Courses

• STH TH 820: History of Western Christian Spirituality
  An introduction to the historical study of Western Christian spiritual practices. The course exposes students to the historical-critical study of spiritual practices through careful examination of selected narratives of Western Christian spirituality, primary texts, and participatory observation. Participants will learn to analyze spiritual practices--such as reading, fasting, and prayer--by the twofold process of "abstracting/isolating" practices and "reading/interpreting" them in their historical context. While emphasis will be placed on the synchronic interpretation of practices, due attention will also be given to their development over time. Readings will include selected articles representative of current methodology in the field. Participants will gain a better understanding of continuity and change of spiritual practices in Western Christian traditions. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent)
• STH TH 821: History and Doctrine of United Methodism
  An exploration of Methodist origins, the Wesleys, the rise of Methodism in England, and the distinctive doctrines of Wesleyan theology. There is a particular focus on the development of the various United Methodist traditions in America and their impact on society. The course is designed to meet one of the requirements for membership in a UMC Annual Conference.
• STH TH 823: Modern Christian Biography
  This course focuses on the period ca. 1600-1899 and examines Christianity of the Modern Period through the lives of representative personalities from Europe and North America. Their lives provide the focus for an examination of the broader artistic, social, economic, and political trends of the time.
• STH TH 825: The Medieval Church
  Survey of social, personal, institutional, and theological aspects of reform and renewal in the late medieval and early modern periods, including Nominalism, Conciliarism, the papacy, Luther, the German and Swiss Reformations, Anabaptism and radical reformers, Calvin, the French Reformation, the English Reformation, Catholic Reform, and the Council of Trent. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent)
• STH TH 826: The Reformations
  Survey of social, personal, institutional, and theological aspects of reform and renewal in the late medieval and early modern periods, including Nominalism, Conciliarism, the papacy, Luther, the German and Swiss Reformations, Anabaptism and radical reformers, Calvin, the French Reformation, the English Reformation, Catholic Reform, Ignatius and Theresa, and the Council of Trent. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent)
• STH TH 827: American Church History
  The development of American Christianity as a social, intellectual, institutional, and cultural movement. The course includes visits to churches in Boston. COUNTS AS A MDIV CHURCH HISTORY II CORE REQUIREMENT. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent)
• STH TH 832: Modern Church History
  This Church History II period survey (ca. 1600-1865) examines Christianity in light of social, economic, and political trends in the geographic regions of Europe, North America, and Latin America. COUNTS AS A MDIV CHURCH HISTORY II CORE REQUIREMENT.
• STH TH 847: Global Christianity
  The course is an overview of the changing status of global Christianity in the 20th and 21st centuries. It covers the whole world with lectures comparing the global context of 1910 and 2010, including each of the major Christian traditions. Each tradition (Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodoxy, etc.) will be covered in-class by a scholar self-identifying with that tradition. The course takes a regional approach to analyze specific and local changes in Christianity and their connection to the global movement. This course additionally focuses on the history of Christian mission in relation to global Christianity and encourages students to self-theologize concerning their role and place within the world Christian movement.
• STH TH 848: World Christianity
  Historical development of world Christianity. Emphasis on social, cultural, spiritual, and political issues in African, Asian and Latin American Christianity in the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent)
• STH TH 853: Christianity in Colonial Latin America
  Forthcoming
• STH TH 854: Topics in Christianity in Colonial Latin America: Bartolome de las Casas
  A study of the life and theology of the Spanish Dominican missionary Fray Bartolome de las Casas (1474/84-1566), the "Apostle of the Indies." The universal stature of Las Casas is only becoming clearer as we celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of his "first conversion" of 1514. In that year, Las Casas rejected the system of the encomiendas and began a lifelong journey in defense of the rights of the indigenous people of the Americas. Participants will be introduced to the historical context of his life and writings. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent)
• STH TH 855: Women and American Religion
  This course investigates the contribution of women in American religious history. Tracing women's participation in American religion from the colonial settlement to the present, the course analyzes ways that women's leadership has shaped the religious and cultural development of the United States. The class examines the leadership models developed by women of diverse racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds, investigating how the history of women in American religion relates to contemporary models of leadership in 21st-century North American church and society.
• STH TH 861: Wittenberg
  
