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        <title>Christian Daily International | Theological Education</title>
        <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/education</link>
        <description><![CDATA[Stay informed on Christian education worldwide, from schools and universities to theological training and discipleship. Explore how faith and learning come together to equip believers and shape future church leaders.]]></description>
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            <title>Christian Daily International | Theological Education</title>
            <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/education</link>
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        <copyright>Christian Daily International © 2026</copyright>
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        <lastBuildDate>Wed, 07 Oct 2026 04:36:43 -0400</lastBuildDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[Swiss court upholds withdrawal of accreditation from theology school STH Basel]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/swiss-court-upholds-withdrawal-of-accreditation-from-theology-school-sth-basel</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/swiss-court-upholds-withdrawal-of-accreditation-from-theology-school-sth-basel</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[The entrance of STH Basel, a private Protestant theological university, is seen in Riehen, Switzerland.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ STH Basel Social Media ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ The entrance of STH Basel, a private Protestant theological university, is seen in Riehen, Switzerland. Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court on Sept. 7, 2026, dismissed the school's appeal against the Swiss Accreditation Council's 2025 decision to withdraw its accreditation as a university-level institution. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Sun, 27 Sep 2026 20:12:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court has rejected an appeal by STH Basel, a private Protestant theological university, against the loss of its accreditation as a university-level institution, the Swiss evangelical news portal Livenet.ch reported.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court has rejected an appeal by STH Basel, a private Protestant theological university, against the loss of its accreditation as a university-level institution, the Swiss evangelical news portal Livenet.ch reported.
The ruling, dated Sept. 7, leaves in place a June 2025 decision by the Swiss Accreditation Council to revoke the school's accreditation without a grace period. STH Basel has until Oct. 12 to take the case to the Federal Supreme Court.
The Immanuel Foundation, which sponsors the school, had argued during the appeal that losing accreditation would put STH Basel's existence in question and cause enrollment to fall sharply. The school says it will keep teaching and awarding degrees regardless of the outcome.
In a statement posted on its website Sept. 18, STH Basel's academic senate and the presidents of its foundation board and university council confirmed that the appeal had been dismissed.
"Regardless of this, teaching and research will continue at the well-known and recognized high level of quality," the statement said. It added that the school's right to award titles for its degrees is not tied to accreditation.
The statement did not say whether the school intends to appeal.
Conditions not met, council ruled
STH Basel, based in Riehen on the outskirts of Basel, received institutional accreditation in 2022 for a term running to 2029. That decision came with conditions and a deadline for meeting them.
According to the school, it addressed the conditions and considered them fulfilled. The agency that reviewed its compliance still found shortcomings but recommended that the council give the school more time. The council instead ordered the accreditation withdrawn outright.
Livenet reported that the council identified "significant" deficiencies in four of the nine conditions. These involved the school's quality assurance system, its use of data in strategic decisions, equality and diversity, and the evaluation of teaching and research. The reviewing agency had proposed a six-month extension, according to the report.
In dismissing the appeal, the court found that the public interest in safeguarding accreditation as a "seal of quality" outweighed the school's interest in keeping it. The withdrawal was therefore "reasonable," the court said.
The foundation had told the court that several of the criticized points could be fixed or had already been corrected.
Theology not under review
STH Basel says on its website that accreditation does not assess the theological content of its lectures, which it argues would conflict with academic freedom. The review instead examines whether research and teaching are carried out in a manner befitting a university, according to the school.
Livenet concluded in its report that the school lost its accreditation over administrative and structural shortcomings, not the quality of its theological teaching.
The school has operated since 1970. In 2014, the Swiss University Conference recognized it as a university-level institution and accredited its theology degree programs.
A year later, Reformed church bodies in Switzerland recognized STH Basel degrees, easing graduates' path into pastoral ministry.
Besides a further appeal, the school may also submit a new application for accreditation, Livenet reported.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Peru's president unveils school reform to remove content her government considers ideological]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/peru-s-president-unveils-school-reform-to-remove-ideological-content</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/peru-s-president-unveils-school-reform-to-remove-ideological-content</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Lizzie Sotola]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Keiko Fujimori (middle) during an event at the Ministry of Education. Her government announced a reform of the school curriculum to remove content it considers ideological.]]></media:title>
                                                            <media:credit role="author" scheme="urn:ebu">
                                    <![CDATA[ Presidency of Peru ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Keiko Fujimori (middle) during an event at the Ministry of Education. Her government announced a reform of the school curriculum to remove content it considers ideological. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 17 Sep 2026 04:28:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori unveiled an education reform Sept. 14 that would update the national school curriculum and remove content her government considers ideological.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori unveiled an education reform Sept. 14 that would update the national school curriculum and remove content her government considers ideological.
The review is not limited to so-called "gender ideology." Education Minister José Antonio Chang said it will also cover how schools teach the period of violence Peru experienced from 1980 to 2000. The reform follows a 2025 law that already ordered changes to sex education in schools.
Fujimori and Chang announced the plan during the presentation of the National Education Plan 2026-2031 at the José María Arguedas school in Santa Anita, a district of Lima.
Fujimori said teaching should prioritize data and verifiable information, the official gazette El Peruano reported.
Chang said: "We are going to remove every kind of ideology from the national curriculum."
The plan also aims to strengthen reading, writing, mathematics, science, civic education, English and financial education. The executive branch announced a daily reading hour and a guide to help families support their children's learning.
What content is under review
Official statements point to a broad review of the curriculum. Some outlets have reported the announcement as a specific order to eliminate "gender ideology," but the government's wording also covers the teaching of the country's recent history.
In an interview with Caretas, Chang said his ministry will review content and materials on the 1980-2000 period of violence.
He said the changes must be based on teaching criteria and scientific evidence. He also said he rejects what he considers manipulation or indoctrination in how terrorism is taught.
The government has not yet announced a timeline for the changes.
The 2025 law on gender and sex education
Law 32535, published Dec. 24, 2025, set a new framework for equal opportunities between women and men.
The law provided for replacing the National Gender Equality Policy. It also established that references to the gender approach are to be understood as references to the approach of equal opportunities between women and men.
In education, the law directed the Ministry of Education to issue sex education guidelines on a scientific, biological and ethical basis and to include them in the curriculum update. It removed references to comprehensive sexuality education. It also recognized the role of parents or guardians in their children's education.
The law is separate from this week's reform announcement. Further steps are still needed to bring the changes into classrooms.
Questions over the reform's scope
The proposal has raised questions about how the government will decide what counts as ideological content.
In an editorial, the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru expressed concern about the reform's possible effects on the teaching of the internal armed conflict, the gender approach and comprehensive sexuality education.
The executive branch has not yet defined which content will be removed or the criteria it will use to apply the changes.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Dominican evangelical body urges national response to falling PISA scores]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/dominican-evangelical-body-urges-national-response-to-falling-pisa-scores</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/dominican-evangelical-body-urges-national-response-to-falling-pisa-scores</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Lizzie Sotola]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[High school students walk between classes.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Antonio_Diaz/iStock ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ High school students walk between classes. Seven of 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries assessed in the latest PISA round posted average score declines, and the Dominican Evangelical Alliance has called for limits on cellphone use during school hours as part of a national response. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:45:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[More than 700,000 15-year-old students took part in the latest edition of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). According to CNN en Español, seven of the 13 countries assessed in the region posted average declines compared with previous measurements, confirming a picture of stalled learning affecting young people.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
More than 700,000 15-year-old students took part in the latest edition of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). According to CNN en Español, seven of the 13 countries assessed in the region posted average declines compared with previous measurements, confirming a picture of stalled learning affecting young people.
The international assessment covered science, math and reading in 91 countries. The organization warned that the overall level achieved in this round represents "one of the lowest levels of educational performance ever recorded for the PISA tests," pointing to structural challenges in classrooms across the continent.
In response, the Dominican Evangelical Alliance (AEDO) called for a national response to the country's low student learning levels. In a statement, the organization proposed strengthening basic skills, reviewing teacher training, and promoting greater involvement from families and society as a whole in education.
According to the PISA report on the Dominican Republic, only 9% of students assessed reached the minimum proficiency level in math, 23% in reading and 26% in science.
"This data isn't just a poor international score; it's a serious warning about the present and future of our nation," said Bishop Reynaldo Franco Aquino, AEDO's president.
The organization warned that difficulties in understanding texts, reasoning and interpreting evidence undermine teenagers' preparedness to function in society. In its view, the problem also requires addressing motivation, study habits, perseverance and family support.
The statement noted that between 2022 and 2025, the share of students who said they work harder when faced with difficult tasks fell by 10.8 percentage points, while curiosity dropped 10.2 points.
Another focus of the statement was the use of digital devices. AEDO said technology can expand access to knowledge, but warned of the risks of using it in ways that replace reading, reflection and independent work. It called for effectively regulating cellphone use during school hours and developing programs on digital responsibility and critical thinking.
Among its proposals is an emergency plan to strengthen reading, math and science, with public goals and regular assessments. It also called for reviewing teacher training, hiring and support, while ensuring decent working conditions.
The organization also called for greater transparency around education spending, so that accountability measures show how much students are actually learning. It further called for strengthening school attendance, punctuality and discipline.
AEDO said these responsibilities go beyond the Ministry of Education and involve schools, teachers, families, churches, media outlets and community organizations. In particular, it stressed that parents cannot fully hand off their children's upbringing to schools.
As part of its response, the alliance said it was ready to mobilize churches, schools, universities and community organizations to organize reading clubs, tutoring, family support programs and guidance on the responsible use of technology. It stressed that these initiatives need to be part of a sustained, measurable national strategy.
"PISA's results shouldn't leave us so ashamed that we're paralyzed — they should shake us into action," Franco Aquino said, urging that the findings be translated into decisions, sustained education policy and concrete results.
Original reporting by Diario Cristiano, Christian Daily International's Spanish edition.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Afghanistan is the only country that bars girls past sixth grade. New research shows they are still learning.]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/afghanistan-bars-girls-past-sixth-grade-new-research-shows-how-they-keep-learning</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/afghanistan-bars-girls-past-sixth-grade-new-research-shows-how-they-keep-learning</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[A student thumbs through a notebook during class at a secret school on August 14, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Nava Jamshidi/Getty Images ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - AUGUST 14: A student thumbs through a notebook during class at a secret school on August 14, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Secondary education for girls has been banned since shortly after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, spurring the creation of secret, unofficial schools for older girls. Four years on, some girls and women are accessing learning online, though patchy internet access limits how far it reaches. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 13:58:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls are shut out of school beyond the sixth grade, and where women are barred from university. Five years into that ban, new research suggests the classroom doors closed but the learning did not stop.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls are shut out of school beyond the sixth grade, and where women are barred from university. Five years into that ban, new research suggests the classroom doors closed but the learning did not stop.
Findings from 2,612 Afghan respondents, released Tuesday (Sept. 8) on International Literacy Day, describe girls and young women studying through private courses, online lessons, borrowed phones and small study circles organized among friends. The research was presented by Benazir Poya, head of Anar Academy, at a global virtual event hosted by the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) and moderated by its secretary general, Dr. Matthias Boehning.
Poya was careful to say the alternatives are not a substitute. Informal learning "can preserve hope," she said, but it cannot restore the right to an education.
The event, "Denied the Right to Learn: Educational Continuity, Human Rights and Human Security in Afghanistan," also drew speakers from Human Rights Watch and UNICEF, along with Afghan students who joined from inside the country on weak connections.
Rapid decline following Taliban take-over
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021 as United States forces completed their withdrawal. Within weeks, girls were barred from returning to secondary school. In December 2022, universities were closed to women as well.
The Taliban's then education minister, Nida Mohammad Nadim, defended that decision at the time, saying women had failed to observe strict dress requirements and that certain fields of study did not fit Afghan tradition. "Girls should learn, but not in areas that go against Islam and Afghan honor," he told an Afghan broadcaster, according to reporting by The Associated Press. He said universities would reopen for women once the concerns were addressed. They have not.
Further restrictions followed: on employment, on travel without a male relative, on public parks, gyms and bathhouses.
Improvised education
Anar Academy, based in Germany, gathered its responses in the second half of March 2026 from 30 provinces, with most respondents inside Afghanistan and a smaller group who had left. Poya said the picture that emerged was not one of empty days but of improvised ones.
Girls have turned to language classes, tailoring and skills courses, and above all to whatever can be delivered over a phone, she said. Some reported no learning at all.
Nearly all respondents said they had a phone or laptop. Far fewer said their connection was dependable. Online study keeps a rhythm going, Poya said — contact with a teacher, subjects to work through, other students to talk to — but it produces no diploma, no route into a university, and no guarantee of a quiet or private place to sit and work at home.
She pointed to consequences that reach well past the syllabus. Learners described stalled futures, shrinking social contact and steady psychological strain. The effects touch household income, health and dignity, she said, not only schooling.
Poya asked that the persistence documented in the survey not be misread as a sign that the situation is tolerable. Resilience, she said, "is not evidence of adequacy. It's evidence of agency."
Anar Academy's recommendations begin with the unconditional reopening of secondary schools and universities to girls and women. Beyond that, Poya called for safeguards protecting online learners' privacy and safety; recognition by universities abroad of accredited online study, including transcripts and admission pathways; and funding committed over several years rather than in short grants. She noted that respondents were reached through the internet, so the survey speaks for connected learners rather than for the country as a whole.
The briefing paper is the first of a planned series. Anar Academy and ISHR intend to track the same questions over time.
'It will not stay in Afghanistan'
Fereshta Abbasi, a researcher in the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch, addressed the event by pre-recorded video.
Afghanistan has signed both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the convention on discrimination against women, Abbasi said, and the Taliban as de facto authorities are bound by those commitments. She described the education ban as one part of a wider pattern that Human Rights Watch identified in a September 2023 report as the crime against humanity of gender persecution. The organization called on the International Criminal Court to investigate; the court issued arrest warrants for Taliban leaders on gender persecution charges last year.
Abbasi warned against treating the situation as ordinary. "What is happening in Afghanistan will not stay in Afghanistan," she said, arguing that the rollback of women's rights in one country weakens them everywhere.
The women affected are not an abstraction, she said. Some were months from finishing school in August 2021; others were already teaching or earning. Many now live with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress.
Abbasi set out a series of steps for governments and United Nations bodies, from humanitarian funding to accountability mechanisms. But her closing appeal was aimed at what individuals can do: Talk about Afghan women and girls, she said, and do not let the rest of the world forget them.
Education among wider decline in human rights
The restrictions on education sit within a broader legal shift. Christian Daily International reported in February, republishing coverage from The Christian Post, that the Taliban's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, had signed a new criminal procedure code that divides Afghan society into ranked categories and prescribes different punishments for the same offence depending on a person's status.
Legal analysts and rights groups quoted in that reporting said the code's language distinguishing free persons from slaves amounts to treating slavery as a lawful category, and that it strips out basic protections such as access to a lawyer.
United Nations officials described the code as part of a system of gender apartheid.
A rights crisis and a learning crisis
Tomoko Shibuya, senior adviser for education at UNICEF, joined from Nairobi and set the survey findings against national figures. UNICEF estimates that 3.8 million girls aged 7 to 18 were out of school in 2024, including more than 2.6 million adolescents, she said.
She added a second problem that receives less attention. A 2025 assessment found that 93% of Afghan children, boys as well as girls, cannot read and understand a simple age-appropriate sentence by the end of primary school. Afghanistan, in Shibuya's words, is dealing with a rights crisis and a learning crisis at the same time.
That combination matters for what comes next, she said. Girls pushed into informal study have often had only a few years of foundational schooling to build on, which limits how far self-directed learning can carry them.
Shibuya cautioned against admiring the resilience without acting on it. "Girls should not have to shoulder the risk and responsibility of their education," she said.
Only the de facto authorities can lift the ban, she said. In the meantime, she set out three priorities: Afghan-led community learning spaces that include psychosocial support and practical skills; investment in early and primary education so children gain at least seven years of solid schooling; and digital learning designed for low bandwidth and offline use, so that poor connectivity does not exclude girls a second time.
Marco Mantovanelli of the Global Partnership for Education addressed the financing side, noting that education has historically received only a small share of humanitarian funding worldwide — roughly 2% to 4% — and that continuity cannot be sustained on short grants. His organization works through partner agencies on the ground rather than through the Taliban administration, he said, directing funds to community-based and remedial classes.
Boehning closed by asking Poya what keeps her from concluding that Afghanistan's girls are a lost generation. Poya, who completed a master's degree before the restrictions and now lives in Germany with two young children, said she treats the education she received as an obligation to those denied it. Her students, she said, should not be left with the impression that no one is on their side.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Save the Parish report warns of 'existential' fall in Church of England parish clergy]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/save-the-parish-report-warns-of-existential-fall-in-church-of-england-parish-clergy</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/save-the-parish-report-warns-of-existential-fall-in-church-of-england-parish-clergy</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[church of England, Anglican church, bible]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ iStock / coldsnowstorm ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ A Save the Parish report published Sept. 4 warns of a crisis in stipendiary clergy numbers and calls for reforms to training, funding and clergy support. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 07 Sep 2026 09:25:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Save the Parish, a campaign group within the Church of England, published a report Sept. 4 warning that the number of stipendiary parish clergy has fallen to crisis levels and that more priests are now leaving ministry by resignation than by retirement.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Save the Parish, a campaign group within the Church of England, published a report Sept. 4 warning that the number of stipendiary parish clergy has fallen to crisis levels and that more priests are now leaving ministry by resignation than by retirement.
The report, "Parish Ministry: Addressing the Crisis in Stipendiary Clergy Numbers in the Church of England," follows a two-day consultation the group convened March 23-24 at St George's House, Windsor Castle. Participants included two bishops, two archdeacons, principals and lecturers from theological training institutions, two diocesan directors of ordinands, four staff from Church House and representatives of the English Clergy Association.
The document identifies problems in three areas — attracting candidates for ordination, training them and retaining them in post — and sets out six lines of action. Among them are fully funded ordination training, a halt to diocesan clergy cuts, a "covenant of care" for serving clergy and a new method of measuring what parish ministry achieves. In its announcement of the report, Save the Parish said the consultation had produced a consensus among participants on the need to reform training, rebuild trust between clergy and church structures, and secure funding for those preparing for ordination.
Church of England ministry statistics published in May 2026, cited in the report, record 6,682 clergy in stipendiary ministry and 2,440 self-supporting ministers. The largest group of active clergy are retired priests holding permission to officiate, who number 8,368. Of those in stipendiary ministry, 3,153 — close to half — are over 55.
The May figures included data on departures for the first time, according to the report. They show 379 clergy resigned during the year, against 278 who retired.
Entries to ordination training peaked at 591 in 2020, the report says, then dropped to 370 in 2024, with a partial recovery to 417 in 2025. The 2025 figure was supplied to the consultation by the Rev. Canon Nicholas McKee, the Church of England's director of ministry.
Marcus Walker, chairman of Save the Parish and rector of Great St Bartholomew in London, wrote on the social media platform X that the fall in ordinations and the rate of departures together threaten the church's basic functions.
