The role of theological education in social and religious empowerment of the Roma

There has been an increasing number of studies on Pentecostal movements among the Roma over the past 15 years, in discrete contexts. Some of these movements have their own theological training for their leaders, such as the French Vie et Lumière and the Iglesia de Filadelfia in Spain. How do discrete groups form their theological education and what role does theological education play in shaping Roma Christianity in their communities and beyond? This paper will first introduce the gradual shift in Protestant theological education, with special emphasis on Pentecostal streams, to engage with the context. Second, this paper will offer two examples – explored through interviews and participant-observation – in order to investigate theological education and its reported impact in Roma churches and communities. First, the Hungarian Gypsy Missions International (HGMI) is an independent mission branch of the Pentecostal church in Hungary that, among their many social, educational, and religious programmes, offers a holistic Community Transformational Missionary Worker Training, which also encompasses theological education. Second, a travelling Roma Bible school, operating both in Southeastern Europe and Germany, is now in its second generation of students and offers a highly contextual model of theology and pedagogy. Despite both trainings being formed “in-house,” engagement with various missionaries and mission organizations contributes to part of the contextual formation This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ .