c. 1998 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Last semester, the Rev. James Brown of Jacksonville, N.C., was on the road each week for 12 hours, traveling to and from Howard University School of Divinity.

But this semester, the doctoral student and full-time pastor can sit in his church’s multipurpose room and converse with fellow theological students as he takes his classes long-distance, with the help of telephone lines and the Internet.

Brown is one of several students in a pilot program for a new satellite distance-learning system unveiled Tuesday (April 14) in the divinity school chapel. The project, in process since the early 1990s, is a collaboration between several technology companies, the Ford Foundation and the divinity school.

Brown, a diabetic who contracted shingles during his long drives to the campus, now can concentrate on the technological possibilities before him rather than his health. He envisions several of his associate ministers _ who are taking master’s level courses via wide-screen television _ sharing ideas with other clergy across the country about their farm that helps feed the hungry or their ability to train young children to play musical instruments.”The sky is the limit and we are reaching for it,”said Brown, pastor of First Baptist Church Broadhurst Street.”We’re in the age of technology and what we’ve got to do is to harness all that is available to us through Christ.” As the Rev. Clarence G. Newsome, the divinity school’s dean, held up the smaller components of the new system in the chapel, some 200 audience members responded with amens. Moments later, a wide-screen television at the front of the chapel simultaneously introduced Brown’s church and members of three other congregations who have been hooked up to the high technology.

Newsome called the unveiling the”dawning of a 21st-century theological school.”Eventually, he said, he hopes the system will help the historically black divinity school reach grassroots congregations around the globe.

The $2 million system _ which cost the divinity school less than $200,000 _ is the result of a collaboration with Hughes Network Systems, MicroAge, Hewlett-Packard Co., and Xerox Corp., whose resources allow connections between computers, video screens and telephones to share information and foster”real-time”communication between classes gathered across the country.”We’re able to see them,”marveled the Rev. William McCoy, the minister in charge of agriculture at Brown’s church, who has taken high-tech classes at Howard on preaching, ethics and pastoral care.”We’re able to respond immediately. The dialogue is tremendous. It’s almost like being there.” Katherine Amos, director of accreditation and educational technology at the Association of Theological Schools, views Howard’s innovations as part of a trend blending technology with theology.”I think this is truly a very interesting, unique … project that will have implications for theological education,”she said.”It can serve as a model, but there are other seminaries that are heavily into the use of technology and see it as a real asset both on and off campus.” While some schools have long offered correspondence courses allowing”distance learning”through videotapes and cassettes, more recently schools have incorporated videoconferencing into their classrooms.

But Howard’s multiple-site plans _ reaching a potential of 19 sites at once _ is unusual, she said.”They have intentionally planned this with multi-congregations and it’s going to cover more than just classes,”she said.”I think it’s going to open up a forum of discussion on a lot of different … social issues, and that is certainly unique.” The Rev. William Booth, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hampton, Va., another”charter distance learning center,”called the system a”new Emancipation Proclamation”for predominantly black churches.”The theological school now is no longer imprisoned,”Booth said via the system to the chapel audience.”The teaching process has been unshackled.” The divinity school has worked to keep the price of participation in the system inexpensive, said Vanessa Hill, the school’s spokeswoman.

It will cost a congregation about $10,000 to get a system that includes a satellite hook-up and $4,500 to use a system that connects through regular phone lines.

The Ford Foundation was attracted to the project because it aims to reach people who previously had not had access to the technology, said Fred Davie, the foundation’s program officer for community and resource development. He said the system is as revolutionary as radio and television were for ministries in the past.”The twist on this is it gives the academy an opportunity to influence what happens in the far reaches of the nation when it comes to faith involvement,”Davie said.

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Martel Perry, the executive director of the divinity school’s International Faith Community Information and Services Clearinghouse and Training Center, emphasized that the focus of the project _ referred to as the”FaithVision Telecommunications Platform”_ is on connecting varieties of people.”This technology platform is not a technical platform,”said Perry, the chief designer and developer of the new program.”It’s a people platform.” He foresees youth in Mississippi speaking with youth in Virginia and Christians, Jews and Muslims connecting through the technology.

In addition to the pilot centers in Virginia and North Carolina, there are three other sites _ in Columbus, Ohio; Oakland, Calif.; and Harvey, Ill.

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