"This is existential for the CofE," he wrote. "If we don't have men and women coming forward for the priesthood we can't have priests ministering the sacraments, preaching the Gospel, visiting the sick, baptising babies. And we won't have priests coming forward if the clergy are burnt out."
Save the Parish described the parish priest in its announcement as becoming an "endangered species."
Wellbeing identified as the main obstacle
The report draws a direct line between the condition of serving clergy and the shortage of candidates. At a national vocations conversation held in York in 2024, 71% of participants — heads of theological colleges and diocesan directors of ordinands — identified clergy wellbeing as the primary factor working against vocations, outweighing demographic change and lack of resources, the report says.
It cites the Living Ministry survey, a longitudinal study of clergy conducted between 2017 and 2025 and published by Church House in December 2025, which found that 29% of clergy recorded scores indicating possible mild to clinical depression and that two in five reported feeling isolated. According to the same research, administrative workload rather than total hours worked is the main source of stress, because it displaces pastoral work. The survey also found that only 3.9% of respondents regarded the church's leadership as a source of hope.
Participants agreed that parish clergy are often deeply unhappy, the report states, describing them as feeling "undervalued, under-resourced, overworked, frustrated and vulnerable" — and therefore poorly placed to encourage others toward ordination.
Several groups at the consultation identified a breakdown of trust between parish clergy and dioceses or the national church. The report attributes this to the emphasis on numerical growth, pastoral reorganization, lack of job security, parish finances and a sense that senior leaders are unaware of local pressures. Competitive bidding for funding from the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board, it says, places parishes in competition and sometimes sets clergy up to fail.
Insufficient theological education
On training, the report says a large majority of participants across disciplines considered theological education to have become functional and managerial, with insufficient teaching in Anglican ecclesiology, liturgy, history and theology. A majority held that theological and biblical formation needed strengthening.
Participants also raised the relationship between initial ministerial education before ordination and the training that continues afterward, arguing the two phases are neither properly integrated nor clearly distinguished. Shifting theological content into the post-ordination phase, without the resources of a training institution, risks that material never being taught, the report says.
Candidates frequently arrive with little knowledge of Anglican liturgy, orders or theology and struggle when they reach parish ministry in their curacy, according to the document. It also records that dioceses often lack the resources for vocations work and that candidates have no access to grants for travel or books, which the report says disadvantages those with less money.
Recommendations to pave a way forward
The report's central argument is that recruitment, training and retention all depend on a clear theological account of Anglican priesthood. Without a confident understanding of the office, it argues, neither candidates nor serving clergy can be sustained.
Its recommendations include a course in "Anglican basics," delivered in parishes or deaneries with accompanying online material, beginning as a pilot and intended for national use.
Other proposals are a national conference on the nature of Anglican priesthood; full funding for ordination training in both residential and non-residential modes; grants for candidates' travel and books; and removal of the fixed retirement age for clergy, alongside representation for retired clergy on synods. Retired clergy conduct about half of all services, the report says, yet have no formal representation.
Under the heading of a covenant of care, the report calls for an end to clergy post cuts made as a savings measure, a support and study group for every ordinand, and a mentor for every cleric, separate from any formal assessment.
The Rev. Gillian Straine, chief executive of the Guild of Health and St Raphael, will work on an alternative model of impact that measures ministry by lives touched rather than by numbers, the report says, to be piloted alongside research into the wellbeing of the clergy taking part. The report also suggests a return to part-time or time-limited diocesan roles so that senior clergy remain close to parish work.
A review of theological education to be led by the Rt. Rev. Martin Seeley, the retired bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich who chaired the consultation, may take forward the work on initial ministerial education, according to the report.
The consultation took place against a background of diocesan deficits and reductions in stipendiary posts, the report acknowledges, adding that its recommendations may appear modest in that setting.
Speaking to Christian Today, Walker said clergy who find joy in their work are the church's most effective recruiters. "This report isn't the answer to everything, but it has got all the right people into the room to start working out how we can use the money, talent, passion, and grace we have been gifted to revive the spirit of the priesthood in the Church of England," he said.
Save the Parish said it would seek funding to produce short videos commending parish ministry to young people and would look for a theological training institution to partner with on the proposed conference.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Lawmakers in Pakistan’s Punjab seek equal religious education opportunities for minority prisoners]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/lawmakers-in-pakistans-punjab-seek-equal-religious-education-opportunities-for-minority-prisoners</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/lawmakers-in-pakistans-punjab-seek-equal-religious-education-opportunities-for-minority-prisoners</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[File photo of the Punjab Assembly building in Lahore, where lawmakers are expected to table proposed legislation aimed at protecting minority communal properties.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ File photo of the Punjab Assembly building in Lahore, Pakistan. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 07 Sep 2026 09:14:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Christian rights activists have welcomed a resolution adopted by the Punjab Provincial Assembly calling for equal opportunities for prisoners from religious minorities to receive religious education, take examinations and qualify for sentence remission.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Christian rights activists have welcomed a resolution adopted by the Punjab Provincial Assembly calling for equal opportunities for prisoners from religious minorities to receive religious education, take examinations and qualify for sentence remission.
The resolution, moved by treasury member Raheela Khadim Hussain and adopted by majority vote on Tuesday (Sept. 1), cited Rule 215 of the Punjab Prison Rules 1978, under which prisoners may receive remission in their sentences for acquiring religious education in accordance with the law.
Official data cited in the resolution showed that 2,558 Muslim prisoners benefited from sentence remission after completing religious education between 2020 and 2025. The resolution called for effective implementation of a similar system for prisoners belonging to minority faiths.
It said Christian, Hindu, Sikh and other minority prisoners should be given equal opportunities to study their respective religious curricula, sit examinations and receive sentence remission after successfully completing their studies.
Christian organizations and prison ministries have criticized Pakistan’s religious-education-based remission system, saying that although prison rules provide for minority prisoners to benefit, the provisions have not been implemented effectively.
The Lahore-based Center for Social Justice reported that Punjab granted sentence remission to 1,653 Muslim prisoners for Quranic study between 2022 and 2024, while no minority prisoner received comparable remission during the same period. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 284 Muslim prisoners received remission between 2023 and 2025, with no recorded beneficiaries from minority communities, according to the organization’s 2025 Human Rights Observer Report.
Safdar Choudhry of the Raah-e-Nijaat prison ministry welcomed the Punjab Assembly resolution, saying minority inclusion was already provided for under prison rules but remained weak in practice.
“A 2008 amendment to the Pakistan Prison Rules expanded the remission framework to include minority religious texts, recognizing that non-Muslim prisoners could qualify for sentence reductions through the study of their sacred scriptures,” Choudhry told Christian Daily International.
He said Punjab’s Law and Parliamentary Affairs Department approved a Bible-based syllabus in 2023 consisting of five units. Under the framework, prisoners can earn remission of between 15 and 60 days per unit over a five-year period, for a maximum of 180 days, he said.
Choudhry expressed hope that the resolution would prompt the prison authorities to address gaps in policy and implementation and ensure that existing provisions are applied equally.
He said the Pakistan Bible Correspondence School had submitted a prison curriculum developed in consultation with the Catholic Church, the Church of Pakistan, Presbyterian churches and the Salvation Army.
“The courses in Urdu language are in a simple format using objective questions and fill-in-the-blank exercises to make them accessible for Christian inmates,” he said. “We hope that the prison authorities will now appoint instructors to teach those courses.”
A significant challenge, however, is illiteracy among a majority of non-Muslim prisoners, Choudhry said.
“Several minority prisoners are illiterate and must first receive basic education before pursuing formal or religious studies,” he said.
A study published in the Journal of Asian Development Studies reported that 1,588 minority prisoners were held in 45 Punjab prisons as of March 2025. Of those, 1,315 were under trial, 232 had been convicted, 34 were unconfirmed condemned prisoners and seven were confirmed death-row inmates.
More recent data from the Punjab Inspectorate of Prisons, through April 2026, recorded 1,075 minority prisoners, including 1,034 Christians, 38 Hindus and three Sikhs.
The June 2025 study said that, with the exception of Punjab, federal and provincial authorities had failed to approve curricula for minority religious education for decades, limiting prisoners’ ability to benefit from provisions allowing sentence remission based on religious education and improved conduct.
“The provinces were sufficiently empowered to make their rules to implement all remedies that were available to the majority of prisoners. Hence, there is no excuse for continued discriminatory attitudes towards minority prisoners,” the study said.
The study also pointed to differences in the remission provisions available to Muslim and minority prisoners.
Punjab’s prison policies provide special remission for Muslim prisoners who regularly perform prayers and observe fasting during Ramadan, in addition to other forms of religious-study-related remission, according to the study.
It said Rule 215(vii) allows prisoners belonging to minority religions, including Hindus, Christians and Sikhs, to qualify for remission by reading and understanding their respective religious texts, including the Bhagavad Gita, Bible and Guru Granth Sahib. They can receive up to six months’ remission, it said.
However, the study noted that special remission for religious observance is available to Muslim prisoners but does not have an equivalent provision for minority prisoners, creating an unequal system of incentives.
In Sindh, the Sindh Prisons and Corrections Service Act 2019 provides various forms of remission related to religious study. The study said Muslim prisoners can receive remission for learning to read the Quran, understanding Islamic teachings and memorizing the Quran, with the potential remission varying according to the level of achievement.
It also noted that Hindu and Christian prisoners may receive three months’ remission for reading the Bhagavad Gita or Bible, respectively, but said there was no structured or approved curriculum for minority prisoners equivalent to that available for Muslim inmates.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Prison Rules 2018 provide remission to prisoners who pass examinations on the meanings of the Quran and Islamic fundamentals. The study said non-Muslim prisoners could also sit examinations on their respective holy books and religious fundamentals to qualify for remission.
