UCA will always be first for me the Universalist Church of America. But it can also mean the Uniting Church of Australia.
Link: The anitpodean UCA
I’ve been interested in the Australian church for some time, and this interest has been resparked over the question of distance learning for lay ministers and those on an ordination path. Of course, given the UCA’s significant rural constituency and Australia’s remote settlements, distance learning would be very important.
Their models are rather keen, and I wish there was something like them for the US. The good news is that I don’t see anything in the following two institutions that suggests an American couldn’t enroll in a course by extension, and many would be a good value.
(Ditto the theological faculty at the University of South Africa, which can be found at http://www.unisa.ac.za/contents/faculties/theology/default.asp
Links:
Victoria and Tasmania Centre for Theology and Ministry: http://ctm.uca.edu.au
Coolamon College: http://coolamon.org/
I would love to see comments from alumni drawn here about the programs.
I have done some study with UCA ministers – we kind of gel across boundaries in our various theological colleges – at least for theological studies.
I don’t think that there is anything remarkable about the studies that the UCA people are doing, the difference is that the UCA church is actually grappling with core issues very publicly and painfully, which is causing a lot of division and grief at the moment. The UCA as a denomination has taken a couple of very big hits over all of this, but I think they are just going through something which a lot of denominations have to deal with in the future.