Month: September 2009

Well, if you have found yourself to this point, you already know that the CTS has a new website and web address. At the AGM in May, it was announced that the CTS would be establishing its own website at a new web address. The purpose of the change is to enhance communication with CTS members, and to make CTS more visible to the wider academic community. For many years the CTS webpages have been hosted by the CCSR, and we appreciate the opportunity that this represented. However, with our pages buried within the CCSR and other society pages, many search engines and indexes did not give prominence to the CTS. In addition, the CCSR site did not provide many of the technical opportunities available on many websites today.

The new domain name of the website is CTS-STC.CA. This is intended to be a bilingual address. At this point in time, there is very little French material on this website, but we hope that it will be possible to increase the francophone participation in the CTS and that a volunteer might be found who can translate the existing pages and help us develop new content.

In addition to the website, there is another opportunity made possible by the new domain name. We now have an email listserv. This is an automated email distribution system. This will allow the CTS executive to communicate with the list members quickly and effectively.

• Subscription to the email list is currently open to the public, it is not restricted to CTS members
• This is not a discussion list. The list is intended only for the distribution of CTS- and Congress-related announcements. The CTS Facebook group is available for some discussion
• There is a list archive in case you misplace an announcement
• To avoid spam, the list requires subscribers to reply to a “confirmation email” before their subscription is activated
• The automated list allows subscribers to revise their subscription details (email address, name, html or text, etc…)
• The webmaster can assist with changing subscription details
• Our existing list of CTS members has been automatically subscribed to the new list

To add, edit, or cancel your subscription to the email list, please visit http://cts-stc.ca/email-list or email webmaster@cts-stc.ca

Finally, one other feature of the website is the new RSS feed. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a means of distributing new website postings, such as this one. By subscribing to the RSS feed with an RSS reader or aggregator, you will be notified as soon as a new post is added to the CTS website.

Ecumenism and the Challenge of Pluralism: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue

May 7-8, 2010

In May, 2010, North America’s largest ecumenical consortium of theological colleges will be hosting a conference celebrating 40 years of preparing people for ministry and academic theology around the world.  The general theme of this conference is to reflect on the ecumenical calling of the Toronto School of Theology and its calling to train and equip men and women in Christian leadership within a world of almost innumerable and often competing claims.  The Christian faith itself is also comprised of numerous and dissonant communities, each claiming to be participants in the one Church.

A keynote address will be delivered by Dr. John McGukin, a professor at Union Theological Seminary who was installed as the first Ane Marie and Bent Emil Nielsen Professor in Late Antique and Byzantine Christian History in 2008. He is a Stavrophore priest of the Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Romania) who came to New York from England in 1997 where he was formerly a Reader in Patristic and Byzantine Theology at the University of Leeds.  He has authored numerous books, including St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (2000; Nominated for the 2002 Pollock Biography Prize).  In 2005, Prof. McGuckin was invited onto BBC Radio Belfast for a Public Radio discussion on the meaning of salvation in contemporary thought and life. He is also currently working with Co-Director Norris Chumley on a feature film about monastic prayer life, entitled: ‘Sophia Secret Wisdom.’ In 2007 he was on site filming extensively in Sinai, the Egyptian desert, and the monasteries of Transylvania.

We seek proposals from a wide variety of fields that can speak to this issue and its relation to Christianity, including but not limited to systematic theology, philosophy, biblical studies, history, ethics and pastoral theology.

Proposals should be 300 – 500 words and include your name, the title of the paper and your college/university affiliation.  Proposals are due October 30, 2009.  Please send to conference@adsa.ca.