The rules also provide additional remission for Muslim prisoners who memorize the Quran or learn its translation, as well as special remission linked to regular prayers and fasting during Ramadan, according to the study.
The researchers recommended that prison authorities provide basic literacy education to minority prisoners so they can take advantage of opportunities for formal and religious education.
They also urged prison departments across Pakistan to regularly collect and publish updated data on sentence remission by religious affiliation to monitor equality and identify disparities.
The study further recommended amending provincial prison rules to provide equivalent remission for non-Muslim prisoners who observe their religious practices, including fasting during periods such as Lent for Christians and Navratri for Hindus, and attending regular prayers.
It also called for religious-study-based remission to be made equivalent for prisoners of all faiths, including opportunities to read, memorize and demonstrate an understanding of their respective sacred texts.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Does interacting with AI make people act more like robots? Researchers say 'yes']]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/does-interacting-with-ai-make-people-act-more-like-robots-researchers-say-yes</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/does-interacting-with-ai-make-people-act-more-like-robots-researchers-say-yes</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[The Christian Post]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Does interacting with AI make people act more like robots? Researchers say yes]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Screenshot/YouTube/Morgan Stanley ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ A screenshot of an informational video from Morgan Stanley on the intersection of AI and the physical economy. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:12:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Researchers from universities in the U.K., Denmark and Sweden have proposed a new framework for understanding how repeated interactions with increasingly human-like artificial intelligence could influence people's behavior and self-perception.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Researchers from universities in the U.K., Denmark and Sweden have proposed a new framework for understanding how repeated interactions with increasingly human-like artificial intelligence could influence people's behavior and self-perception.
Dubbed “robotoid humanness,” the proposed phenomenon describes a two-way process in which AI systems become more human-like while people might adapt their behavior to become more compatible with machines.
The research, published Aug. 19 in the open-access journal AI & Society, focuses particularly on AI-powered social robots and other systems used in customer-service settings, including retail, hospitality, tourism and healthcare.
Titled "Robotoid humanness: when selfhood becomes machine-legible," the paper argues that human-AI interactions can go beyond simple exchanges between a person and a technological tool.
"As generative systems and socially responsive service agents enter everyday consumption, human-AI interaction increasingly resembles a quasi-social encounter rather than a utilitarian interface," the study found, according to Springer Nature.
Inci Toral-Manson, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Birmingham and one of the researchers, said the interaction can work in both directions.
“Our research explores how dealing with these anthropomorphized robots can create a bidirectional influence, where robots become more like people, and people become more like robots, which we call ‘robotoid humanness,’” Toral-Manson said in a statement provided by the University of Birmingham.
Designed to imitate aspects of human communication, including gestures, speech and emotional cues, social robots, much like AI and machine-learning systems, can also adjust their behavior in response to individual users, according to the study.
The researchers argue that people can respond to those cues through a process known as mirroring, in which individuals unconsciously imitate the behaviors, expressions or communication styles of others.
Selcen Ozturkcan, an associate professor of business administration at Linnaeus University, described the proposed process as a continuing exchange between the user and the machine.
“The consumer acts, the robot responds, and with repeated exposure, in time the consumer internalizes the exchange,” she said, adding that the process can be considerably amplified by machine learning and AI.
“For people, the innate instinct to mirror can lead to people returning the robot’s communicative behaviors, making them more robot-like,” Ozturkcan added.
The researchers argue that repeated exposure could potentially influence how consumers perceive themselves, particularly as AI systems become better at personalizing their responses.
These concerns could become even more relevant as AI becomes increasingly common in customer-service environments, according to Jean-Paul Jde Cros Peronard, an associate professor at Aarhus University.
“Robots and AI are now commonplace in customer service, and so it is important that we understand how people interact with them for businesses to use the technology at their disposal to best effect, whilst remaining ethical,” said Peronard.
Originally published by The Christian Post.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Six in 10 Christian secondary students in Korea report clash between school and church teaching]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/six-in-10-christian-secondary-students-in-korea-report-clash-between-school-and-church-teaching</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/six-in-10-christian-secondary-students-in-korea-report-clash-between-school-and-church-teaching</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Young Christians take part in a worship service in South Korea]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Young Christians take part in a worship service in South Korea. A survey by the Pastoral Data Research Institute found that 59% of church-attending middle and high school students in South Korea have felt that what they learn at school contradicts what they are taught at church, while only 23% of churches provide regular instruction in biblical values. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 02 Sep 2026 07:06:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[About six in 10 Christian middle and high school students in South Korea say they have encountered contradictions between what they are taught in the classroom and what they hear at church, according to survey findings released by the Pastoral Data Research Institute in South Korea.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
About six in 10 Christian middle and high school students in South Korea say they have encountered contradictions between what they are taught in the classroom and what they hear at church, according to survey findings released by the Pastoral Data Research Institute in South Korea and reported by Christian Daily Korea.
Only 23% of churches provide regular instruction in biblical values for church school students and their parents, the same research found. The institute, known as PDRI, said the results indicate that education aimed at shaping the worldview of the next generation is not sufficient.
The figures appeared Aug. 25 in the 347th edition of PDRI's weekly "Numbers" report, under the heading "Clash of Worldviews: Compartmentalized Faith." They are drawn from "Korean Church Next Generation Trends 2026," a study the institute published in May with the organization Future With Dreams, covering seven groups that included senior pastors, church-attending students and their parents, church school teachers and ministry workers, and students who have left the church.
Where the contradictions appear
Fifty-nine percent of churchgoing secondary students said they had at some point felt that school teaching and church teaching pointed in different directions, a figure that combines those answering "often" and "sometimes."
Science produced the sharpest sense of conflict, cited by 60% of students, with evolution and accounts of the origin of the universe given as leading examples. Ethics and sexuality followed at 37%, society and politics at 34%, and the interpretation of history and culture at 32%.
Students also reported other faith-related difficulties at high rates. Fifty-eight percent said they struggled with the presence of evil, disaster and suffering, and 54% said they found some biblical instruction hard to regard as realistic, including the command to love one's enemies.
Left without an answer
Few students reached a settled conclusion when they sensed a contradiction. Twenty-one percent said they suspended judgment, 20% said they tried to hold the two together and 19% said they avoided the question or did not know — 60% in total. One in four, or 24%, said they gave priority to trusting what the church taught.
Church leaders were not the first people students approached. Twenty-nine percent said they worked through such questions alone, 24% turned to parents and 20% to friends, while 18% went to a pastor and 17% to a church school teacher.
"This is a situation that calls for examining whether the church community has built an environment of trust in which students can ask questions freely when they discover contradictions," PDRI said in its analysis, adding that churches should also consider whether they are equipped to receive and interpret those questions within the faith.
Faith kept separate from daily life
The survey found evidence of what PDRI described as compartmentalized faith. Forty-eight percent of Christian secondary students said that when they face real problems, they reach for practical solutions before faith. Thirty-eight percent said they think of faith and daily life as separate matters, 35% said the same of school life and faith, and 35% said they had rarely applied prayer or Scripture to everyday situations.
Adults in the survey were more likely than students to see secular values as dominant, Christian Daily Korea reported. Fifty-five percent of parents said secular values carry greater influence than biblical ones, along with 46% of ministry workers, 35% of teachers and 26% of students. In each group, between 11% and 16% said biblical values carry more weight.
Gaps in church teaching
Asked about instruction in biblical values for church school students and their parents, 23% of senior pastors said their churches provide it on a regular basis. Fifty-four percent said it takes place irregularly and 23% said it does not take place at all.
Teaching capacity emerged as a further constraint. Only 27% of church school teachers said they were able to explain biblical values to students in detail. Separately, 73% of church school ministry workers judged current church education inadequate for helping students apply biblical values to daily life, according to the institute's report.
Where such teaching does occur, teachers reported results. Sixty-nine percent said values education brings about meaningful change in students, 62% said it prompts questions or other responses, and 61% said students attempt to apply it to problems at school and in daily life.
The relationship between teacher and student appeared to shape the outcome. Among teachers who described that relationship as satisfactory, 74% reported meaningful change in students; among those who did not, the figure fell to 44%, a gap of 30 percentage points.
"This suggests that the key factor determining the practical effect of values education is not only the content of the teaching but the formation of a relationship between teacher and student," PDRI said.
Calls for change
More than 90% of both senior pastors and church school ministry workers said education that integrates faith and life is important for the next generation. A comparable share in each group agreed that such teaching should extend beyond faith itself to everyday life.
PDRI argued that faith education should move beyond transmitting information toward equipping students to interpret science, ethics, society and other areas of daily experience from a biblical perspective. Churches in South Korea, it said, need to build "safe communities for questions" where students can work through their confusion.
A strict religious atmosphere in many congregations has prevented such a culture from taking root, PDRI said, pointing to the number of students who suspend judgment or handle their questions alone. It called for relationships in which pastors and church school teachers listen to students' difficulties and look for answers with them.
PDRI also recommended strengthening teacher training through instruction in Christian worldview and values, along with programs and retreats intended to build closer relationships between teachers and students, according to Christian Daily Korea.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Shortage of religious studies teachers in UK 'worsening' despite rising demand]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/shortage-of-religious-studies-teachers-in-uk-worsening-despite-rising-demand</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/shortage-of-religious-studies-teachers-in-uk-worsening-despite-rising-demand</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Christian Today]]></dc:creator>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash / CDC ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2026 05:55:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Despite the increasing demand for Religious Studies (RS) as a GCSE subject, experts have continued to warn of a shortage of specialist teachers in the subject.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Despite the increasing demand for Religious Studies (RS) as a GCSE subject, experts have continued to warn of a shortage of specialist teachers in the subject.
