The Churches in England are now so rich and diverse that it has become clear that it is rarely appropriate to listen to a single voice. For our bible study at Forum, therefore, there were three voices reflecting on Luke 24, 13-35 (Emmaus):
- William K Kay was a student at the University of Oxford in the 1960s and taught RE in state maintained schools for ten years before gaining a PhD and becoming involved in, first, ministerial training, and then teacher training. His second PhD involved research into British Assemblies of God, the denomination to which he has belonged for nearly fifty years. He has preached in many parts of the world and wrote Pentecostalism: a very short introduction for Oxford University Press.
- Patricia McDonald SHCJ is a Catholic religious sister. She is Academic Programme Director at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, where she also teaches New Testament. Before that, she taught Scripture in the United States and at Ushaw College, Durham. A member of the National Roman Catholic/United Reformed Church bilateral dialogue since its formation in 2006, Patsy published God and Violence: Biblical Resources for Living in a Small World in 2004 and has recently completed a short commentary on the Letter of Jude for the Wisdom Commentary series.
- Jongikaya Zihle is a Chair of the London Methodist District; before joining the Methodist Church in Britain fourteen years ago, Jongi was a presbyter in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa for just over fourteen years, with experience at lecturing in biblical spirituality at the then Methodist theological College in Kilnerton, Pretoria. Jongi’s passion is uniting people and he has served in various capacities with peace monitoring bodies and as a trainer/practitioner in conflict resolution. Jongi believes that encouraging the ‘inculturation’ of the Gospel calls for a biblical praxis that allows the context to speak its own life and experience as it translates biblical truths towards God-honouring life experience.
Unfortunately Jongi was unable to be present with us at the 2018 Forum, however we were fortunate enough that Janet Scott was able to step in and assist in leading the Bible study.
- Janet Scott is a trustee of Churches Together in England and of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. She studied theology in the universities of Cambridge and London. After teaching in Kent she trained teachers for RE in primary schools firstly in London, and then as head of Religious Studies at Homerton College, Cambridge. She has been a Quaker since her teens, and for fourteen years represented Friends worldwide on the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission.