Digitalisation of Theological Education in the Midst of Pandemic: Opportunity or Threat?

Digitalisation of Theological Education in the Midst of Pandemic: Opportunity or Threat?

LIM Teck Peng

Digitalisation has become an indispensable strategy for theological education, understood in the broad sense of congregational and seminarian education, to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Starting from the premise that the Internet is not only a media but also a force that shapes online theological education, this paper focuses on the threat of placelessness it brought to online theological education. Tapping into the sociological analysis of network and Barry Wellman's concept of networked individualism, the paper first looks at how networked individualism, with its emphasis on subjective autonomy and downplaying of locality, gives rise to the need of reaffirming the relationship between online theological education and place.

The paper then examines the relevance of Edward Farley's concept of theologia in explicating the locality of theological education. By connecting the concepts of theologia and agency, the present author suggests that the aim of the theological education is to nurture Christian agency (both online and offline ) undergirded by a theological and educated sense of place. The paper suggests how this theologically educated sense of place can be fostered through learning processes that facilitate interpretation of situations in a manner that does justice to both the Christian faith and the multifaceted nature of reality.