Moore Theological College

Moore Theological College, otherwise known simply as Moore College, is the theological training seminary of the Diocese of Sydney in the Anglican Church of Australia. The college has a strong tradition of conservative evangelical theology with an emphasis on the study of the Bible in its original languages, the use of primary sources in theology, the heritage of the reformation, and the integration of the theology and ministry practice. It gives particular attention to full-time study in the context of a Christian learning community as an appropriate context for training for full-time Christian ministry, however it also offers part-time and online learning opportunities. The college trains both men and women at every level of its program.

Moore College
MottoNon inferiora secuti
Motto in English
Not pursuing lesser ideals
TypeTheological College
Established1856
AffiliationAnglican Diocese of Sydney
PrincipalThe Revd Dr Mark D. Thompson
PresidentArchbishop Glenn N. Davies
Academic staff
20
Students600
Location
Sydney
,
New South Wales
,
Australia

33°53′29.45″S 151°11′16.04″E
Websitemoore.edu.au

Moore College has developed four academic and ministry centres alongside its mainstream academic program: the Priscilla and Aquila Centre, which promotes women's ministry from a complementarian perspective,[1] the Centre for Christian Living, which seeks to provide resources to the general Christian public for intelligent gospel engagement with the wider community, the Centre for Ministry Development, which provides specialised continuing training and education for graduates and others involved in Christian ministry, and the Centre for Global Mission, which directs the College's involvement in Christian mission around the world. The John Chapman Preaching Initiative is a network of activities designed to promote excellence in biblical expository preaching.

The college is one of the largest Anglican seminaries in the world, with normally around 300 full-time students in its BD and BTh programs. The college has had 13 principals and over 4000 graduates. It has also trained Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists and others who are sympathetic to the ethos and theology of the college. The college has also prepared missionaries, church planters and independent church pastors. It attracts students from around the world into its undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

While the largest group in the student body is typically those preparing for Anglican ordained ministry, Moore has also trained other Christian workers, including women, children, youth, families and assistant ministers. Moore graduates also serve as school chaplains, Christian studies teachers and scripture teachers, university and church evangelists, cross-cultural workers, AFES staff workers, social workers, community workers, hospital and nursing home/retirement village chaplains and refugee advocacy workers.

Moore College has an international reputation as the home of biblical theology. In the 1950s through to the 1970s Donald Robinson pioneered a way of seeing how the whole Bible fits together as God's unfolding purposes. The underlying pattern of promise and fulfilment unfolds as God's gospel promise of salvation, first for the Jews and then for all the nations, is given to Abraham, partially fulfilled in Israel's history, and realised in the coming of the Christ. [2] In the 1980s and 1990s these ideas were developed by Robinson's pupil, Graeme Goldsworthy, in a series of books, Gospel and Kingdom, According to Plan, and Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture.[3] Biblical theology in this mode has been characteristic of the work done at Moore College since Robinson's time as Vice Principal.

Robinson was also influential in developing a doctrine of the church which in a distinctive way resisted the strongly ecumenical tone of the mid twentieth century. A study of the terminology and contextual associations of 'church' in the Bible led Robinson to insist 'church' is a gathering, either fundamentally around Christ in heaven and instantiated throughout the world in local congregations.[4] Each congregation is the church and associations of congregations (denominations), while valuable, cannot attribute to themselves the identity and privileges of 'church'.[5] Such structures exist to support the local congregation in its life as a community of faithful men and women committed to the global gospel mission. Broughton Knox gave these conclusions added theological depth in his own studies of 'fellowship' and the critical nature of 'relationship'.[6] While this perspective was sometimes decried as 'congregationalism', both men were active throughout their lives in the work of the Diocese of Sydney, and Robinson himself became a bishop and in time Archbishop of Sydney. They cannot be construed as congregationalists in any pure sense of the word. However, their teaching gave a priority to the local congregation over denominational and ecumenical concerns and located the unity of the church, something to be maintained rather than established, in the unity of the heavenly gathering around the throne of Christ.

In these ways and others, the College has played a critical role in the shape of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. The Diocese's evangelical and reformed character has been created and maintained by the vast majority of the diocese's clergy being men and women trained at Moore College. The last three Archbishops of Sydney all spent time as students at Moore College and three out of the last four had been full-time members of the college faculty. Members of the current faculty also serve in various capacities in the diocese, including its Synod, Standing Committee, the Social Issues Committee and the Sydney Diocesan Doctrine Commission.

History

The vision for Moore College came from one of the early settlers of the colony of New South Wales, Thomas Moore. When Moore died in 1840, he left his substantial estate to the Church of England with specific provision for the founding of a college to train young men in the principles of the United Church of England and Ireland.[7] This vision was realised when Bishop Frederic Barker opened Moore College on 1 March 1856 in Moore's former home in Liverpool, New South Wales. The college is, therefore, the third oldest tertiary institution in Australia after the University of Sydney (1850) and University of Melbourne (1853). It began with three students and one full-time tutor, the Principal. For almost the first one hundred years of its life (1956–1953), the Principals of the college came from the United Kingdom and Ireland.

