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“The Nigerian Church is maturing,” Dr. George Janvier says excitedly. “When the early SIM missionaries came to Nigeria, they had to start with literacy classes. Then they set up secondary schools, Bible colleges, and finally, seminaries. The PhD program is the final link in the education chain. The Nigerian Church has a number of PhDs, but all of them were trained in the West.” Dr. Janvier teaches at Jos Evangelical Theological Seminary (JETS), which is the Nigerian seminary that SIM is most closely associated with.
Western education has excellent quality, but there is a high price tag attached. When Nigerians study in the West, they are exposed to Western teaching styles and issues. Nigerian Christians face different concerns than those from North America or Europe. Instead of studying postmodernism, homosexuality, bioethics, and the Iraq War, they need to learn to handle questions about polygamy, persecution, marriage, finance, corruption, and AIDS. Studying in the West is also inconvenient because of visas, finance, and family separation--students’ families often remain in Nigeria.
“About six years ago,” Dr. Janvier continues, “JETS began creating an in-context PhD program where students could study Nigerian issues and remain in the Nigerian context. On January 1, 2006, I was appointed as leader of the program when the Nigerian leader went on sabbatical to the U.S. Twelve students had applied to the biblical studies PhD program, and after looking at their Greek and Hebrew exams, we admitted five into the program. They began studying in June 2006.”
The doctoral program has three primary goals:
- to equip leaders for seminary ministry,
- to develop highly qualified teachers in their various areas of studies,
- to train African writers to think and write for the African Church.
Janvier explains that while the West is blessed with writers like John Stott, J. I. Packer, and John MacArthur, Nigeria lacks people of such stature able to write about issues from an African perspective.
“JETS’ PhD students pay 20% of what they would pay in the West, and quality education is a priority,” Janvier explains. “We have a functional Internet research room. We have tremendous access to theological material on the Internet and CD-ROM, and we have our own hard copy library. These students are taught by top scholars including visiting ones such as Dr. Victor Cole, a Nigerian who got his PhD at Michigan State University and has taught in Kenya since 1990. Our effort to develop a high quality program is paying off—a recent Dallas Seminary doctoral graduate screened a set of papers from our students and said they were international B level papers!
“You teach as you were taught,” Janvier elaborates. “We’re training them to be 21st century scholars, researching and using the Internet. When they begin teaching, they’ll do the same thing. These students will have the most up-to-date knowledge, these guys are cutting edge. We get a lot more mileage equipping Nigerians for teaching ministry rather than doing all the teaching ourselves. When they’re ready to take over, we’ll move on, but we won’t leave until we know it’s time. Soon I’ll hand directorship of the PhD program back to a Nigerian.”
Dr. Janvier concludes, "The PhD program is SIM’s final link in the chain of Nigerian education. This chain began in the early 1900s with pioneer SIM missionary Tommy Titcomb sitting under a mango tree and teaching his luggage carrier to read. Now we’ve come to this, the last link in the chain.”
Please pray for…
- scholarships for students in the PhD program, which costs six times more than the undergrad program at JETS.
- wisdom in possibly expanding the program into a PhD in theology or missions. The current PhD program is in biblical studies with specialization in Old Testament and New Testament.
- obtaining books in a timely manner.
- the electrical environment. Power supply is not reliable. Internet connections come and go, are slow, and very expensive.
- the spiritual heart of the program. It must foster spiritual as well as intellectual and academic excellence. George explains, “If we send out scholars but not spiritual scholars, we’ve failed.”
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