Globalizing Theological Education for an Increasingly Globalized Age: Ecumenical and Interreligious Study Programs in India Israel Japan and Lebanon

This book publishes contributions to an international conference which was organized in 2019 by the Evangelical Mission in Solidarity (EMS) and the Center for Ecumenism of the Protestant Churches in Hesse in Frankfurt/Main Germany. Since about 20 years both organizations are offering ecumenical intercultural and interreligious study programs for students of theology and religious education as well as for pastors in Beirut Hyderabad and Kyoto. Also the oldest and most successful project of this kind the “Study in Israel” program was included in the deliberations. The conference provided a synoptic view of these programs in order to elaborate evaluate and compare the specific learning achievements in foreign countries. Based on the reports by the organizers of the respective institutes abroad and by a number of alumni the short and long-term effects on personal belief theological reflection and practical work in church and schools were discussed. These concrete deliberations were put into the larger context of what is today called “globalization”. As a result the contributions of this book propose that intercultural ecumenical and interreligious communication must be learned increasingly in order to meet the contemporary challenges of the economic social and political globalization processes.