Evangelical
Seminary of Theology
EVENTS
/SPECIAL ISSUE
October
29th to the 31st, 2007
OUR
The ETS meets with national and international
churches and organizations.
With the motto “Our
mission: Present and future of the Seminary took place from October 29th to the
31st, the meeting of ETS with national and international churches and
organizations. Professors and students were also present there to –as a
big family-analyze, discuss and to study in depth the mission of the ETS and
the theological education as whole in our context.
The
vice-president of the Managing Board, the Presbyter pastor
Were also present,
Caridad Diego, Head of the Office for the attention to the Religion Affairs of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CCP),
Sixty-five brothers and
sisters attended to the meeting. They belong to the following churches and
ecumenical movement: Presbyterian Church of US (USAPC), United Church and
Disciple of Christ of the US, Global Ministries of the Methodist Church of US,
Lutheran Evangelical Church of the US, Rockdale Fundation of US, Anglican
Church of Canada, United Church of Canada, Protestant Church of Holland,
Anglican Church of Haiti, Churches World Council and World Service Churches. On
the Cuban side participated the following churches and ecumenical movements:
Reformed Presbyterian Church, Episcopalian Church, Baptist Church Fellowship,
The Friends Quakers, Christian Agrarian Brotherhood, Free Evangelical Church,
Pentecostal Holiness Church, Christian Pentecostal Church, Cuban Churches
Council, Martin Luther King Jr. Center, Lavastida Center of Santiago de Cuba 
Christian
Center of Reflex ion and Dialogue and Kairos Center, together with professors
and students of ETS.
On the first working day,
the sociologist Juan Luis Martin offered a panorama of the 
present
Cuban reality. Next, the vice-director Pablo
In the afternoon Director
Education
and ETS in the present context. Vision and
The second day
started with a liturgical moment at the Chapel of the ETS where we 
reflected
on the real meaning of living in community, as a family of God. Next the Dean 
held
after the plenary was assessed as enriching, participating in it the
reprentatives of the churches and the organizations, professors and students of
the ETS. In the afternoon there was a visit to social works as Medical Sciences
School of 
Matanzas,
The
third working day started with a devotional devoted to the service. The session
of the morning started giving to the visitors an opportunity to react and to
give their opinions. In the afternoon, there was the panel “John
Calvino’s Legacy, a theological education” held by Doctors John
Sinclair,
Some of the
participants left their impressions for this special issue of the bulletin
“Acontecer” (Happening).”
JIM HODGSON, journalist and lay of
the United Church of Canada. He is the present responsible for the
collaboration of his church, the seminary and social organizations in Central
America, the Caribbean and
“We have had for
many years respectful relationship of collaboration with the Cuban people. We
have had the possibility to collaborate with the Seminary and the churches and
it concerned to us to serve a bridge between
Churches and Cuban governmental
institutions are participating in a continental level in the search of
economical and politic alternatives. It is a challenge for us in
REV. RAQUEL RODRIGUEZ. Puerto
Rican pastor ordained by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the United States
and present Director for the ELCA for Latin America and the Caribbean / Global
Mission Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latin America.
“As a
Global Mission unity we have done an analysis in the center of economical
situation we are living. Our priority will be to develop the abilities of
sister churches entities and their missions to do missions. Besides, we have a
program of scholarships. They have devoted themselves to form many of the
leaders of theological institutions all over the world, especially Masteries
and Doctorates.
This is one of the areas
where we can go with the ETS in the present and in the future. We would like to
encourage our churches and team-mates institutions to the full participation of
the women. We have supported Programmers of Publications for socialize the
thinking. We have an ecumenical vocation, an interest for working together with
our brothers and sisters, and to share the faith from this perspective and to
create spaces where we could ecumenically have a dialogue.”
CUBAN PASTOR, CARLOS EMILIO HAM. Executive
Secretary for the programmers of spirituality for the Churches World Council for
Latin America and the
“The
function of the Churches World Council is to create a fraternal space for
meeting between the church searching the “visible unity of Christ’s
body” and the joint action of the churches. The subject to the ecumenical
formation is one of the challenges of the ecumenical movement in a situation
where a tendency to the strengthening of the denominations and its theological
formation exists.
Projects as
the ETS with a theological formation are for us of significant value. The
formation of pastors, theologian and leaders for the churches who could carry
out their functions in an open and wide way and over all, on the one hand, in a
dialogue and on the other hand the importance that the seminary continues
forming cadres in order to keep on facilitating the work of the
ecumenical movement.
