Hello and welcome to this information session on postgraduate degrees in
Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies. Over the next 10 minutes I want to introduce
you to the different degrees that we have in our postgraduate coursework and
distinguished some of the differences as well as highlight why the University of
Birmingham is an exciting place to study these movements of contemporary Christianity.
My name is Wolfgang Vondey and I'm a Professor of Christian
Theology and Pentecostal studies at the University of Birmingham and I'm also
the Director of the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies
which functions as a host for these postgraduate degrees. Our Centre has a
long history reaching back to the work of Walter Hollenweger we are the
world's oldest Centre for academic research on the global Pentecostal and
Charismatic movements and the work of Walter Hollenweger goes back to his
interest in the diversity of aspects of these movements reaching from theology
to history to the social political economic makeup of these movements and
he was Professor of Missions here at the University from 1971 to 1989.
so we continue the legacy of Hollenweger's work with a broad interest in the various
aspects and dynamics of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements but our
degrees are also embedded in the wider research agenda of the School of
Philosophy, Theology and Religion so that we try to get a critical perspective and
further views on these movements and the way that they function. That means that
in the end we are trying to offer both research and taught degrees on these
movements to push the agenda in terms of what we understand by these movements,
how they function and what kind of tools are necessary for research and for
understanding of these movements. So in principle we can say that there are two
sides to our postgraduate degrees. There's the research side
and there is the taught side. On the research side we have two degrees,
the PhD in Theology and Religion and the MA by research. On the taught side we have the
MA in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies and we offer a Postgraduate
Diploma and a Postgraduate Certificate in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies.
Now before I go into some of the differences between these programmes
I want to highlight that you can study all of our degrees at the University here on
campus but all of our courses are also offered online and for us this is an
important and exciting opportunity to bring the study of these movements to
you that you can remain in your traditional environments, in your work
environment, in your family environment but study for these degrees where you are.
Now the transition from a traditional face-to-face environment to
the online virtual environment is not always straightforward and for that
reason we have assembled a variety of resources to make the study of
Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity possible for you where you are.
That includes an extensive two-week induction for all of our courses to acquaint you,
to make you familiar with the kind of work and demands that are necessary to
bring to the online study of Postgraduate degrees. We also use a
traditional professional online learning platform that is called Canvas that
allows us to bring the different resources together on the online, the
virtual platform. We have an extensive electronic library. Our resources include
physical facilities including several libraries and archives dedicated to
Pentecostal and Charismatic work but most of our texts are also available
electronically so that you have access to them wherever you are in the world.
We use all of the professional means to bring you engaging lectures
and vibrant discussions always based on the current scholarship that we have
currently throughout the world on these rising religious movements and we use
different audio and visual technology to bring the discussions and lectures and
book reviews and any of these different varieties of teaching means to you
including the possibility to engage in training sessions as for example you may
not be familiar with certain methodologies to use in the research
programmes we offer these as well to you. So the importance for the online degrees
reaches also to the research format and here I want to highlight the two degrees
that are most widely sought and that is of course the PhD the most advanced
academic postgraduate degree that we have on the academic level with focus on
research. That means there is no taught element in these programmes
there's no coursework attached to these it is principally focused on the
production of a thesis and on the other side we have the MA by Research which is
a shorter programme and usually designed for those who may have been
absent from academia for a while, who are looking forward to a PhD but are not
quite sure whether that is right for them or what kind of topic to choose to
explore a certain methodology all of this is possible in this one year
full-time programme the MA by Research. These are the research degrees on the
one hand now on the other hand we have three levels of taught degrees and it's
helpful to just see them perhaps from the entry level to the higher level.
