신학교육의 기독교교육모델로서 실천지향적 신학교육–신학대학원(M.Div)을 중심으로

Theological education in Korea is in a serious crisis. This crisis can be explained by the phenomena of various types of separation. This includes the separation between theological education and the ministry field, educational goals and educational processes, theory and practice, and theology and contexts of ministry; the separation in communication between professor and student; and the separation within areas of theology. This phenomena of separation in theological education originates from a misunderstanding of the M.Div. program simply as theological education. The M.Div. program should be different from general theological education, because the purpose of the M.Div. program is to cultivate ministers. Taking this perspective calls for a reconceptualization of theological education. It means that theological education should begin from a consideration of the purpose of theological education rather than the meaning of theology. Theological education, which is a kind of education, should emphasize the importance of the education component. The re-conceptualization of theological education for the M.Div. program is based on a ‘practice-oriented’ theology. There are three kinds of misunderstandings regarding practice-oriented theology. The first misunderstanding is the idea that it will emphasize the importance of practical theology. The second is the idea that it can be identified with ministry functionalism in theological education, which focuses on skills and know-how in ministry. The third is the idea that it should be understood as a theory-practice paradigm. However, ‘practice-oriented’ theological education emphasizes the importance of socalled ‘theoretical’ areas including biblical theology, historical theology and systematic theology. What it asks is to be practice-oriented. Even though it emphasizes the importance of practice, it does not mean that it focuses only on transmitting skills, strategy, and know-how for the ministry. Rather, it discloses the importance of philosophical and theological perspectives toward practice. Here, the meaning of practice in ‘practice-oriented’ is not the application of theory to practice. It refers to ‘praxis,’ in which theory and practice cannot be separated. This study gives a specific account of the shape that such a ‘practice-oriented’ theological education must take.