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Program Summary

The Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS) seeks to prepare preachers, teachers, pastors and administrators for a thriving church of more than 4 million members. ECS grew dramatically during the course of a 20-year civil war in which millions of Southern Sudani were killed or driven into exile.

Now there is an urgent need to strengthen educational institutions for clergy and lay leaders to help maintain a stable peace in Southern Sudan, where most of the church’s infrastructure in based. The Renk Visiting Teachers Program, sponsored and coordinated by Duke Divinity School and Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS), was created in 2004 to meet that need. The program seeks to help the faculty residents at Renk Theological College in Upper Nile State strengthen its residential training program for seminarians and establish a continuing education program for clergy and lay leaders.

The program established a course of instruction in biblical languages as its initial project. The first team of two visiting teachers traveled to Renk in early January 2005—the same week peace accords were signed—and taught a two-week program in biblical Hebrew. Teams of two or three teachers now travel to Renk for language courses twice each year (in January and July); during the summers, teachers have been in residence for extended periods of five or six weeks. Greek instruction began in summer 2007.

As a result of the Visiting Teachers Program, Renk Theological College has qualified for accreditation at the diploma level. It is the only seminary of the Episcopal Church of Sudan that offers instruction in both biblical languages. By 2009, the college is expected to have indigenous instructors for Hebrew and Greek, as well as serve as the foremost center in the country for the training of language teachers.

In 2007, the program expanded course offerings into several new areas: “Anglicanism” (taught by Jo Bailey Wells, professor at Duke Divinity School); “Manna and Mercy,” an intensive week-long Bible study focusing on peace and justice (by the Rev. Alan Storey, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa); as well as courses on Exodus, Leviticus and the Letter to the Hebrews (by professor Ellen Davis and M.Div. student Andrew Rowell, both of Duke). Depending on the level and target audience, 15 to 45 students, parish clergy, lay leaders and bishops attend each course. During the summer, Dr. Peter Morris, M.P.H., M.Div. (Duke Divinity ’07), spent two weeks in Renk, working at the Episcopal Church of Sudan’s public health clinic and lecturing in public health.

Although this collaborative effort between educational institutions in Sudan and the United States is experimental, the Renk Visiting Teachers Program has already been recognized as a promising model for collaborative theological education in the Anglican Communion and elsewhere. This type of partnership emerging between Renk and Duke/VTS could be replicated within Sudan and in other parts of East Africa. The program benefits both sides of the partnership. North American faculty, students and churches receive a clearer sense of vocation and a deeper appreciation of the global church. The Episcopal Church of Sudan, isolated by two lengthy wars lasting nearly a half century, has taken its place in an active international exchange that has resulted in establishing a curriculum in biblical languages, training for Sudani  instructors in Hebrew and Greek, and public health improvements.

Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, visited Renk Theological College in February 2006 when he dedicated its new cathedral. As the northernmost church in Southern Sudan, the $175,000 St. Matthews Cathedral serves as a visible reminder that Renk is the northern gateway to Southern Sudan, where Christian faith has grown quickly despite unremitting persecution.