Appointment of C of I cleric to leading US Seminary; Chinese church leaders to visit Dublin
The Board of Trustees of Virginia Theological Seminary (Alexandria near Washington DC) unanimously approved the appointment of the Rev. Robert Heaney, Ph.D. as the new Director of the Center for Anglican Communion Studies and Assistant Professor of Christian Mission at VTS. Heaney will join the VTS faculty this fall.
“Dr. Heaney is the perfect mix,” said the Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, dean and president for Virginia Theological Seminary. “He is a priest in the Church of Ireland, has considerable mission experience in Tanzania, is a thoughtful scholar, has an engaging presence, and is deeply committed to the ethos of the Seminary,”
Since 2010 Heaney has served as the first-ever Director of Postgraduate Research and Studies at St. John’s University of Tanzania, where he is also a senior lecturer in the School of Theology and Religious Studies. Heaney received a Ph.D. from Dublin’s Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in 2003, and accepted the post in Tanzania while researching African theology for a D.Phil. degree from the University of Oxford, which he is working toward.
Heaney has taught courses on Anglicanism, missiology, post-colonial theology, philosophical theology, and African and global theology. In addition to those areas, his research interests also include ethics of mission, global Christianity, and liberal/progressive/post-colonial evangelicalisms.
He is the author of several journal and book articles, including “Views of Colonization Across the Communion” in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Anglican Communion and “Prospects and Problems for Evangelicalisms and Post-colonialisms” in Great Awakenings: Evangelical Engagements with Postcolonialism, both of which are forthcoming. He is the founding editor of Soma: An International Journal of Theological Discourses and Counter-Discourses and is currently working on a number of book projects.
Heaney was ordained a priest in the Church of Ireland in 2002, and has been active in Anglican parishes in Ireland, England, and Tanzania. He is married to Dr. Sharon Heaney and they have one son, Sam.
As director of the Center for Anglican Communion Studies, Heaney will ensure the Center’s continued support of theological education; the engagement of Anglican leaders and scholars in study, research and conversation; and interreligious dynamics across the Communion.
Founded in 1823, Virginia Theological Seminary is the largest of the 11 accredited seminaries of the Episcopal Church. The school prepares men and women for service in the Church worldwide, both as ordained and lay ministers, and offers a number of professional degree programs and diplomas. Currently, the Seminary represents more than 42 different dioceses and 5 different countries, for service in the Church.
Chinese church leaders to visit Dublin
Lynn Glanville, Diocesan Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough writes – On Saturday 16 March Elder Fu Xianwei, the Chairperson of National Committee of Three–Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China and the Revd Peter Koon, Provincial Secretary General of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican Province of Hong Kong), are to commence a four day visit to Dublin.
The visit, sponsored by the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson, and the Dublin University Far Eastern Mission, marks a new step in the growing relationship between the Province of Dublin and that of Hong Kong.
In recent years the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui has been working closely with the National Committee of Three–Self Patriotic Movement and the China Church Council and this visit provides an opportunity for Elder Fu Xianwei to meet with the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui’s partners in the wider Anglican world.
Elder Fu Xianwei is the Chairperson of National Committee of Three–Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China. He was born in 1944 and was educated at the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary. He worked at a shipyard and schools in Shanghai before joining the National Committee of Three–Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China and the China Christian Council in 1988. He has been the Chairperson of the National Committee of Three–Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China since 2008. Elder Fu has visited many countries and received visitors from other countries as well as taking part in a number of international conferences and events on Christianity. This is his first visit to Ireland.
The Revd Peter Douglas Koon, Provincial Secretary General of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, is in part responsible for the pastoral and spiritual care of the Mandarin speaking community in Hong Kong. He has travelled to Dublin before and has delivered the prestigious Godfrey Day Memorial Lecture at Trinity College Dublin when he addressed the issues of the social work and social support structures of the Anglican Church in Hong Kong and Macau.
During the visit Elder Fu and the Revd Koon are to attend the Patronal Sung Eucharist in St Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday 17 March; the Service for the Dublin Council of Churches in St Patrick’s Cathedral on 17 March; and an Ecumenical Morning Prayer and Breakfast in Trinity College Dublin on Tuesday 19 March. They are due to meet with a number of Dublin–based clergy and to visit historically important church sites in the Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough.