Toronto School of Theology: Global Connections—Past and Present with Reflections for the Next Fifty Years

Abstract

Abstract:This article focuses on celebrating the global connectedness of the Toronto School of Theology (TST) and its member colleges with some reflections on the next fifty years. Global connections within the member schools initially connected to the missionary endeavours of their founding denominations or orders. More recently, with church support for theological education reduced, the TST member colleges have established their own partnerships and educational initiatives in many parts of the world so that increasingly, the global context, with its questions about the meaning of diversity at TST, has been viewed as an integral part of their mission. With the recent approval of redeveloped educational standards by The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, more than ever, global awareness and engagement needs to be demonstrated in all areas of a school's work, including its mission, faculty hiring and development, student assessment, and its use of human and financial resources. This will require TST, as it enters its second semi-millennium, not only to reflect on how it will live out this commitment but, more importantly, in light of a past that has included ethnocentrism and colonialism, to assess how much it is willing to challenge deeply held assumptions and commit to those qualities needed for a respectful and humble engagement with other articulations of theological education.