After a theological controversy which, alongside a downturn in student enrollments, led to the dismissal of the principal of the day (T. E. Hill), the teaching activity of the college was suspended in 1888. It reopened in 1891, at the present site in Newtown adjacent to the University of Sydney. The college began to grow in student numbers and influence, particularly under the important principalships of Nathaniel Jones (1897–1911) and later T. C. Hammond (1935–1953).[8] However, the college's most notable leader in 20th century was Broughton Knox (1959-1985).[9] His vision, drive and shrewd management of the college saw it built into a theological college with an international reputation, a noted faculty and students spreading out from Sydney to many other parts of Australia and the globe.

The site on which the college reopened in 1891 has expanded considerably since then. Numerous adjacent buildings have been acquired or built. The Broughton Knox Teaching Centre was opened in 1994. In 2017 a major new building was opened which houses the Donald Robinson Library and Marcus Loane Hall.

The Donald Robinson Library is one of the largest theological libraries in the Southern Hemisphere, with close to 300,000 works in its collection.[10] It also houses numerous manuscripts and other items of significance to Anglican, Australian and Evangelical history. In recent years it has developed a significant body of electronic resources and a growing collection of rare books.

Well-known Moore College theologians and writers have included Broughton Knox, Donald Robinson, Paul Barnett, Peter Jensen, Graeme Goldsworthy, Peter O'Brien, David Peterson, Barry Webb, John Woodhouse, Peter Bolt, Mark D. Thompson, Andrew Shead, Con Campbell and Edward Loane. Through the influence of Moore College, Sydney Anglicanism has maintained its distinctive Evangelical perspective within worldwide Anglicanism.[11]

In the 1970s the college established its own theological bookstore, I.M.P.A.C.T. Books, which was later renamed MooreBooks. With the advent of internet books sales, Moore Books became financial unsustainable and was closed in 2012.

The current principal, the college's thirteenth, is the Revd Dr Mark D. Thompson, who was officially installed in office by the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, in a service held at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney on 6 June 2013. Prior to his appointment, Thompson had been the head of the college's theology, philosophy and ethics department and had been teaching at Moore for 20 years. He is the author of a number of books and articles, most notably on the doctrine of Scripture, the theology of the Reformation and Martin Luther.

Annual events

In 1977 the college began to host an annual lecture series, the Annual Moore College Lectures which have been a showcase of leading contemporary biblical and theological scholarship, and most of which have been subsequently published. International guests who have contributed to the lecture series have included J.I. Packer, F.F. Bruce, D.A. Carson, Kenneth Kantzer, Henri Blocher, Mike Ovey, Ashley Null, Gerald Bray, Michael Horton, Kevin Vanhoozer, Carl Trueman and James Hely Hutchinson. Past and present Moore College faculty have also contributed to this lecture series.

Also in the late 1970s, a school of theology began to be held which enabled faculty and graduates to explore subjects of interest and important in the wider Christian community. Subjects treated have included the church, the Spirit, the ethics of life and death, biblical theology, justification, emotions in the Christian life, a celebration of the John Calvin Quincentenary, and various books of the Bible (incl. Galatians, Exodus, and the Psalms).

Academic and Practical Training for Christian Ministry

When the College opened in 1856 Principal Hodgson developed a curriculum which enabled the college to offer its own 'College certificate'. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the college was preparing students for the Oxford and Cambridge Preliminary Examination for Holy Orders. In 1907, students began to sit examinations leading to the University of Durham's Licentiate of Theology. A long association with the Australian College of Theology began soon after, with students preparing for the ACT's Licentiate in Theology examinations, and from the 1970s until 2001, its Bachelor of Theology degree. At the same time, from 1958 to 1986, around 200 students were prepared for the external Bachelor of Divinity degree of London University, tutored by the Moore College faculty. Students received the 'Moore College Diploma', an unaccredited award, for work done during the fourth year of study.

In 1992, the four-year program of study at Moore College was redesigned as an integrated package and became the College's own Bachelor of Divinity degree. This degree and the college's three-year Bachelor of Theology degree were originally accredited by the New South Wales Government's Department of Education and Training, doing away with the need for the accreditation through the Australian College of Theology. Then, in 2011, the college became a self-accrediting Australian Higher Education Provider, able to design and accredit its own programs of study. Moore College began offering its own PhD in 2015.