The Seminary should
continue participating in the Programmed of Theological and Ecumenical
Formation, creating spaces of exchanging in Latin-American and Caribbean areas
and with the rest of the world, with a marked interest for developing a
dialogue South-South, interchanging directors, professors, students, members of
the Faculty, and also interchanging literature and welcoming events, meetings,
and commissions. This institution should be of benefit to the fund of
scholarships, thus it would have the chance to finance scholarships for
students.”
JORGE L.F. DOMINGUES,
Temporary General Secretary assistant of the Contexts and Relationships
Mission, Education, Evangelization and Church Growth Mission, Director of the
Department of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church and responsible
for the relationships with churches and organizations all over the world.
“The importance
of the ETS is to be one of the institutions that offer theological education
since an ecumenical view and this is fundamental for our work of training with
the Methodist churches. The ecumenical perspective is fundamental and it
integrates in our denominational identity. For helping the churches to have an
ecumenical training, the ecumenical formation is something that we need to do
through ecumenical organizations. The ETS would play an important roll in the
process of training of the new generations of leaders within the churches.
The subject of the
denominational emphasis existing nowadays, it needs to be studied more in
detail by the Seminary. This is not a Cuban phenomenon, it has soundly affected
the ecumenical movement, and the consequences were not seriously taken into
account by the ecumenical organizations. The strengthening of the
denominationalism comes to give an answer to a significant change in the
socio-religious context of
REV.FELIX E. ORTIZ-COTO, Executive for
Latin America and the Caribbean of Global 
Ministries
of the churches Disciples of Christ and the United Churches of the United
States and Canada.
“This
is one of the geographical areas attended by Global Ministries that represents
a joint testimony for the mission of these churches. We keep relationships with
20 countries. We attend the relationships of joint accompaniment in the
mission, with solidarity, respect to the political, and the economic and to the
social, knowing one from each other.
We have relationship with
46 denominations of Latin America and the
This meeting has been
very positive. I could share with leaders and members of churches and listen to
the students of the seminary. We listened to each church and how they see the
seminary. I got the opinions of the participants of the churches from the
The ETS should watch for
keeping its prophetic line that it is an announcing line of the
Special period, the
embargo and other external and internal situations the roll of the Cuban
churches in the diaconal field is very important. This is a challenge: there
are people who are not used to the church accomplishing this action. They
learned that is not a task of the church.”
ANDREA M. MANN: Doctor of
Philosophy and Coordinator of global relationships among the societies of the
Anglican Church of Canada.
“I have kept relationships
with the ETS much time ago. The Anglican Church of Canada has been
collaborating and working together to strengthen the theological education. One
of the way in which it has contributed has been to welcome Cuban and foreign
students for high studies in
The ETS introduced us to
the life of the church in
Monthly, I receive the
bulletin “Acontecer” through which I learn the news of the ETS via
e-mail. I use to send to the theological colleges in
In this meeting, I hope
to discover new ways to do more effective the existing relationship. I realized
that in my country, people should to think in a more creative way, to analyze
the old ways to get more innovative conclusions like here in the ETS.
“I
have plans to make wider this last net. Nowadays, members of the Episcopalian
church, of the united church, of the Methodist church, of the Reformed church
and Quakers in the
This event is very
important because this is a critic moment for the ETS. It is necessary that the
friends of the ETS living out of
This event has been an
opportunity to renew our confidence, our engagement with the Seminary. It was a
pleasure to meet here other people from other churches which I only know via
e-mail. We met people from 20 or more churches and organizations from Europe
and the
KITTY
ELTON BEAL: professor of English Literature of
the
“My church
has relationships with the Seminary. I feel very well welcomed as if I were a
spiritual kin.
This seminary has ideas
and thoughts very similar to the ones of my church referring to the social
justice. Cubans have much taught much to the Canadians about this issue. There
is a very open possibility for the teaching between our two educational
institutions.”
STEVEN DARSE: current President of
the Cuban sub-committee for Global Missions of the Presbyterian of Trinity,
“I have come to
better understand the purpose of the ETS and to state which is the suitable way
to achieve goals. I would like to bring a group of my church in order to
interchange experiences.
