but it’s early
days…

i really don’t know anything about the tiller report mark so can’t comment on that, but i do think the current thinking is a real attempt to broaden the types of people involved in ordained ministry rather than make it more monochrome. the last thing i’d add is that you have to be situated somewhere and work out of that context. nowhere is perfect or ideal. i have personally been part of the c of e in one way or another all of my life so i work with, within, negotiating space, trying to change etc out of that. at times it’s frustrating of course. but having seen the track record of groups who have left to set up independent things my observation is that they often become more dogmatic, controlling, split over leadership and vision, time warped in terms of cultural expression and so on within say 25/30 years. i’m glad i haven’t gone that route. i have recently been talking about a phrase that a friend bob hopkins uses – loyal radicals – and i hope the c of e will be able to keep and nurture those. but hey who knows – it may all go pear shaped?!

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