In England this year the number of students taking RS as a GCSE increased by 0.5 per cent to 218,602, making it the seventh most popular subject out of 58 offered at GCSE level. At present there are 6,407 specialist teachers in the subject, meaning that based on this year's numbers, each teacher would have an average of 34 students.
The Religious Education Council of England & Wales (REC) and the National Association of Teachers of RE (NATRE) have warned that the sector is facing a recruitment deficit. This year just 120 new teachers with post-A-level qualifications in the subject entered the workforce in England.
Earlier this year the government indicated it would be adding RS to the national curriculum in a bid to improve social cohesion. Katie Freeman, Chair of NATRE, welcomed the move, saying it would put RS on an equal footing with other subjects and end the “postcode lottery” of provision in the subject.
The REC has also previously noted that many of those who currently teach RS at GCSE do so as a secondary subject. In the worst cases RS is taught in a “tokenistic” manner due to the lack of available specialists.
Speaking on the latest GCSE figures, Sarah Lane Cawte, Chair of the REC, called the current situation a "reality check".
“I have never seen such a demand from school leaders for religious education. The message we’re getting is clear: schools want a subject that builds mutual understanding between different religious and non-religious backgrounds and an academic approach to life’s big questions," she said.
She added, “The current state of the workforce provides a reality check. The number of RE teachers hasn’t grown meaningfully for a decade, which means the ratio of specialist teachers to students is worsening.
"The outcome, as Ofsted recently found, is tokenistic and poorly taught religious education. Restoring the training bursary and the subject knowledge enhancement grant is the only meaningful way to address the issue.” 
Katie Freeman, Chair of NATRE, commented, “The decision to cut the recent training bursary after just two years was a mistake. Its introduction had led to a 60% uptick in applications and was starting to reverse the decade long drift in recruitment. Looking into the future, we need to grow the workforce urgently by restoring the bursary if we want to deliver high-quality RE for every child in every school.”
Originally published by Christian Today.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Dallas seminary partners with India school to launch biblical counseling degree]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/dallas-seminary-partners-with-india-school-to-launch-biblical-counseling-degree</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/dallas-seminary-partners-with-india-school-to-launch-biblical-counseling-degree</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Stephen George, president of Evangelical Theological Seminary in India, and Michael Ortiz, vice president for global ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, shake hands following the signing of a partnership agreement to launch a new Christian counseli]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Dallas Theological Seminary ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Stephen George, president of Evangelical Theological Seminary in India, and Michael Ortiz, vice president for global ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, shake hands following the signing of a partnership agreement to launch a new Christian counseling program in India. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:27:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Dallas Theological Seminary has formed an academic partnership with Evangelical Theological Seminary in India to launch a graduate-level Christian counseling program, with a long-term plan for the Indian institution to operate the program on its own.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Dallas Theological Seminary has formed an academic partnership with Evangelical Theological Seminary in India to launch a graduate-level Christian counseling program, with a long-term plan for the Indian institution to operate the program on its own.
Evangelical Theological Seminary (ETS), located in Bagalur near Bangalore and operated as a ministry of Asian Christian Academy, will enroll its first cohort of 11 students in a Master of Arts in Christian Counseling beginning in fall 2026. The program is structured so ETS can eventually sustain and administer it independently of its American partner, according to a joint announcement.
Under the arrangement, students will complete their Bible and theology coursework at ETS while taking selected counseling modules from Dallas Theological Seminary's Master of Arts in Counseling Ministries curriculum. Those enrolled in the counseling portion will register as nondegree students at DTS, with instruction delivered through online courses and in-person teaching by DTS faculty traveling to India.
ETS was founded in 1978 by Isaac John, a Dallas Theological Seminary alumnus who had studied there in 1973 before returning to India to establish theological training suited to the local context. Accredited by the Asia Theological Association, the seminary offers postgraduate and doctoral programs in biblical studies, theology, and ministry, and describes its mission as equipping men and women for Christian leadership across India and Asia.
Stephen George, president of ETS, said church growth in India had created demand for trained counselors that existing programs were not meeting.
"ETS offers degrees for pastors, theologians, and ministry leaders in India, but as the church continues to grow, we identified a need for qualified Christian counselors," George said. "We're honored to cocreate a pathway to raise up a generation of biblically rooted counselors throughout India."
Michael Ortiz, vice president for global ministries at DTS and head of the International Council of Evangelical Theological Education, said the partnership is built around transferring ownership of the program to ETS over time.
"Our long-term plan is to equip qualified counselors and professors in India so that ETS can take over the degree and offer it independently of DTS," Ortiz said. "This is what global multiplication and discipleship look like, where we plan ahead and collaborate for the benefit of the church worldwide."
The two institutions have maintained a relationship for several years. Ongoing conversations between them identified a growing need for biblically grounded counseling training among pastors, ministry leaders, and lay counselors serving churches and communities across the region, they said.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[India’s Cockroach protests: Education minister resigns. The government is still deciding how to lose.]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/indias-cockroach-protests-education-minister-resigns-the-government-is-still-deciding-how-to-lose</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/indias-cockroach-protests-education-minister-resigns-the-government-is-still-deciding-how-to-lose</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Surinder Kaur]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Dharmendra Pradhan, Indias education minister, speaks during an official meeting.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Dharmendra Pradhan, India's education minister, speaks during an official meeting. Pradhan resigned July 25, 2025, amid student protests over leaks in the NEET national medical entrance exam, becoming the central demand of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party movement. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Young protesters create hand-drawn signs at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during a demonstration organized by the Cockroach Janta Party.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Young protesters create hand-drawn signs at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during a demonstration organized by the Cockroach Janta Party. Posters spread across the ground call for accountability over leaks in India's NEET medical entrance exam. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned July 25, 2025, meeting a central demand of the 49-day protest movement. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Demonstrators climb atop a Delhi Police barricade to watch proceedings at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during protests led by the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Demonstrators climb atop a Delhi Police barricade to watch proceedings at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during protests led by the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party. The movement, which drew students from across India, pressured the government to address corruption in the NEET national medical entrance exam and ultimately forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation July 25, 2025. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Sun, 26 Jul 2026 18:23:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[When Christian Daily International last reported on this movement on July 24, India’s government had met two of three demands set by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led movement mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but was withholding an answer on the central one.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
When Christian Daily International last reported on this movement on July 24, India’s government had met two of three demands set by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led movement mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but was withholding an answer on the central one. Forty-nine days after the movement’s first, police-permitted march to Jantar Mantar, New Delhi’s designated protest ground, that answer came: Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on Saturday, July 25.
The reversal
Pradhan submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Modi that morning, in a letter written in formal Hindi and posted to X. He said he was stepping down so “anti-national forces” could not exploit the standoff at Jantar Mantar, and so no student’s future would be entangled in legal trouble. He did not apologize for the leaks in NEET, India’s national medical school entrance exam, that triggered the movement.
President Droupadi Murmu accepted the resignation with immediate effect under Article 75(2) of India’s Constitution, and on the prime minister’s advice gave the education portfolio, as an additional charge, to Minister Pralhad Joshi. Joshi told reporters he accepted the job “with a sense of duty and humility.”
Weeks earlier, Pradhan had dismissed the CJP as the “B-team of terrorists.” As recently as Friday, July 24, a government source told reporters that resignation “equates to running away, and running away is not a solution.” By Saturday afternoon, both lines had been abandoned.
We have done it
At Jantar Mantar, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke fell to his knees when the news broke, then raised a fist. “We have done it, we have done it,” he shouted, before reading aloud the names of students who had died by suicide after the exam cancellations.
The CJP’s account on X read simply: “Cockroaches won… Democracy won!” The national anthem played, sweets were passed through the crowd, and the metro stations shut around the site reopened.
From his hospital bed at Medanta, activist Sonam Wangchuk posted a photograph of himself flashing a victory sign. “It is a victory of democracy, and we should all cherish it,” he said in a video statement.
Later he struck a more cautious note. The agitation had entered a new phase, he said, and now needed reforms to build “a robust system that makes us a great nation.” “Resignation alone does not make a nation,” he added, urging the federal government to also honor its commitments to Ladakh, the Himalayan region whose own statehood movement had led to his six months in detention last year.
Among those who came to Jantar Mantar that evening was Rajesh Thapa. His daughter Riya, a NEET aspirant, had died after the exam chaos.
“Children are fighting for their rights, if my daughter were here, she might have joined them too,” he told the Press Trust of India. He said that since she could not be there, he had come in her place, “so that nothing like this ever happens to anyone else’s child.”

The deal
After the resignation, CJP spokespeople Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka sat with Ministers J.P. Nadda and Jitendra Singh and announced the protest was over.
Das said the government had accepted all their demands and appealed to protesters to go home. Nadda said FIRs, the criminal complaints police had filed against demonstrators, would be withdrawn in Delhi and BJP-run states, and that families of students who died after the leak would receive “honourable compensation” within existing rules.
Both sides agreed to meet again in four weeks on broader exam reforms.
Don’t make me a hero
In his speech announcing victory, Dipke turned unexpectedly cautionary.
“Don’t make me a hero because Dharmendra Pradhan resigned today,” he told the crowd. “The country has been ruined because of making one person a hero.”
He named specific police officers he held responsible for the July 20 crackdown and warned against complacency. “If we can make a minister resign, what are you?” he said. “Remember, do not mess with cockroach.”
What the deal does not cover
The CJP’s three formal demands, Pradhan’s resignation, compensation, and FIR withdrawal, were all addressed at the press conference. A further demand, pressed separately by opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and by Dipke himself, was not: accountability for the police response on July 20, when officers used batons and tear gas near Parliament.
Gandhi has since written formally to Home Minister Amit Shah, who oversees Delhi Police, demanding accountability for that day. Opposition leader Mayawati went further, calling for the identification of officers who behaved indecently toward female protesters.
