NZ Christian Network National Director Glyn Carpenter is two weeks into a trial of the World Evangelical Alliance Leadership Institute's new 10-week online part-time course on public engagement.

As Chairman of the South Pacific Evangelical Alliance, Glyn is one of seven regents of the WEALI and said he was keen to trial the programme, much of which is based around the writings of Ron Sider, who is the World Evangelical Alliance's ambassador on public engagement.

The course includes students from such diverse countries as Kenya, Argentina, Bulgaria, Ivory Coast, Belgium and Spain. The students do online assignments in their own time and meet for a Skype call at 5 am on Saturdays (NZT).

"The key issues are different in each country, but the principles of authentic biblical engagement are the same," says Glyn. "The material is looking very good so far, and will be even better when it is fine-tuned after the course."

This week's module looked at how the State and Church intersect – or even oppose each other – in the public square on issues of justice and human rights. The course will be available for public enrolments early in 2011.

NZ Christian Network also commends a recent article by Malcolm Irwin, of the Salvation Army's Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit titled Angelic Exchanges: Speaking of God in the public sphere.

Malcolm Irwin explores how The Salvation Army can dialogue with and speak into the public domain, asking such questions as:

• Do we have to speak a new, more publicly open language? Do we have to translate our distinctive Salvationism into a new vocabulary that a de-secularised public might potentially (re)value?
• Does this practice of translation involve dangers or is the process of translation the only position left from where we can honestly speak of newness and transformation?

To view/download Angelic Exchanges, go to www.salvationarmy.org.nz/uploads/Angelic-Exchanges.pdf

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