Theological education continues to demonstrate a remarkable degree of institutional fluidity. This year has already witnessed the imminent closure of the Brisbane College of Theology (BCT), with its component parts moving in different directions. The Catholic and Uniting Church components entered into a relationship with Australian Catholic University (ACU), and the Anglican with Charles Sturt University (CSU). Now two other theological consortia are facing challenges of different sorts. They point to the continued repercussions of a changing regulatory environment on the sector.
The Adelaide College of Divinity (ACD), founded thirty years ago, is now essentially defunct. Some twelve months ago its constituent colleges, Anglican, Catholic and Uniting Church made a decision whereby the Catholic and Anglican Colleges would have minimal involvement with the consortium structure. This would leave it largely in the hands of the Uniting Church college. They would focus their own energies with the ongoing relationship with Flinders University. This relationship had grown more substantial over the years and offered their students access to government funding, which was not directly available to students in the purely ACD awards.
Now it appears that the Anglican College (St Barnabas’) will affiliate with CSU. This is part of a move by a number of Anglican dioceses to consolidate their theological endeavours under a single provider with a single, largely Anglican, curriculum. The Canberra Anglican college, St Mark’s Theological College, after brief stints with the Australian College of Theology and Sydney College of Divinity (SCD), joined CSU in 1997. It has since subsumed the United Theological College at North Parramatta (Uniting Church), and more recently St Francis Theological College, the Anglican college of the BCT. Now the Adelaide Anglicans are also signing up with CSU. As such the ACD will no longer be a functioning consortium and will need to recreate itself institutionally if it is to survive scrutiny from its accrediting agencies.
The irony in both Brisbane and Adelaide is that the two Anglican colleges have limited faculty resources. They will look to their previous consortia partners to assist in the delivery of a full theological program to their students. Their credibility as theological providers rode on their ecumenical relationships with Catholic and Uniting Church colleges. A relationship with remote St Mark’s/CSU in Canberra does not put lecturers in front of students.
Various Anglican movements are now also affecting the SCD. For many years the Anglican diocese of