A day before the resignation, Gandhi had brought protester Sheikh Irshad Mansuri, who says he suffered pellet wounds in the crackdown, to a press conference and lifted his shirt to show reporters; police have denied using pellet guns. A separate petition from a group called Save India Foundation, seeking criminal action against protesters who allegedly attacked police that day, was declined by the Delhi High Court on July 24; the court disposed of the case and told the group to take its complaint directly to the police instead.
Wangchuk, too, has had to answer online claims that he struck a “secret deal” with the government when he broke his fast in front of two ministers rather than students. He has called his hospital-stay “North Korea-like,” and said he chose to protect students from prosecution over holding out for the resignation himself.
Same event, different story
The government’s messaging afterward told a different story. Ministers queued up to praise Pradhan rather than concede defeat.
Home Minister Amit Shah, whose ministry runs Delhi Police, said Pradhan’s exit showed that for BJP workers, “students are far more important than any position.” He did not address the force used on July 20.
Rajnath Singh, the Defence Minister, called the resignation proof the government treats students’ futures as paramount. BJP president Nitin Nabin said it reflected “the highest standards of integrity and selfless service in public life.”
Modi’s own first social media post after the resignation did not mention Pradhan, the protests, or the CJP. It welcomed Sarnath’s inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Repackaged as sacrifice
Days before the resignation, Sridhar Vembu, founder of the Indian software company Zoho, called the protests a “malicious agenda” meant to plunge India into chaos. Afterward, he praised Pradhan on X as one of the finest public servants he knew, a man who had “put the nation above self.”
Rev. Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, wrote about that shift on his personal blog, noting the views were his own, not an official EFI position. Pradhan’s letter, he wrote, never quite conceded that citizens had forced accountability; it spoke instead of preventing “anti-national forces” from exploiting the moment.
“Accountability demanded by citizens must not be repackaged as sacrifice offered by power,” Lal wrote. “A resignation can be personally painful without becoming personally heroic.”
Lal drew a line to Dipke’s own warning against hero worship: a movement born to challenge one personality cult, he argued, should be careful not to build another in its place.
Why the ministry mattered
Part of the answer may lie in Pradhan’s own history in the Sangh Parivar, the network of Hindu nationalist groups built around the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, the ideological parent body of Modi’s BJP. Pradhan has belonged to the Sangh Parivar since 1983, entering politics through the BJP’s student wing. A 2019 Caravan magazine profile called him the party’s “money man,” crediting his fundraising for much of the BJP’s ground organization in the eastern state of Odisha.
A News Minute investigation published this month found that ONGC, a state oil company under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, gave more than ₹668 crore (roughly $70 million) through its corporate social responsibility program to twenty RSS-linked organizations between 2013 and 2025, most of it during and after Pradhan’s tenure as petroleum minister. It did not allege he personally directed the donations, and noted similar giving likely would have continued under any minister; it did note he had publicly welcomed ONGC’s funding of a Hindu pilgrimage-site redevelopment in 2021.
The education ministry itself has carried outsized weight for the RSS since the Sangh’s political arm first entered government in 1967, Seema Chishti, a columnist for the Indian news site The Wire, argued this week. Education’s share of the federal budget has fallen by nearly half under Modi, from 4.6 percent in 2013-14 to 2.5 percent in 2025-26, even as the ministry grew more central to the party’s project, a pattern Chishti says helps explain why Pradhan’s record was defended so vigorously.
The cost of showing up
Not everyone connected to the protests has come out ahead.
In Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, Assistant Professor Mohit Bhardwaj said he was fired from Ganna Utpadak PG College days after he returned from Delhi. He said he was called to the principal’s office and told the college had seen video of him at the July 20 protest, and that his services were terminated. “Just like that,” he told the Indian outlet The Quint. A Haryana teacher was suspended in June for similar reasons, then reinstated.
Anchal Gupta, a researcher with Yuva Halla Bol, a youth advocacy group, said this is precisely the risk that remains once the cameras and the crowds move on. “The larger challenge,” she said, is making sure organizers and ordinary participants are protected from retaliation now that the headline demand has been met.
Where things stand
The government has given itself four weeks before the next round of talks. Whether that window produces the education reforms Wangchuk says the movement now exists to pursue, or only the compensation and paperwork already promised, will decide whether Jantar Mantar’s cockroaches call this the end of their fight, or only its first chapter.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[India's Cockroach protests: They wanted one resignation. They got tear gas, a hunger strike, and half a deal.]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/india-s-cockroach-protests-they-wanted-one-resignation-they-got-tear-gas-a-hunger-strike-and-half-a-deal</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/india-s-cockroach-protests-they-wanted-one-resignation-they-got-tear-gas-a-hunger-strike-and-half-a-deal</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Surinder Kaur]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Supporters of Indias Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) ride a barricade during a protest demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over examination paper leaks, at Jantar Mantar on July 24, 2026 in New Delhi, India]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Elke Scholiers/Getty Images ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ NEW DELHI, INDIA - JULY 24: Supporters of India's Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) ride a barricade during a protest demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over examination paper leaks, at Jantar Mantar on July 24, 2026 in New Delhi, India. A mix of protesters gathered in New Delhi on Monday as discontent bubbled over myriad issues, and as Sonam Wangchuk, an activist who was fasting in protest, was forcibly taken to hospital on Sunday. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was detained on Tuesday among others, as the movement continues well into the week. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Students protest Indias examination system in Delhi, India on July 23, 2026. One demonstrator holds a sign reading Stayfree is way more secure than the system, at least it doesnt leak — a reference to the menstrual pad brand and a pointed jab at the e]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Students protest India's examination system in Delhi, India on July 23, 2026. One demonstrator holds a sign reading "Stayfree is way more secure than the system, at least it doesn't leak" — a reference to the menstrual pad brand and a pointed jab at the exam paper leaks that have roiled India's national testing bodies. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Protesters climb atop a structure spray-painted with Gen-Z Revolution!!! during demonstrations against Indias examination system in Delhi on July 23, 2026. The student-led protests, which spread across the country, demanded accountability from educatio]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Protesters climb atop a structure spray-painted with "Gen-Z Revolution!!!" during demonstrations against India's examination system in Delhi on July 23, 2026. The student-led protests, which spread across the country, demanded accountability from education officials after paper leaks in competitive national exams. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:25:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[India’s government has given itself until Saturday afternoon (July 25) to answer the one demand it has not yet met: whether Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will lose his job.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
India’s government has given itself until Saturday afternoon (July 25) to answer the one demand it has not yet met: whether Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will lose his job.
For weeks, a youth-led protest movement has demanded his resignation over a leaked medical school entrance exam. This past week alone brought tear gas at the gates of Parliament, a 26-day hunger strike that ended only after midnight negotiations, and the Leader of the Opposition dragged bleeding from a sit-in outside the Prime Minister’s residence.
On Friday, July 24, the government agreed to two of the movement’s three demands. Pradhan’s job was not one of them.
When Christian Daily International last reported on this movement, called the “Cockroach Janta Party,” the mood was closer to a street festival than a standoff. It was June 6, and thousands had just held the movement’s first march, peacefully, with a police permit. Seven weeks later, that peaceful mood is gone.
A fast begins
The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, a satirical, Gen Z-led movement mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had by early June amassed a social media following larger than the BJP’s own, close to 26 million followers on Instagram at last count. That number reflects online supporters, not registered members.
Its grievance never changed: accountability for the leaked National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, known as NEET, and a botched school-grading system, both under Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s watch.

What changed was who joined the fight. On June 28, Sonam Wangchuk, a Ladakhi engineer, education reformer, and Ramon Magsaysay Award winner already treated by CJP supporters as an “honorary cockroach,” began an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi’s designated protest ground. Six students from the All India Students Association fasted alongside him.
His health declined steadily even as opposition leaders, actors, and public intellectuals urged him to stop. By mid-July he had lost close to 20 pounds.
On July 14, a delegation of Christian leaders came to express solidarity with the movement and to sit with Wangchuk at Jantar Mantar. Among them were veteran human rights activist John Dayal, Father Susai Sebastian, a Catholic priest, Michael Williams, and Minakshi Singh, who helped coordinate the visit. Several came in a personal capacity rather than representing any single church or organization.
They prayed with Wangchuk. Singh later said the visit stayed with her. “Seeing the whole situation there was very painful,” she said, describing a generation that felt scattered and unheard.
By mid-July, thousands of messages arrived daily asking Wangchuk to break his fast. He refused, arguing that ending it without a government response would send the wrong signal.
Instead, he urged supporters to turn out for the CJP’s planned July 20 march to Parliament, dubbed “Chalo Sansad,” and asked schools and colleges to treat the day as a lesson in civic participation. He noted that Indian governments had fallen before under public pressure, once even over onion prices. “Do the people of India love their children’s lives and education more, or onions?” he asked.
Removed by force
Before dawn on July 19, Delhi Police moved into Jantar Mantar and carried Wangchuk out amid what officials called “a slight commotion.” He was taken to Safdarjung Hospital, a government facility, weighing about 125 pounds, some 20 pounds lighter than when he began fasting. Police cited Delhi High Court directions and his deteriorating health. CJP said he had been manhandled and forcefully removed.
Within hours, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, a postgraduate in public relations from Boston University, began his own hunger strike at the same spot. The party sharpened its demand to also call for Modi’s resignation.
Tens of thousands at the gates of Parliament
The confrontation reached its sharpest point on July 20, the opening day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session, when tens of thousands of CJP supporters, by some estimates considerably more, tried to march to Parliament itself, far exceeding what organizers had expected and fueled by anger over Wangchuk’s removal.
Police used batons that morning, then fired tear gas by afternoon to stop protesters nearing Parliament. Several metro stations along the route were shut.

