Techniques or Disciplines? Mervyn Himbury and the Purpose of Ministerial Education

ABSTRACT

The question of how Baptist ministers are best prepared for service in the Church has been part of Baptist life from the beginning. Mervyn Himbury (1922-2008), historian and educational leader in Wales and in Australia, wrestled with these issues continually. He challenged the focus on techniques and skills, arguing for ministerial education based upon the disciplines of biblical and theological reflection, continuous learning and love for God and the world. This paper draws upon Himbury's published works, which set these issues in an historical and theological perspective, while engaging with the immediate challenges in Melbourne, where he was the founding Principal of Whitley College. The paper draws upon curriculum inquiry and ideological perspectives which may shape educational practice, then considers whether these approaches may apply to ministerial education. This discussion serves to further clarify the nature and purpose of ministerial education in general and Himbury's contribution in particular.

KEYWORDS:

• Baptist ministry
• Mervyn Himbury
• ministerial education
• Whitley College
• curriculum theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 D. Mervyn Himbury, The South Wales Baptist College (1807–1957) (Llandysul: Gomerian, 1957), 11.

2 D. M. Himbury, “The Aim of Ministerial Training,” The Victorian Baptist Witness, December 5, 1967, 8. The title of this article, very possibly chosen by the editor of The Victorian Baptist Witness, uses the term ‘training’, but the content of the article very clearly challenges a focus upon skills as the essential element in ministerial training. Himbury’s emphasis upon disciplines is more akin to his ideas of ministerial education than the prevailing idea of ministry training.

3 D. M. Himbury, “What Kind of Ministers Do We Require?,” The Victorian Baptist Witness, December 5, 1974, 4.

4 D. M. Himbury, “Preaching in an Age of Uncertainty,” The Fraternal 150 (1968): 7–13.

5 D. M. Himbury, “Training Baptist Ministers,” The Baptist Quarterly XXI (Oct. 1966): 337–348 & 363, 337. Quotation is from Directory of Public Worship, 1644.

6 Himbury, The South Wales Baptist College, 79.

7 Himbury, “Training Baptist Ministers,” 344–345.

8 Ibid., 345.

9 Ibid..

10 Paul Fiddes provided a similar outline of the standard college course at Regent’s Park College in the nineteenth century, in “Baptists and Theological Education: A vision for the twenty-first century,” in Baptist Identity into the 21st Century: Essays in Honour of Ken Manley, ed. Frank D. Rees (Parkville, Victoria: Whitley College, 2016), 183–198, 185.

11 Himbury, “Training Baptist Ministers,” 347.

12 Ruth Gouldbourne and Anthony Cross, The Story of Bristol Baptist College: Three Hundred Years of Ministerial Formation (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2022). See particularly Chapter 3, ‘Controversy over the role of education,’ and for the quotations that follow 45–48. Anthony J. Clarke and Paul S. Fiddes, Dissenting Spirit: A History of Regent’s Park College 1752–2017 (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2017).

13 The Melbourne College of Divinity, known as the MCD, was established by the Parliament of Victoria to grant degrees in theology, in 1910. It comprised all the Protestant denominations, working co-operatively, and since 1972 also the Roman Catholic training institutions. It is now the University of Divinity, with colleges in all 6 mainland states and includes 13 colleges from 10 denominations, as well as a distinctive ecumenically based School of Indigenous Studies.

14 D. M. Himbury, Forms of Baptist Ministerial Education (Parkville: Whitley College, 1970).

15 D. M. Himbury, Forms of Baptist Ministerial Education, 28.

16 See Roslyn Otzen, Whitley: The Baptist College of Victoria 1891–1991 (South Yarra: Hyland House, 1991), and Frank D. Rees, Mervyn Himbury: Principal and Preacher (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2022).

17 John Dewey, The Child and the Curriculum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902).

18 F. M. Connelly and S. J. Xu, “An Overview of Research in Curriculum Inquiry,” in International Encyclopedia of Education, 3rd ed., eds. Penelope Peterson, Eva Baker, and Barry McGaw (Oxford: Academic Press, 2010), 324–334. See also F. M. Connelly and S. J. Xu, “The Landscape of Curriculum and Instruction: Diversity and Continuity,” in Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction, eds. F. M. Connelly, F. M. He, and Phillion (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2008), 514–533.

19 J. J. Schwab, “The Practical 4: Curriculum Inquiry,” Curriculum Inquiry 13 (1983): 239–265.

20 W. F. Pinar, W. M. Reynolds, P. Slattery, and P. M. Taubman, Understanding Curriculum: An Introduction to the Study of Historical and Contemporary Curriculum Discourses (New York: Peter Lang, 1995).

21 Michael Stephen Schiro, Curriculum Theory: Conflicting Visions and Enduring Concerns (Los Angeles: Sage, 2013).

22 Schiro, Curriculum Theory, 9.

23 Ibid., 5, 19–27.

24 Ibid., 57–69.

25 Ibid., 5–6, 132–133.

26 Ibid., 6, 167–173.

27 Himbury, “Preaching in an Age of Uncertainty,” 13.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frank D. Rees

Frank Rees is a Baptist theologian in Australia, who was Professor of Systematic Theology and Principal of Whitley College, in the University of Divinity. His research interests have included contextual theologies, biography as theology, and Baptist ecclesiology and ecumenical dialogue. He is currently Chair of the Academic Board in the University of Divinity.