So on the entry level we have a postgraduate certificate that is for
those who may have been away from academia for a while, for those who are
in the Ministry, Pastors and Lay Persons who are interested in this kind of work
but are not sure if this is right so this is an entry level way to begin
postgraduate study. Then one step further is the Postgraduate Diploma a more
advanced Postgraduate work based on the work of the Certificate but reaching
forward to further study and more exploring of the different ways that we
understand the movement and all of these leads to the highest level of the taught
postgraduate programmes and that's the MA in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies
used in preparation for professional or an academic career. Now to distinguish
this a bit further it is quite straight forward to see how these three taught
degrees differ. The Certificate essentially consists of three modules
and there's no dissertation that is this is a purely taught degree and there's no
research component attached. One step further is the Diploma this consists of
six modules so it's double the size of the Certificate but also without a
dissertation so purely taught without a research component. And for students
who have an average grade of at least 60% where they are able to upgrade from
the diploma to the MA and that also has six modules but in addition to that is
the dissertation work so there's a research component in the MA. Now the
research component is quite important in our degrees but before I show you the
differences on these most of our students are interested in the module
options that we have and as I highlighted the work for us is very
important in its global dimension and in the diverse disciplinary functions of
these movements so we have a variety of modules some based on research
methodologies others on Pentecostal and Charismatic Hermeneutics we have a
module on the History of Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism we have a module on
Pentecostal and Charismatic Theology in different contexts, we have of course a
module on the importance of pneumatology the contemporary theology of the Holy
Spirit we have a module on Pentecostal and charismatic approaches to music and
worship, we have a module on world Christianity on Sociology of
Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism and so there are a
variety of options for you to choose from to construct a degree that really
allows you to go further into the study of these different movements.
Now to distinguish this further on the other side of the degrees is the requirement
of the research agenda and the demands that you have to fulfill for the
different degrees. So on the PhD which is the largest thesis we have an eighty
thousand word limit and you can see that the MA by Research is half of that a
forty thousand word limit thesis and the MA which is the taught degree in
Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies has a fifteen thousand word thesis. So that
allows you to see the kind of requirements that are in place for the
research components both in the taught and the research side of our
Postgraduate degrees as it comes to the thesis and to the dissertation you can
choose a topic of your choice really you are free to do whatever is on your heart
whatever you wanted to pursue in conversation with our staff with
advisers or with personal tutors. You will be in close monthly supervision
with our academic staff and you will be assigned to experts in your field and in
case that is needed you also have a closed writing support for the study of
these movements and for the way that these thesis or the dissertation has to
be submitted. So all of this is here in place for you to build a successful
career, to build a successful scholarship and research agenda for Pentecostal and
Charismatic Studies. Overall the centre and the work that we do in postgraduate
studies all aims at building this kind of successful scholarship important for
us is the global orientation both in the topics we offer and in the staff that we
have in place and the students we have in our classes. We have world-renowned
staff from different parts of the world with interests and expertise that comes
with different perspectives and cultural insights
language insights and of course the understanding how these movements
function in the different parts of the world. All of our staff are also
experienced supervisors and therefore are able to lead you through sometimes
several years of study especially in the research degrees. You always benefit from
shared teaching and shared research supervision so we provide you with
close supervisors who may be able to help you in a degree that requires
different kinds of requirements especially when it comes to research
methodologies. We offer personal tutoring so that you are always in touch with us
especially if you are working in the distance learning environment and we
expose you to research seminars where our researchers and our students present
their papers, their topi,c where they are, what their thesis looks like and we engage
in critical but friendly conversation on these topics and just see what else is
going on in the world of scholarship on these movements. And of course we also
have access to a wide range of academic networks including the European
Pentecostal Theological Association or the European Network on Research of
Global Pentecostalism and others to which you have access through the
University of Birmingham. All of this designed to build genuine
Pentecostal and charismatic scholarship for those who are in these movements
perhaps in an environment where you are challenged by a lack of access to
educational pedagogical means but also for those who are simply interested in
studying these movements in an environment that is interested in a
diversity of perspectives. Now if this means that you are part of this idea and
you are interested in these movements I want to invite you to look more closely
at our website and the address on your screen that is at birmingham.ac.uk/cpcs
or contact me directly at the email address on your screen.
Now this concludes the brief information session on
Postgraduate degrees and if you are interested in these please contact me and
I look forward to learning from you and about your interests in studying
Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.