LUTHER COULD NOT DO WITHOUT GUTENBERG

       Martin Luther                                                                      Johann Gutenberg

Martin Luther had the content, but Gutenberg had the means to bring the Reformation across Europe far and wide. God was behind both men.

The 'Gutenberg printing press' of our modern day is the Internet and the various platforms (such as this blog) that we can use to reach "Judea, Samaria and the remotest part of the world." It was Johann Gutenberg's printing press that differentiated Luther's reformation movement from the earlier reformers.

My first experience with e-classes was when I paid a hefty amount to join Israel Institute of Biblical Studies to do Biblical Hebrew Level A. Now that I am two-thirds my way through the programme, I know how Webex is so useful to deliver online classes. We have one teacher based somewhere in the US to about 10 students, who are individually located at different time zones in different parts of the US (mostly in their sixties or seventies), Canada, South Africa, Israel, Malaysia, Hong Kong and I think Germany as well. Get a feel of the online classes here.

New Excitements

Just before Christmas this year (2019), I spent some time over Whatsapp to help a seminary lecturer to use Zoom with the hope that he would agree to deliver his classes on Biblical Hebrew online next year. If I miss the boat, I would have to wait for the next cycle two years later for Biblical Hebrew to be offered at the seminary. I was trying to persuade him that there are even non-seminary students who who like to join, but either they live somewhere far away or like me, they do not want to spend four hours travelling to the seminary just to attend a two-hour class every week. Times have changed. We have to cater to the 'market demand', rather than expect the market to follow our leadership. Incidentally, I spoke to a primary school mate of mine who is now president of a theological seminary in the Philippines, and these were his words: "Seminaries these days have to adjust to the market, not the other way round."

We do not want to end up like some grand old brands that have gone obsolete because they were unwilling to innovate or move with the rest of the world. Some of us may want to take pride in being antiques, but an antique means it no longer has any use in the world except being an antique. With the Internet connectivity that we have now in Malaysia, seminaries should seriously look into offering theological programmes online. I will justify this a little while but let me go back to the exciting story first.

This seminary lecturer of mine who will be teaching Hebrew in the next semester was excited after his first online session with some six or eight people, teaching them how to read the Hebrew Bible. Most people were pretty new to Zoom after I guided them step-by-step to download Zoom on their laptop or mobile phones. From there, we were able to recruit some six or seven students for next year Biblical Hebrew 101 taught at the seminary, with a few potential students still thinking about their decision. One student is from Sabah and the other is from Singapore. There is also a potential student who is a Western missionary who has settled down in Uganda. For the first time, a seminary course taught on campus is now reaching out to a number of places where once it would have been impossible to travel physically (unless teleported, but that would have to be in 3019) to attend classes at the seminary.

On Dec 30, I made a trip to the seminary and together the lecturer and I tested the set-up. All the ideas that I had failed to the point that he decided he would teach the online classes separately from the physical classes. There was echo in the classroom. The writing on the white board was not legible. The sound was not clear enough for online students to follow. At the eleventh hour, God gave us the Eureka! The breakthrough came when the lecturer was playing with the Zoom whiteboard on his laptop screen. He became fascinated that it was able to do more than what he could do using the physical whiteboard. When I realised that he was relatively IT-savvy, I asked him to plug his laptop to the projector. Lo and behold! It was a perfect hybrid of both online and physical classes. I believe we may have more online students that on-campus students as seminary students, unlike those of us who have a passion for learning to read the scriptures in the original languages, approach the biblical languages as just another requirement they have to pull through. And, with this divinely-inspired breakthrough, online students can also follow the classes on their computer screen like what you see here.

Online Biblical Classes

With the new semester up, I believe those of us who would otherwise not be able to travel to the seminary once a week, can now follow and participate in the classes on our computer or mobile phone screens. It will be a new experience for both lecturers and students, and with this, I hope seminaries will consider to go online with their classes. The way we managed to solve this for our pilot project is by:

(a) allowing the lecturer to write on the Zoom whiteboard and casting it on the screen using a projector. Online students will be able to see it on their computer (or handphone) screens while on-campus students can see it on the projector screen.
(b) With this set-up, the lecturer can even use his powerpoint to project on the projector screen or for online students, "share screen" anything that he wants to use to deliver his class.
(c) Audibility for both online and physical class is good. We don't even need to invest too much into the expensive equipment at least for the pilot project.