• STH TH 869: Religious History of Boston
  The Greater Boston area contains one of the richest historical legacies in the United States. This course examines distinctive aspects of that historical legacy, by focusing upon the religious history of Boston. The course will include selected visits to specific Boston area historical sites.
• STH TH 870: Calvin and the Reformed Tradition
  On this eve of the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth, we will accomplish two things in this course. (1) We will read from Calvin in translation from his Institutes, treatises, polemical writings, and letters, and (2) we will analyze contemporary historical and theological writings on him and his era. Students will be able to read and write on any subject within the Reformed tradition that interests them from the 16th century to contemporary topics in the present such as Presbyterianism, the United Church of Christ, Unitarianism, Puritanism (in England and New England),the Great Awakening, and the impact of the Reformed tradition on the worldwide Anglican churches and their denominational offshoots, such as Methodism.
• STH TH 876: Martin Luther King, Jr.: Leadership in Context
  This interdisciplinary course will review the life and ministry of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as other leaders of the civil right movement in the United States. The course will investigate how historical contexts of Rev. Dr. Martin King, are related to pastroal traditions and prophetic ministry of community and church through correlated study. The emphasis on the role of a cohort of religious and community leaders who worked with King will be explored. Our examination of prophetic ministry during the Civil Rights era, will be oriented to issues of race, gender, class and social justice.
• STH TH 902: Christianity Beyond Early Modern Europe
  The course is dedicated to an in depth study of the reach of Christianity in the early modern period (c. 1450-c.1650). Our narrative follows the path of early modern Catholicism from fifteenth-century Europe, through the ascent of the Portuguese and Spanish seaborne empires, and examines the role of the missionary religious orders in the processes of Christianization and inculturation.
• STH TH 905: Ldrshp & Bio
  
• STH TH 910: Seminar in World Christianity and Mission History
  A seminar in the history of Christian missions, from the early church to the present. Issues of historiography, method, and the emergence of non-western church history. Required course for doctoral students in mission studies.
• STH TH 915: Radical Christian Spiritualities (DMin)
  The present course is an overview of radical forms of Christian spirituality. It takes a historical approach to the study of eight expressions of radical Christian spirituality and relates them to the notion of transformative leadership. The aim of the course is to equip students with methodological tools for the historical examination and appropriation of spiritual practices. Its narrative parallels the diachronic development of global Christianity from the sixteenth to the closing decades of the twenty-first century. It is prefaced with an introduction to the historical-critical study of spiritual practices. It will examine the meaning of radicalism as a highly contextualized historical construct, a modality of practicing faith, and a contemporary sociological category. The course then examines eight expressions of Christian radicalism, namely: Swiss Anabaptism, Diggers, Quakers, Christian Anarchism, the Catholic Worker Movement, African-American Liberation, Latin-American and 2/3 Worlds Liberation, and the Sanctuary and New Sanctuary Movement. Special attention will be given to spiritual practices articulated as an expression of Christian non-violence, anti-militarism, and anti-imperialism. Movements and figures considered include Thomas M?ntzer (1490- 1525), Andreas Rudolf Bodenstein von Karlstadt (c. 1480-1541), Gerrard Winstanley (1609- 1676), Margaret Fell (1614-1702), Nat Turner (1800-1831), Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Luisa Capetillo (1879-1922), Dorothy Day (1897-1980), Jacques Ellul (1912-1994), James H. Cone (1938-), and Jon Sobrino (1938-). While emphasis will be placed on the synchronic interpretation of practices, due attention will also be given to their development over time.?