On September 30th, the Alliance Bible Seminary (ABS) in Taiwan held its 125th anniversary symposium under the theme of “Christian Faith, Multi-Approach”. More than ten faculty members presented their research covering six areas, including epistemology of truth, missions, and church history. Acting President, Dr. Lawrence Ko, emphasized the importance of academic training, with the seminary officially launching the “Alliance Faith Resource Bank” which intends to stimulate believers’ interests in theological studies and to promote church ministry.
As a prestigious Chinese academic and research institution, the Alliance Bible Seminary is devoted to promoting and educating brothers and sisters in Christ to be equipped with critical and independent thought. With the spirit of humility, they encourage believers to explore the diversity and depth of the Christian faith and its practice in contemporary society. The 125th academic symposium was held on September 30 at the North Point Church of the Evangelical Formosan Missionary Society.
The symposium was divided into three sessions, focusing on six different areas, including Epistemology of Truth, Multi-dimensionality in Missions, Pluralism in Church History, Return of the Captives and the Persian Empire, Beginnings of Theology, and Multi-dimensionality in Pastoral Care for Families. The organizers hoped that through these researches, the academic results would not just be presented, but be stimulating to all participants to further think and explore, and to meet the ever-changing future.
In his opening speech, Dr. Lawrence Ko Acting President of ABS, emphasized the importance of academic training. He said that the institute honors the authority of the Bible and puts great emphasis on cultivating spiritual character. He mentioned that the spirit of “pioneering and suffering” is the centennial spirit and pursuit of ABS. He pointed out that scholarship is an attitude of humility in the pursuit of knowledge, and that one needs to be open-minded to learn from others' criticisms in order to broaden one's horizons. He also emphasized that the theme of the seminar was precisely the “multiple approaches of Christian Faith”, and that it is necessary to have the scholarship to criticize and correct one another. The professors of ABS took the opportunity of the seminar to present their findings in the hope of generating interactions and discussions.
In addition, ABS has launched a new platform called “ABS Resource Bank”, which was created by the Christianity & Chinese Culture Research Centre of ABS, with the aim of integrating and making good use of the results of teaching and research to serve the church people and the public.
Rev. Dr. Herrick Liu, Deputy Dean and (Academic) Research Center Director played a video to introduce the functions of the resource bank, which collects the research materials of ABS' educators in various fields such as spiritual growth, church ministry, theological reflection, interviews, as well as the contents of the records of their relationship with students.
Another important function of the Resource Bank is to provide statistical surveys on the past development of the church in Hong Kong, as well as to collect and organize the books, monographs, and audio-visual materials of the teacher in order to provide more references for brothers and sisters, and to open up the copyright for use, targeting at local preachers and overseas missionary workers in the hope that it will help them to obtain more resources to support them in their theological research and church ministries.
Ultimately, the College hopes that the launch of the Resource Library will stimulate people's interest in theological research, which will in turn lead to their enthusiastic participation in church ministry and their consideration of further studies to enhance their theological equipments.
The 125th Anniversary Symposium of the Alliance Bible Seminary was held on Monday, September 30 from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM at the North Point Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and was attended by a full house.