(d) Since this is a pilot project, and there is hardly any budget, we will for a start use the free 40-minute session. It is a good compromise because classes can have what we normally call 'teabreak' or 'toilet break.' After the 40-minute free session is over, we will rejoin for the second 40-minute. Once this pilot project is successful, the seminary may want to consider offering some of its modules online as well. They can then subscribe to one of the online platforms and with it, offer more online programmes while the session may be conducted on-campus or off-campus. Trust me, with the different time zones, you may find that classes offered in the morning here in Malaysia may be most suitable for students who are based in another country somewhere in Africa or South America.

Both Zoom and Webex are subscriptions-based, and they offer 40-minute free trial sessions. The reason why I chose Zoom over Webex is because, after another trial session with another friend, we found that Zoom allows more features especially for "Share Screen" compared to Webex.

Some Concerns 

Now, back to my lecturer's concerns. He holds the traditional view that you need to "uproot" and go to a seminary if you want to train as a pastor. Students are also sent to churches to do ministry work under the supervision of the pastor (internship). His reasons for this kind of setting is because character assessments are necessary for ordination purposes.

While I do not disagree with him, my response is more from a marketplace person: "Not everyone who enrolls in a theological programme would end up as a pastor. I, for one, although my ambition was to be a pastor when I was in my student days, I know that I am not called as a pastor. I am a marketplace and an evangelist at heart. The marketplace person who is a businessman or a company director also needs theological education."

During the Reformation, the laypersons started to read the Scriptures, but not all of them became clergies; likewise, laypeople also need to be theologically sound if they want to live a life that is glorifying to God. They also need to do the checks-and-balance on their pastor's preaching just like what the Berean believers did with Paul's preaching!

Just last night (Dec 30, 2019), after a long day of testing the set-up and getting ready for the online Biblical Hebrew classes in January 2020, I chatted with one financial accounting professor who has set up an online seminary recently. He has personally invested a lot of money into this set-up and I told him that with his online platform and content provided by the seminaries, online theological training can be provided far and wide to reach more people, who are traditionally not going to be possible to uproot themselves to live in a seminary. Not everyone is called to be clergymen, but every layperson who holds a secular position or having some influence within his own circle in the secular world should at least be "theologically sound."

Increasingly, I believe online programmes would gain momentum. We have to sense where the Lord is leading us. If we do not follow His heartbeat, we will be left behind. You can continue to be a scribe happily copying the Scriptures word by word, or you can join Gutenberg's printing press and help to print more copies of the Scriptures to meet the hunger for God's Word. This professor, with whom I spoke to, has a very simple slogan which makes him the Tony Fernandez of online seminaries, "Now, everyone can study theology!" In fact, I learnt about his slogan from my lecturer.

Seminaries have to consider the market needs. I will let you know why I decided to sign up Online Greek with another Bible College when my own seminary offers it as a weekly night classes: If I enrolled with my seminary, I would have to spend at least two hours on travelling alone. If that's "your business", then, it is really my business! With two young kids to babysit until I can coordinate with my wife to take over the babysitting, this weekly affair can be indeed very challenging. Coupled with my positive experience using Webex in Biblical Hebrew A with Israel Institute of Biblical Studies, I have no problem taking Online Biblical Greek using Zoom.

If you are reading this as a non-seminary person, you can also consider using the online platform to reach more people who would otherwise not be able to join you. A fellow student sent me a whatsapp (modified slightly to protect her identity):

"Stephen Tq for bringing that fantastic offer of Zoom classes to my notice. I would love to join- I work with Zoom for board meetings and Bible Study Group and find it v good. However I will be away on some work between Jan 29 th and third week of Feb during which I won’t be able to make even a weekly class! Can you see it working out for me? If so tell me how to register! Thanks, A"

Well, to her, I replied, the online classes are all recorded, so she can still listen in to the classes that she misses and do her assignments. With this, I hope she will not miss the Online Biblical Hebrew; otherwise, she will also have to wait for the next cycle two years from now.

In your own context, I recommend a hybrid of both online and physical face-to-face meetings. Trust me, people will love it!