Police said close to 180 people were hurt, 118 of them officers, and detained roughly 70 protesters, some of whom, they said, had thrown stones. Independent reporting by media outlets put the number of injured students alone at more than 100, nearly double the police’s total for all protesters combined. Dipke alleged authorities had planned to let “goons” disrupt the march and blame protesters, a claim police did not directly address. Amnesty International India called it a possible breach of legality and proportionality.
That night, Dipke told the roughly 2,000 protesters who stayed that this was only the movement’s “first call to march.” Earlier that day, two CJP spokespeople had waited four hours to see Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda, then gotten just ten minutes with him, “a waste of our time,” spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka said. Nadda called the meeting cordial.
Churches respond
Christian bodies were among the first religious institutions in the country to speak out. On July 20, the Church of North India’s Delhi diocese, led by Bishop Paul Swarup, called for a transparent investigation into the exam leaks, citing scripture to affirm that every student deserves a system “founded upon honesty, fairness, transparency, and equal opportunity.”
The next morning, the Evangelical Fellowship of India said the state “carries a greater responsibility because it possesses greater power” than protesters and pressed for an independent inquiry into the crackdown. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India went further, calling the police action “a heartbreaking assault on the very soul of our democracy” and voicing solidarity with Wangchuk during his hospitalization.
Many in Delhi’s Christian community have also been present in person. The historic Free Church on Parliament Street, next to Jantar Mantar, has been serving for the past several days as the site for distributing water, food, ORS, and light snacks to protesters and others gathered there, an effort coordinated by Christians in Delhi together with the Diocese of Delhi, CNI. An appeal circulated within the city’s Christian community, and individuals and organizations have responded with supplies and volunteers.
Sikh institutions moved in a similar way. Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and other gurdwaras across the city opened their doors after the July 20 crackdown, offering food, first aid, and a place to sleep to protesters fleeing tear gas and baton charges, while separate groups of Sikh volunteers set up a langar (free community kitchen) directly at Jantar Mantar, distributing meals, blankets, and mats to those camping at the protest site.
Not all of it has gone smoothly. Recently a team of Christian volunteers headed toward Jantar Mantar was stopped by police in the Nizamuddin area and told to turn back or face arrest. One local pastor involved in the effort, who asked not to be named, called it an instance of random profiling.
A bloodied nose outside the Prime Minister’s house
The day after the march, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra marched to Modi’s residence, demanding his resignation over the police action. A minister from the Prime Minister’s Office came out to negotiate, but talks collapsed when Congress refused to drop its demands.
Gandhi sat on the road outside the residence through the afternoon. Around 6:40 p.m., police physically removed him along with his sister and other lawmakers. Videos showed him bleeding from the nose as he was dragged away. Before being removed, he said, “An attack on students is an attack on every Indian family.”
Cameras, courts, and claims of intimidation
A Public Interest Litigation before the Delhi High Court, filed by former student union president Aishe Ghosh, alleged Delhi Police had installed a permanent surveillance tower at Jantar Mantar capable of facial recognition, filming protesters continuously, even while eating or resting. The court admitted the matter for hearing.
Plainclothes police were separately reported operating during the crackdowns. Disability rights groups alleged that one protester, identified as Sheikh Irshad Mansuri, 25, suffered pellet wounds to his chest, neck, and face and was being treated at Delhi’s Lady Hardinge Medical College Hospital, and warned that shock batons were also being used. Police denied using pellet guns at all, calling the claim “completely false and misleading.” On Friday, July 24, Rahul Gandhi brought Mansuri to a press conference and lifted his shirt to show reporters the wounds, calling Pradhan a “criminal education minister” and demanding his removal.
Parliament was repeatedly adjourned through 20 – 24 July. Kharge told reporters his microphone was switched off moments after he rose to raise the issue, calling it a mockery of democracy.
The fast ends, in writing
After he was forcibly taken to hospital on July 19, Wangchuk’s condition remained precarious, with doctors reporting low blood sugar, dangerously low potassium, and dehydration. His wife, Gitanjali Angmo, asked the Delhi High Court to let him transfer to a private hospital, arguing his stay at the government facility amounted to confinement without consent. A single judge declined, but a two-judge bench reversed that on appeal on July 21 and ordered his immediate transfer to Medanta Hospital, ruling it necessary to protect his health and rights.
Wangchuk broke his 26-day fast late on July 23, before two federal ministers at Medanta Hospital. His team said the government had given written assurance that accountability in the exam system would be discussed on the floor of Parliament, that families of students who died by suicide would receive compensation, and that no cases would be filed against peaceful protesters. “End of hunger,” his team wrote. “Beginning of accountability.”
Modi responded personally: “I pray to the Almighty that Sonam ji remains healthy.”
The message came from a government that, just over three months earlier, had released Wangchuk after nearly six months in detention under India’s National Security Act, a law that permits imprisonment without trial for up to a year. He had been held since September 2025, after protests demanding statehood for Ladakh turned deadly. Dozens of others arrested in that crackdown remained in custody for months afterward, cases the Bar Association president in Leh, Mohd Shafi Lassu, called a “pressure tactic by the administration.”
A late-night video and a fast-track court
Close to midnight on July 23, Modi released his own video message, his first direct comment on the crisis after two months of silence. He said those responsible for the leak had been caught and jailed, that 2.2 million students had been given a retest, and that a bill to punish future leaks would go before Parliament. He said nothing about Pradhan. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh noted the government had until recently told a parliamentary committee no leak had occurred at all.
The timing carried its own irony. Hours earlier, the Central Bureau of Investigation had given a “clean chit” to Sanjeev Mukhiya, the alleged kingpin behind a separate, earlier NEET paper leak scandal from 2024, distinct from the 2026 leak driving the current protests.
The same day, the Delhi High Court appointed a judge to head a fast-track court dedicated to exam-fraud cases, a first concrete step on one of Modi’s promised reforms.
Universities, a chief justice, and a battle over the narrative
Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University both issued advisories telling students to stay away from Jantar Mantar, citing Supreme Court directions and warning of disciplinary action. Kharge accused the government of turning universities into “propaganda outlets.” Gandhi was blunter: “How dare you threaten students for exercising their democratic rights?”
Chief Justice Surya Kant, whose “cockroaches” remark started the movement, rejected reports that he had refused to hear a challenge to the crackdown, saying no formal petition existed, only a lawyer’s letter, and called the reporting “irresponsible and reckless.”
Solidarity protests took place this week in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Patna, and Guwahati among other places. Huge crowds were reported in Mumbai and Patna.
Talks at the Constitution Club
On Friday, July 24, CJP spokespeople Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka met ministers Nadda and Jitendra Singh for nearly two hours at the Constitution Club of India, a historic meeting place for lawmakers. It was the second round after an earlier meeting on July 20 ended without agreement.
As per statements by the CJP leaders after the meeting, the government agreed in principle to two of CJP’s three demands: withdrawing cases against protesters and paying roughly ₹1 crore (roughly $104,000) in compensation to each family that lost a child to suicide linked to the leak.
On the central demand, Pradhan’s resignation, the government asked for more time. “The government has sought time till tomorrow afternoon to respond,” Ranka said, adding CJP would not soften its position. “Nothing short of Pradhan’s resignation or his removal would be acceptable,” he said.
Das raised a separate complaint: that Delhi Police had been detaining young people at random since the previous night, including some simply heading home or delivering food, and had manhandled lawyers trying to help them. He said the government first denied it, then assured CJP the incidents would stop.
What longtime activists see in this
Shabnam Hashmi has spent more than four decades working to bridge India’s religious and communal divides, since her brother, the street theater artist Safdar Hashmi, was murdered while performing in 1989. She founded ANHAD, a group working on secularism and communal harmony, in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots.
What stands out to her about Jantar Mantar is who has shown up. “Students, workers, job seekers, activists, intellectuals, filmmakers and ordinary citizens from different regions, communities, and faiths are standing together,” she told CDI. In her assessment, it may be the first protest in years to openly challenge India’s Hindu-Muslim political narrative.
She also sees a generational shift in how the movement organizes itself. Young Indians, she said, are building “decentralized networks that are fast, creative, and driven by collective action” rather than waiting on traditional political leadership.
John Dayal, the human rights activist who visited Wangchuk at Jantar Mantar earlier in July, offered his own assessment of the week’s events.
“Six weeks ago, I wrote that the cockroaches had made this government look small and a little naked,” he said. “It has taken tear gas, a 26-day fast, and the Leader of the Opposition dragged away bleeding to make it look, for a moment, almost reasonable, paying the families it should have paid weeks ago, promising not to prosecute the young people it beat in the street. What it still will not do is answer for the one man responsible. A government that will compensate the dead but will not name the living men responsible for those deaths, is not being reasonable, it is doing arithmetic on how much accountability it can afford.”
Where things stand
That is where matters stood as the week closed. The government has moved on compensation and legal protection, concessions previously unthinkable from an administration that stayed silent for two months. What it has not done is answer the question that started all of this: whether Pradhan would keep his job, a decision it has promised within a day.
