Swedish Missiological Themes, 94, 4 (2006)

Mission studies at
Orebro Theological Seminary
Göran J anion

The basic course in Mission studies at Örebro Theological Seminary is given

in thefirstyear (50 hours). It includes mission studies as academic discipline,
biblical perspectives on the mission of the Church, history of mission, theology
of mission, theology of religion, themes in contemporary mission and the
Church in a multicultural and multireligious society. Other seminars on
mission themes are offered as électives. One example of these is a seminar
offered for the second time this year on Worldviews in Context focusing on
the clash between worldviews in relation to what has been called the Excluded
Middle, the spiritual sphere between God and man often excluded in Western
worldviews, and on the missiological challenge this constitutes.

Students at the Örebro Theological Seminary can also follow courses at the
Mission Institute, a specific missionary training program, as part of their
seminary program, as for example Cultural anthropology in missiological
perspective. Through cooperation between the Church history and Mission
studies departments, a series of lectures on the Church history of Latin
America, Africa and Asia has been introduced in the Church history II course.

In the Bachelor of Theology programme (teol. kand.) there is now the

possibility of choosing among some different orientations, one of which is
a major in mission studies or intercultural studies. This also includes World
Religions with focus on Islam and the New Age spirituality.

Every year we invite at least one theologian from the Two-Thirds or Non-
Western world to lecture. The last two years the list included Vinoth
Ramachandra of Sri Lanka, Samuel Escobar of Peru/Spain and René Padilla
of Argentina.

Since 1997 a minor field study course is offered yearly in cooperation with
the Swedish Mission Council and the Swedish Institute for Mission
Research. For many years this was planned on an individual basis, but for
516 Göran Janzon

some years we have sent a group each year to a chosen country. The last
two years students have thus been able to do field studies in southwestern
China. This year a group went to Ghana and was located in the Akrofi-
Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture in Akropong, directed
by the professor Kwame Bediako. As their supervisor, I participated in the
first week of orientation and planning. It is planned that another group will
go there in two or three year's time.

In the perspective of internationalization, we also have some exchange

with institutions in other parts of the world. I am myself regularly a visiting
lecturer in Central Africa. I also recently contributed to a missiological
consultation in Bangui, Central African Republic, with participants from
several Francophone African countries. The Consultation theme was "The
teaching of mission with special reference to Christian-Muslim relations".

As a smaller institution and due to lack of designated funds, the seminary

does not have any larger research program. However, in the framework of
a research project on the history and mission of the traditional Free Churches,
in cooperation with the Free Church Council for Research, some smaller
studies on mission issues have been realized. Besides the missionary training
program and open seminars, the Mission Institute has been able to direct
some resources to projects for documentation and studies of applied
missiology on a small scale. A small study has thus been done, at the demand
of InterAct (Evangeliska Frikyrkan), on reasons and implications of the
decrease of Swedish missionaries in the last decade. For the time being, a
pre-study is made on the emerging so called ethnic Churches in Sweden
and their missiological implications.
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