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 Holy Land Summer School - A theological field trip in the Holy Land Beginning with a pilot project in 1995, NEOC has developed a Summer School in the biblical lands that takes place every third year as an integral component of its validated programme for ordinands and others. As a regional and locally delivered Theological Course taking students from a geographically defined catchment area, all our annual Summer Schools are now held "out of area". It is an opportunity to get away, to stand back, to take stock. Nevertheless, why study in the Holy Land? Primarily because one of the best ‘ways in’ which to do serious study of the biblical texts is to begin to read them in the actual place of their production. Our study visits have taken the form of strenuous 8-day educational field trips, sustained exercises in serious biblical study. To study the scriptures in their original contexts exemplifies an educational method that reflects the actual process of faith development as it moves from orientation through disorientation to reorientation. In theological education, students complete placements or undertake units of pastoral study precisely to put some time and distance between their own immediate concerns and a new setting, providing some neutral forum for thinking through ideas and testing out theories. It then becomes possible to observe and analyse the answers being generated from within that setting and reflect on ways in which the proffered solutions fit the context. Then, on returning to the original situation, it is possible to ask, "if that was the answer to the question there, how might the answer look here"? Similarly, part of the value of doing theology in the Holy Land is specifically to move away from our immediate context, to allow ourselves to see things differently in another place and culture, and then to "re-enter" our own lives with fresh insight. This essential move of critical distancing is well suited to those studying theology in dispersed communities of learning rather than in academic colleges or campuses. Such students are not required to leave one setting in order to learn theology in another more or less artificial setting or learning environment--theology that subsequently needs to be applied in different contexts. The most appropriate learning method for mature and experienced candidates allows learning for ministry and
practising ministry to be done in the same setting, that of the candidate's real life, work and community. Not exactly learning on the job (though that will form part of it), but learning in experiential and reflective ways. The balance between local learning and learning in other contexts is an
To study the scriptures in their original geographical contexts also does much to defuse the question on which many students of the bible unfortunately get stuck - did it actually happen? It is well known that many past events recorded in the Bible are simply not capable of historical reconstruction - we simply cannot possibly know - and it is therefore misguided to seek to base our faith in biblical truth on historical evidence alone. The Holy Land instead invites attention to more productive questions, helping us to see more clearly how, why and in what contexts the biblical texts came to be conceived, written and disseminated in the formative early years of Christian history. The historical, geographical and social roots of the biblical texts, and the subsequent history of their interpretation, all come alive for the student in fresh, exciting and never-to-be-forgotten ways. The Bible really does come to life - and it is usually a very unexpected experience. A large part of training for Christian ministry must be careful and informed listening to those texts. We need to enjoy the Bible, and to become intimately familiar with it. What must be resisted at all costs is the temptation to give immediate meanings to it. We abuse the Bible if we read it only to get from it simple messages for us today - or worse, proof texts to back up our own fixed opinions or points of view. Study helps us to grasp both the first contexts in which biblical texts were produced, and wider global contemporary contexts in which they are being used today, by Christians all over the world. Otherwise, the Bible becomes merely individual and subjective - something we try to ‘own’ for ourselves. The point is - the way we read and interpret it, the way Christians in other modern cultures read and interpret it, and the way earlier generations of Christians read and interpreted it, are possibly all very different. The Holy Land is the most wonderful tool for this in-depth study, and it is only three hours away! However, the Holy Land is not a bible museum or a kind of Christian Disneyland, and must not be treated as a theme park. Those who go there for biblical study must work hard to avoid all the packaged religion on offer for tourists, and try to see the place as it really is. In many ways, it is the powerfully conflicting religious claims over centuries that have made the place what it is today - a place of seething hatreds in a small territory belonging to and sacred to the three major faiths of the Abrahamic tradition. The city of Jerusalem has been fought over more often than any other city in the world. Jerusalem provides rich insight into the religious, social and political dimensions of contemporary Judaism and Islam, and it is important to give attention to this aspect of learning during the time spent there.
The Holy Land is an unholy land. What we hope to discover Our own Summer Schools there have usually begun by travelling straight from Tel Aviv airport to the Negev desert, to encounter at first hand something of the formative Exodus experience, and study there some of the desert narratives of the people of God. This has been followed by three days in the Galilee, reading the Gospel narratives of the ministry of Jesus. Finally, our time in Jerusalem has been spent in working with the stories of death and resurrection. Engaging as deeply as possible with the lived reality behind the biblical texts - the climate, the topography, the physical conditions of the land and its people - illustrates an important dimension of educational philosophy. Learning through the actuality of lived experience is the key. The church's ministry cannot be remote from everyday life, from secular realities, from the needs of people and their actual situations. Learning for ministry has its basic setting in the student's own experience and reflection upon it. Increasingly, churches are discovering the value and distinctive contribution of those ordained ministers who continue to practice and focus their ministry in and through their real engagement with the secular world, in spheres and places where God is not named, or not known. Doing theology is not merely book learning, for knowledge of God, true theology, is found in personal experience, relationships and in the everyday life of communities. Book learning is an essential resource for this practice of ‘theological reflection’, but is not an end in itself. Theology is not sheer knowledge, but for personal growth and development of ministry. It has more to do with wisdom than knowledge, more to do with formation and transformation than information. Home
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| The Vision | Aims and
Objectives |
is that "holiness lies not in where Jesus
once walked but where he is walking today; not where he once bled but where he is bleeding today".