Theology, Politics & Faith-Based Organisations

The MA in Theology, Politics & Faith-Based Organisations is part of a modular degree programme at King's (co-taught with the Department of Theology & Religious Studies http://www.kcl.ac.uk/trs). It seeks to provide intellectual frameworks and practical insights for Christian mission and ministry. These programmes offer unrivalled diversity of course content and teaching expertise. Designed in a unique cooperation between theologians and ministers, they combine intellectual depth with a wide range of practical issues - from contemporary worship to Fair Trade. They will challenge, inspire and refresh anyone engaged in Christian ministry, from ministers and ordinands, to laity and members of faith-based organisations.

The MA in Theology, Politics & Faith-Based Organisations connects cutting-edge academic research with contemporary issues of Christian life and ministry. There are purely historical and theological MAs available in other universities, and there are vocational courses in seminaries and training colleges, but this programme presents a significant alternative. It will do justice to the complexity of academic debates but it will always relate them to the practical and the present. Drawing on the expertise of the Department of Theology & Religious Studies and the Department of Education & Professional Studies, this programme exemplifies the strengths of King's as both a leading research university and a centre for professional training. It promises a level of interdisciplinary research and pastoral engagement that would be hard to match elsewhere.

The subject-specific module for Theology, Politics & Faith-Based Organisations is also called Theology, Politics & Faith-Based Organisations. This module aims to identify and develop critical frameworks for assessing the theology and practice of church affiliated NGOs such as Christian charities and social welfare services (whether local, national or global in reach) and Christian political initiatives and social movements. It will include addressing the following kinds of case studies, questions and topics:

• Cooperation or cooption? Approaches to the relationship between church, state and faith-based organisations;
• Charity or politics? Community organising and pursuing the common good in a multi-faith society;
• Welfare or witness? L'Arche and the relationship between church, worship and social justice;
• Trade or aid? Globalization and the conditions and possibilities of Christian witness.

Students take one other compulsory module, which is Theology in Practice. This module links all the programmes on the King's Theology & Ministry MA programme. It aims to equip students with theological tools that will help them to analyse the styles and the purposes of Christian ministry. With these tools (including disciplines of social science with their empirical research methodologies, historical enquiry, and scriptural interpretation) students will be in a position to articulate a practical theology, and to formulate methodologies for understanding and interpreting their contexts and their actions as ministers.

In addition to the dissertation, students will then take two further modules from the following:

• Ministry and the Bible;
• Church, Mission & Society;
• Contemporary Ministry and Apologetics;
• Educational Issues in Christian Ministry;
• Pastoral Use of the Bible;
• Patterns in Contemporary Ecclesiology;
• Reformation, Revival and Revolution: Models of Ministry 1547 - 2000;
• Patterns in Youth Ministry;
• Theology, Church & Worship;