The sit-in at Jantar Mantar continues, six weeks after it began as a peaceful, permitted march — the kind of origin story that has preceded Gen Z uprisings across South Asia. Whether this one joins that list may depend on what the government ultimately decides.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Pastoral burnout, AI, and micro-credentials among top agenda for ICETE's Mombasa gathering in 2027]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/pastoral-burnout-ai-and-micro-credentials-among-top-agenda-for-icete-s-mombasa-gathering-in-2027</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/pastoral-burnout-ai-and-micro-credentials-among-top-agenda-for-icete-s-mombasa-gathering-in-2027</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[At a house church in Durán, Ecuador, house church leaders study a theological education curriculum — an example of the grassroots, non-formal training ICETE aims to represent at its C27 global consultation in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2027.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ At a house church in Durán, Ecuador, house church leaders study a theological education curriculum — an example of the grassroots, non-formal training ICETE aims to represent at its C27 global consultation in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2027. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:37:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Pastoral burnout, artificial intelligence, micro-credentials and the recognition of prior learning are set to dominate the agenda when the world's leading evangelical theological education body convenes in Mombasa, Kenya, in April 2027 — signaling a field grappling with pressures that traditional seminary models were never designed to address.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Pastoral burnout, artificial intelligence, micro-credentials and the recognition of prior learning are set to dominate the agenda when the world's leading evangelical theological education body convenes in Mombasa, Kenya, in April 2027 — signaling a field grappling with pressures that traditional seminary models were never designed to address.
The International Council for Evangelical Theological Education announced the gathering, dubbed C27, during a June preparatory call, setting an April 5–9, 2027 date at the Kenyan coastal city.
For the first time in the organization's 46-year history, prospective attendees must be nominated rather than simply registered. Executive Director Dr. Michael A. Ortiz said the event will be capped at 600 delegates, with nominations already exceeding available places.
Julie Shoemaker, ICETE's Director of Communications and Connections, said the change reflects a deliberate effort to shape the room rather than simply fill it. The goal, she said, is to ensure adequate representation from the majority world, women, next-generation leaders, students and all sectors of theological education — formal, non-formal and informal — alongside voices from the church.
There will be no public registration link on the ICETE website. All prospective attendees must submit a nomination form, and invitations to register will be sent by approximately August.
The theme for C27 — "Understanding the times and knowing what to do" — comes directly from 1 Chronicles 12:32, a passage describing the sons of Issachar, who are commended for grasping the moment and acting accordingly. Dr. Marvin Oxenham, ICETE's Quality Assurance Director and Director of the ICETE Academy, said the verse captures what the organization wants the gathering to accomplish.
"There's the understanding of times component, and then there's the knowing what to do component," he said.
Oxenham said the understanding-the-times dimension of the consultation is intended to be driven by hard data and research rather than anecdote. Presentations will be expected to bring evidence that helps participants "become reflective practitioners," with that understanding then feeding into the second dimension: discernment and action.
Collaboration, he added, is a consistent goal of ICETE gatherings, and C27 will be no different.
Among the substantive topics already on the agenda is pastoral training, which Ortiz described as a pressing need — particularly in majority world contexts. Oxenham added another dimension to that concern, citing a recent Lausanne movement article reporting that more than half of pastors have at some point considered leaving ministry due to burnout. He said the data raises direct questions for theological educators: "Are we addressing the issues that lead to burnout, that lead to wanting to leave the pastoral ministry, and how are we addressing those in our training?"
Artificial intelligence will also feature prominently. Oxenham said it would be impossible to hold a consultation under the theme of understanding the times without a serious engagement with AI — a topic that has already generated significant debate across evangelical institutions. Christian Daily International has previously reported on warnings from theological educators that seminaries must balance AI's potential against the risk of bypassing genuine spiritual formation.
Additional topics will include quality standards across all three sectors, mega-trends in higher education — including the growing significance of mental health — micro-credentials, and, for the first time at an ICETE global gathering, the formal recognition of prior learning. Oxenham described recognition of prior learning as a key mechanism bridging formal and non-formal training, and said a separate consultation on the topic may follow C27.
On micro-credentials, Oxenham said a first cohort of providers — mostly from the non-formal sector — will have completed the certification process by the time the Mombasa gathering convenes and will be able to report on whether it is working for them.
ICETE has previously expanded its micro-credentialing offering to include a vocational track aimed at non-formal training providers, a development Christian Daily International has previously reported on as potentially reshaping the field.
Two major research initiatives will feed into C27's agenda. The first is a global student survey of approximately 60 questions, to be launched within weeks of the pre-call and distributed across formal and non-formal programs in multiple languages. The aim is to gather data from thousands of theology students across all regions.
The second is what ICETE is calling the Landscape Project — a mapping exercise covering the organization's roughly 70 member bodies, which together serve an estimated 500,000 people preparing for ministry globally.
Shoemaker described three components: mapping where members are working and whom they are serving, mining that data to identify duplications and gaps, and then convening members to act on what is found.
C27 is the third in a sequence that began with the C22 consultation in Izmir, Turkey, which focused on integrating formal and non-formal theological education, and continued with C25 in Albania, where the organization gathered data and published a document charting directions for the field. Ortiz described the series as a continuous body of work rather than a set of independent events, with impact teams, micro-credentialing and the landscape project all forming part of the same trajectory.
ICETE Virtual gatherings in July, August and September will address related topics before a second C27-focused preparatory session in October. Those interested in attending C27 or submitting relevant research data for consideration may contact ICETE at info@icete.info.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Asian seminary journal calls for 'integrative approach' to forming whole-person Christian leaders]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/asian-seminary-journal-calls-for-integrative-approach-to-forming-whole-person-christian-leaders</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/asian-seminary-journal-calls-for-integrative-approach-to-forming-whole-person-christian-leaders</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[ATA Journal]]></media:title>
                                                                                </media:content>
                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 06:14:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A peer-reviewed journal published by the Asia Theological Association has released a volume focused entirely on how theological institutions across Asia are working to form students not just academically but spiritually, relationally, and personally — a challenge that leaders in the region say is growing more urgent.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A peer-reviewed journal published by the Asia Theological Association has released a volume focused entirely on how theological institutions across Asia are working to form students not just academically but spiritually, relationally, and personally — a challenge that leaders in the region say is growing more urgent.
The Journal of Asian Theological Education and Spiritual Formation (JATES), published by the ATA and now indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, dedicated its 2026 volume to what the editors call "institutional approaches to holistic formation." The issue features six research contributions from seminaries in Taiwan, India, South Korea, and the Philippines, drawing on case studies, student surveys, and qualitative research.
The volume's editorial introduction, written by editors Dr. Justin Peter and Dr. Sooi-Ling Tan, identifies a central gap in how the region's seminaries operate: institutions widely desire to form whole persons but lack clarity about how to do it.
Drawing on an ATA-wide study led by researcher Allan Harkness, Peter and Tan write that the findings reveal both "a strong desire among member institutions to foster holistic formation and a corresponding lack of clarity in implementation." Harkness surveyed 47 ATA institutions across 14 countries and conducted focus groups with participants from 45 additional schools across 11 countries.
The editors describe holistic formation as the integration of three dimensions: cognitive or intellectual growth, ministry skills, and what they term "spiritual, relational, and personal formation." The last category — the least systematically addressed, according to their findings — encompasses a student's inner life, character, sense of calling, and capacity for healthy relationships.
Relational and spatial formation
Across the six institutions represented in the journal, several common patterns emerged. Each school had embedded formation within structured curriculum rather than treating it as an add-on to academic work. China Evangelical Seminary used family systems theory and counseling-based coursework to help students develop self-awareness and relational maturity. South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies used practicum placements paired with mentoring and reflective journaling. Torch Trinity Graduate University in South Korea built mentoring into its Master of Divinity program as a sustained relational context for personal and spiritual growth.
The editors also draw attention to what they call the "hidden curriculum" of space and environment — the formative role of shared meals, hospitality, prayer rooms, and retreats. These physical and communal contexts, they argue, shape students in ways that formal coursework alone cannot.
"Holistic formation is woven through curriculum, relationships, spaces, and practices," Peter and Tan write in the journal's editorial introduction.
The JATES findings align with broader concerns Dr. Theresa Lua, general secretary of the ATA, has raised in other settings about the direction of theological education in Asia. Speaking to Christian Daily International in March 2025, Lua said that while Asian institutions have increasingly taken ownership of training their own leaders, online learning has made it harder to provide the kind of in-person formation that discipleship requires. She argued that seminaries need intentional partnership with local churches to fill that gap. "When there is an intentionality in terms of the partnership and the mentoring, then churches are very much involved in that formation aspect," she said.
The 'academization' concern
At the Asia Conference on Church and Mission held in Manila earlier this month, Lua pressed the issue further. She warned that seminaries across the region have drifted toward what she called the "academization" of theological education — prioritizing intellectual credentialing in ways that widen the distance between institutions and ordinary congregations.
"There has been a call for decades to provide theological education for all those people in order to empower them to serve in a wide spectrum of ministries in the church and beyond," Lua told the Manila gathering, referring to lay believers. She argued the church's mission requires equipping the full people of God — lawyers, doctors, artists, and business professionals — to live as disciples in every domain of life, not only those who enter professional ministry.
The JATES special issue is partly a response to that gap. The project originated through a partnership between the ATA and the Global Spiritual Formation Project, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust. Thirty-three research abstracts were submitted by ATA member institutions; fourteen were selected for development; eleven completed the full process of peer review, external review, and professional editing. The first batch of papers appears in this volume, with a second installment to follow.
Lifelong discipleship as the frame
Harkness, summarizing the ATA study in the journal's lead article, draws four implications for institutions seeking to improve their formation programs. Formation should be oriented toward lifelong discipleship and service, not just preparation for first ministry roles. It needs to account for both globalization and contextualization — recognizing that Asian students live in complex, rapidly shifting environments. The impact of formation extends beyond individual students to their families, congregations, and communities. And effective formation, he argues, depends on community support and partnerships, both within institutions and with outside stakeholders.
Those conclusions echo what Lua told Christian Daily International last year, when she described her concern that seminaries can easily lose touch with what is actually happening in local churches. "We remind schools that their mission is not just for the seminary itself, but for the church and God's broader mission," she said.
The volume is available online as free download.]]></content:encoded>
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