The First Congress of the Spanish Faculties of Theology integrated in the Commission for Accreditation of Protestant Theology Centres and Degrees of the Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities of Spain (FEREDE) was held in a hotel in Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, from 26 to 28 June.

Under the theme “Training, vocation and spirituality of the theology student today”, the pedagogue and master in theology, Edith Vilamajó, and the psychologist and family therapist, Esteban Figueirido, guided the participants in a reflection on the profile of the theology student today and the important work of the teacher.

They spent two days in an atmosphere of dialogue and reflection, working on the development of strategies to help the faculties to be more effective in the training of students.

Joint work

The Congress was attended by 43 professors from the five Faculties of Theology that have their degrees officially recognised by Spain (Assemblies of God Faculty of Theology, Adventist Faculty of Theology, IBSTE Faculty of Theology, SEUT Faculty of Theology and Baptist Faculty of Theology).

“It has been a time of blessing and reflection in which we have been able to work together for the improvement of the quality of our teaching and to grow in fraternity among the teachers”, says one of the participants of the Congress.

Making theological education visible

The Congress ended with an event in the assembly hall of the Faculty of Philosophy and Philology of the Complutense University of Madrid to visibilize theological education.

Professor Ramón Sebastián, from the Baptist Faculty of Theology. presented a paper entitled “Main trends in Spain in the last 50 years and their effect on Spanish Protestantism”.

After his lecture, Antonio Simoni, professor at the Assemblies of God Faculty, joined him in an interactive panel. Both stressed the need to respond as evangelical Christians to a society in crisis, recalling that God has answers to all human questions.

“As evangelical Christians, we will be relevant as long as we respond to the challenges of our society anchored in the word of God and depending on the work of the Spirit”, pointed out Simoni.

The event was attended by the director of the University Institute of Religious Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid, Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa, who had a few words of greeting, along with the executive secretary of FEREDE, Carolina Bueno.

Centenary of the Baptist Faculty of Theology

At the same event, the Baptist Faculty of Theology, founded in 1922, was congratulated on the celebration of its centenary.