I keep relationships with
the Seminary 25 or 30 years ago. My pastor visited the ETS 3 or 4 years ago and
lately, the Director Reinerio Arce visited our church. Cuban people refresh me
very much. I come from a country where people do not value what they have. It
is important that people from my country come and be together with the Cuban
people. We want to build a bridge between both countries.”
MARTIN CORIA: Argentinean. Regional
Coordinator for Latin-America and the
One of the aims of the
regional strategic plan of my organization is to promote the ecumenical and
inter-religion collaboration of Latin America and the
Gisela Pérez Muñiz
Centro B.G. Lavastida, en Santiago
de Cuba
SET is part of my life
and of my formation. We have been collaborating for years and we want to
strengthen this collaboration. This has been a great opportunity to come and
see the current work. Yesterday, when I was hearing all the prospects I was
rejoiced to see how the Lord is guiding them onward.
We have realized that the
vision of our small center in the East of the country is very much in line with
the perspectives of the Seminary and we want to help in the development of all
the churches in our region towards their comprehensive mission. We have
different working areas and some service projects. We are part of the SET
family; we are working in spite of our limitations. We are very hopeful and
confident that we can make a bridge between SET possibilities and our region.
Fraternity of the Cuban
Baptist Churches (FIBAC)
Thank you for this
opportunity. The work I am chairing was founded eighteen years ago and I wish I
were just that age, so that I could certainly be a SET student.
Through our relationship with
SET and our connection with Francisco Rodés we asked for the enrolment of some
young people that had expressed their desire of becoming theologians and
pastors. At present we have six resident students with their families. Our
denomination has a total of 32 graduates in Major and Bachelor degrees and some
of them are doing post-graduate studies at SET. Three SET graduate students are
now professors of the Seminary. Also we think that the Guided Bachelor Program
is a very good option for the countryside workers that had no adequate
theological training.
Being in charge of FIBAC
growth counting with limited resources has been a difficult task. And that is
why SET has been an oasis for the churches that need to train its workers. We
are sure SET will continue supporting us.
We are requesting SET to
become an organic member of the direction of this institution. We have sent a
letter of request to the Direction Board and we are still involved in this
process.
María
Yi Reina
I bring greetings from
the Quaker Direction Board and from its president. Our church is centenarian.
It has an identity of service and formation and it is geographically distant.
Many women and men
pastors have enjoyed SET training. Its doors, windows and bridges have always
been open. SET collaboration in
What can we offer as a
church? We will continue offering what we have so far given: human resources
for the notification and organization as well as the space of our premises.
Nehemías Cárdenas Morales
Agrarian Christian
Fraternity of
As indicated by its name,
since its foundation HCAC has the chief objectives of creating Christian
communities in the countryside. To this purpose it trained its pastors in line
with the traditions of countryside people without neglecting theological
training. Its founder, Jorge Insua and its collaborator Brígido Veras conceived
the idea of creating HCAC.
At present we have new
challenges: We are involved in making the new generations aware so that they do
not have the same prejudices that we had. Also we do not have enough funding
for our students. Our pastors not only need good academic training but also a
development on issues related with love for creation and its corresponding
practice. Only then they can be accepted in a rural community. We also need to
develop certain values so that love for the people and for the church is
primary rather than looking for comfortable positions in the cities.
SET opening of
guided programs has been very important for HCAC. At present five pastors are
being trained in the Bachelor Program and six people, in the course for the
laity. We expect an enrolment of approximately 16 students for the
BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
President of the Board: Bishop Miguel Tamayo Zaldivar
Vice-President of the Board:
Secretary of the Board: Odette
Naranjo Colón
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Rector:
Vice-rector: Pablo
Dean:
Vice-Dean:
Chaplain: Wil
Arts Ph.M. and
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FULL PROFESSORS
Clara L. Ajo Lázaro, Th.D, Theology,
VISITING PROFESSORS
Prof. Ildefonso Acosta
Escobar Music, Prof. Wil Arts, Ph.M. Practical Theology, Dra. Mercedes Cárdenas Hodelins Complementary Courses,
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Director:
Edition, Design and typesetting
Elizabeth González R., Ing.
Writing
Elizabeth González R., Ing.
Photography:
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Calle Dos de Mayo Final, Apartado 1439, Matanzas,
Cuba
(: (53-45) 24-2866 ext. 14
7: (53-45) 25-3391
http://cuba-theological-seminary.com
Hinicio
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