Methodist theological education and ministerial training in Southern Africa traces its roots back to 1867 and grew to a position of strength and significance in the second half of the 20th century. This development and the sudden, sad and dramatic loss of that strength towards the end of the 20th century will be expanded on. The situation became such a matter for concern that in 2004 the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) instituted a Review Commission in response to the adverse developments in theological education that had seriously weakened the previously well-established training operations of the church. The entire training process is an expression of the vision, history, traditions and development of Methodist Christianity. The intention of the new scheme was not to break from the past, but rather to evolve – to learn from the pains and struggles and to capitalise on the many achievements. What follows is largely the story of the new evolutionary steps.

Methodist tradition

The Methodist movement began with the work of the brothers John and Charles Wesley in 18th-century England. Their intention, as priests of the Church of England, was not to start a new denomination. Rather, their vision was ‘to spread scriptural holiness throughout the land’ (MCSA 2007:11). In pursuit of this vision, they preached across the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland, often to vast crowds in the marketplaces and in the open fields – a somewhat scandalous activity at the time. They also, significantly, set up local ‘classes’ and ‘societies’ which gave newly converted people a base of belonging and of sustaining fellowship. It was these classes and societies that, in time, became the institutional framework of a new Christian denomination. Formal separation from the Church of England occurred a few years after the death of John Wesley in 1791 (Davies 1963:130). His brother, Charles, who was strongly opposed to separation, had died three years earlier.

The Methodist Church took root and grew in South Africa from seeds planted by missionaries from England who came in the first half of the 19th century. Methodism first arrived with the military garrison established in Cape Town in 1795, and the first recorded mention of a Methodist is of an Irish soldier in 1802 (Millard 2005:134, n.8).