The ITEBA Story*

We dream the dream
We embrace the hope
We plant the Solidarity
We share the ground . . .
We make the game of life
The great desire to see this land . . .
The land of all of us

Located in northeastern Brazil in the city of Salvador, ITEBA is an accredited, four-year theological seminary dedicated to preparing young women and men to be pastors of local churches, religion teachers in secondary schools and a range of community activities. Nearly everyone who graduates from ITEBA will have some kind of extra job from which they will earn their livelihood while putting their theological education to work in part-time jobs or as volunteers. These activities include being pastors of congregations, teachers, labor organizers, advocates for the sem terra (peasants without land), Agentes Paastorais Negras (Black Pastoral Agents) or coordinators for the Catholic Christian Base Communities. ITEBA gives them the full range of theological studies from the basic courses in Hebrew and Greek through the Old and New Testaments, church history and systematic theology.

Of even greater importance is that ITEBA is a seminary in Northern Brazil amidst one of the largest and poorest regions of the Western Hemisphere. Its students and faculty are the descendants of slaves who came from West Africa to work the sugar plantations. These are beautiful, vibrant, and exciting people. They study, learn and sing as they work "to plant the kingdom of God and God's justice in a very unjust world." Every church where ITEBA students serve has a school, free clinic, dental center, or is helping people fight the legal battles for land reform.

ITEBA represents the coming together of two remarkable communities of faith. The first community is made up of the "Heroes of the Inquisition." During the 1960s and 1970s, most of the Protestant denominations in Brazil were torn apart by the struggles of the Cold War. This was especially true of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPB), where the more conservative leaders of the denomination supported the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and purged the seminaries of their progressive teachers and students, disbanded the denomination's youth program, and forced many of its young pastors-and sometimes whole presbyteries and synods-out of the church. In fact, so many pastors and students were forced out, and so many lay people left in disappointment, that they eventually started a new church they called the United Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPU). The new church was dedicated to all the things the old one now seemed to stand against: human rights, gender inclusiveness, biblical scholarship, social justice, and ecumenical relations, especially with the Roman Catholics.

But the new church had a problem. It had no seminaries to train its pastors. So, one of its pastors, the former Professor of Systematic Theology at the IPB seminary in Recife, the Rev. Joao Dias de Araújo, reached out to his counterparts in the other Protestant denominations, men and women who had suffered from inquisitions in their own churches - including Catholic scholars who shared their dreams - and started ITEBA. It was to be an ecumenical seminary and be a "free space" where an older generation could sort things out, rebuild their lives, and share their faith with a new generation.

The second community of faith is made up of the students. They are the descendants of the slaves who were imported from West Africa to work the sugar plantations of colonial Brazil. They, and the native Brazilians and Europeans who mixed with them, are among the poorest and most destitute people of the Western Hemisphere. But they are men and women of a remarkable heritage. They are the Afro-Brazilians and their lives are full of the history, the music, and the religious symbols of West Africa. They are also attractive and engaging Christians, committed to finding out how they can become authentically Afro-Brazilian Christians and "plant the kingdom of God and God's justice" in the midst of their people.

This partnership in mission began with an invitation by William and June Rogers who taught at ITEBA in the early 1990's to support and to seek others for participation. Since then a modest effort of two churches has grown to a network of dedicated volunteers from fifteen congregations seeking to help insure the future of ITEBA financially. The chief attractions, in addition to the students and professors of ITEBA, are their commitment to solving issues of social justice. There have been two mission trips (2000 & 2002) totaling 95 persons, representing over a dozen congregations, who have worked, played, and dreamed with the wonderful people of ITEBA.

*The text of this history was taken from the writings of a number of persons, including Rev. Bert Campbell, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, PA and the Year With Education Minutes For Mission of the UPUSA.