The college currently offers a suit of diplomas and degrees:

  • Diploma of Biblical Theology-DBT (online, 1 year full-time)[12]
  • Advanced Diploma of Bible, Mission and Ministry-AdvDipBMM (part-time, 1 year full-time)[13]
  • Bachelor of Theology-BTh (3 years full-time)[14]
  • Bachelor of Divinity-BD (4 years full-time)[15]
  • Master of Arts in Theology-MA(Theol) (part-time, 2 years full-time) [16]
  • Master of Theology-MTh (part-time, 2 years full-time) [17]
  • Doctor of Philosophy-PhD (3 years full-time) [18]

Online Courses

In the 1940s, under Principal Hammond, the college began to train lay preachers within the Diocese of Sydney. This initially involved attending evening lectures by the Principal, other members of the faculty and some graduates of the college. The notes from these courses formed the basis of the later correspondence course, the Sydney Preliminary Theological Certificate, which was widely used within Sydney and, in time, internationally. In the 1960s Principal Knox invited B. Ward Powers to develop a three year correspondence course that would parallel the full-time course of the College for ministry candidates. Evening lectures continued alongside this correspondence course and eventually became the Diploma of Biblical Studies.

In late 2013 a significant review of the College's correspondence and evening course was undertaken. The opportunity was taken to move into the online learning space. A chief concern of the review was to keep these courses as flexible as possible to allow them to be used in less resourced places throughout the world. The 'Department of External Studies' was renamed 'Moore Distance' and a variety of initiatives were undertaken to explore the possiblities. In 2020 these were brought together under the heading of the P.T.C. The P.T.C. is the College's unaccredited online course of preliminary theological education.

This course is used in places around the world, in some cases becoming the basic training for church planters and pastors. These include Nigeria[19] and India.[20] Translation is under way into Chinese, Tamil, Hindi and Hausa languages.[21] The college has also provided some of this information for use by other organisations such as MOCLAM and African Enterprise.

In 2017 the college began to offer an accredited entrance level diploma entirely online, the Diploma of Biblical Theology. A number of the units of this course provide for advanced standing in the college's full-time degree program.

Notable alumni

Affiliations

Moore College is a member of the Australian and New Zealand Theological Society (ANZATS) and its principal sits on the Council of Deans in Theology (CDT). Moore College is also a member of the GAFCON Theological Education Network.

Principals

References
  1. "Priscilla and Aquila Centre". Archived from the original on 3 July 2018. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  2. D. W. B. Robinson, 'The Pattern of Biblical Truth', reprinted in Donald Robinson Selected Works: Volume 3, Biblical and Liturgical Studies, ed. E. A. Loane (Sydney: ACR/Moore College, 2018) in 232–255.
  3. G. L. Goldsworthy, Gospel and Kingdom: A Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament (Exeter: Paternoster, 1981); According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible (Leicester: IVP, 1991); Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).
  4. D. W. B. Robinson, 'The Church of God, Its Form and Unity', reprinted in Donald Robinson Selected Works: Volume 1, Assembling God's People, ed. P. G. Bolt & M. D. Thompson (Sydney: ACR/Moore College, 2008), 230–253.
  5. D. B. Knox, 'The church, the churches and the denominations of the churches', reprinted in D. Broughton Knox Selected Works: Volume 2, Church and Ministry, ed. K. Birkett (Kingsford, NSW: Matthias Media, 2003), 85–98.
  6. D. B. Knox, 'The Biblical Concept of Fellowship', reprinted in D. Broughton Knox Selected Works: Volume 2, Church and Ministry, ed. K. Birkett (Kingsford, NSW: Matthias Media, 2003), 57–84.
  7. M. L. Loane, A Centenary History of Moore Theological College (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1955), 8.
  8. J. A. McIntosh, Anglican Evangelicalism in Sydney 1897 to 1953: Nathaniel Jones, D. J. Davies and T. C. Hammond (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2018).
  9. M. Cameron, An Enigmatic Life: David Broughton Knox, Father of Contemporary Sydney Anglicanism (Brunswick East, Vic: Acorn, 2006).
  10. Details of Moore College Collection Archived 29 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  11. Darling, B. (2009). “Sydney and Melbourne Anglicans from 1836 to 2009: Historical and personal reflections" Archived 9 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  12. https://moore.edu.au/courses/diploma-of-biblical-theology-dbt/
  13. https://moore.edu.au/courses/advanced-diploma-of-bible-mission-and-ministry/
  14. https://moore.edu.au/courses/bachelor-of-theology-bth/
  15. https://moore.edu.au/courses/bachelor-of-divinity-bd/
  16. https://moore.edu.au/courses/master-of-arts-theology-ma-theol/
  17. https://moore.edu.au/courses/master-of-theology-mth/
  18. https://moore.edu.au/courses/doctor-of-philosophy-phd/
  19. Use of Moore Correspondence Course in Nigeria Archived 29 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine, with the Bible Training Partnership
  20. Use of Moore Correspondence Course in India, with the India Training Mission Team
  21. Details of Correspondence Course Translation Projects Archived 23 August 2006 at the Wayback Machine
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