Courses

• STH TO 852: Akkadian 2
  Akkadian grammar, including exercises in translation and composition. (Credit for STH TO 851 is given only after successful completion of STH TO 852.)
• STH TR 802: The Sociology of Religion
  This course will introduce students to the basic ideas and methods with which sociologists have analyzed the relationship between religion and society. It will explore what it means to think about religious language, symbols, communities, and practices a social phenomenon. We will also explore the social processes at work in congregations and denominations, new religious movements and conversion, religious communal identity and ethnic conflict.
• STH TR 840: American Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestants in the United States
  Conservative Protestantism is a vital religious movement in North American life whose adherents make up roughly 25-35% of the American population. This course will introduce students to various streams of conservative Protestant movements- -Pentecostalism, Fundamentalism, and Neo-Evangelicalism--and their characteristic religious patterns. Taking an interdisciplinary approach with sociology as the lead discipline, students will explore the major theories that attempt to explain the vitality of these groups, examine their impact on various dimensions of social and political life, and assess the implications of the exportation of these distinctively American brands of religion abroad. The assumption that the study of Evangelicalism and its complexities in the U.S. context warrants deep and thoughtful study guides this course.
• STH TR 909: Sociology of Black Religions
  This course will survey major classic and contemporary themes in social scientific studies of black religion in the 20th century in the United States. Students will interrogate, among other things, popular conceptions of black religion, the black church, and black religious experience.
• STH TR 940: Advanced Seminar in Religion and Social Change
  This seminar examines the relationship between religious ideas and practices and the world of micro and macro social change. It gives attention to both the conservative and radical potential within religion, as well as to the structures that either limit or facilitate the exercise of religious power. It covers both major theoretical perspectives and relevant research literature, with focused attention on a variety of historical and contemporary cases.
• STH TR 964: Seminar in Social Theory and Religious Identity
  This seminar will explore a variety of theoretical perspectives on the social formation of modern persons, asking how those insights inform an understanding of individual and collective religious identity. Students will also participate in field research focused on the intersection of religious and social identities.
• STH TS 500: Encountering ET: Spirit, Science, and Space
  The discoveries of Copernicus/Galileo and Darwin (19th century) significantly altered scientific and religious worldviews. People experienced a sense of displacement from their previously perceived status in the universe. In the 21st century, as space explorations expand, Contact with extraterrestrial life-- including intelligent life--becomes ever more possible (some people already claim to have had visual or physical contact with UFOs and their alien occupants). Using perspectives from science, science fiction, religion, and United Nations space treaties, and narratives about peoples' claims of encounters with extraterrestrial beings, this course will discuss current and projected understandings of the human place in the cosmos; reflect on how discovery of extraterrestrial life might impact the human sense of place in the universe; and consider how the impacts of ET encounters (actual or theoretical) might be positively incorporated into human consciousness and contexts.
• STH TS 800: International Conflict and the Ministry of Reconciliation
  This course proposes a theology of reconciliation for religious peace-building in the realms of ethnic division and nationalism, race, economic injustice and environmental degradation. Churches and communities of faith are not simply local and parochial bodies but are parts of wider communities of faith and practice. The course explores such corporate practice toward a public theology for the public square for Christians to live faithfully in a world of difference.
• STH TS 804: The Religious Thinking of Howard Thurman
  This seminar examines the religious and moral dimensions in the thought of Howard Thurman (1899-1981) a leading figure in twentieth century American religious and cultural life. The dream of community, or "the search for common ground," was the defining motif of Thurman's life and thought. His vision of the kinship of all peoples, born out of the particularity of his own personal struggles, propelled him into the Protestant mainstream as a distinctive interpreter of the church's role in a democratic society. He influenced a younger generation of ethical leaders in the modern Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Pauli Murray, Marian Wright Edelman, Whitney Young, Jesse Jackson, and Vernon Jordan.
• STH TS 805: The Spirit and the Art of Conflict Transformation: Creating a Culture of JustPeace
  This course is a response to the experience of destructive conflict in the church and in the world, as well as the experience of religion as a source of conflict. More importantly, it is a response to the call to every Christian to be ministers of reconciliation and peacebuilders. The course will introduce students to the theology, theory and practice of faith-based conflict transformation, preparing students to become religious leaders equipped with fundamental tools and skills for engaging conflict and transforming conflict in a way that advances God's goal of shalom, a culture of justpeace.
• STH TS 818: Social Analysis and Ethical Reflection
  Social analysis as a tool for theological reflection and praxis. A critical exploration of the meaning of American society in transition and of the political economy of globalization for the ministry for human dignity and justice.
• STH TS 822: The Ethical Leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr.
  This seminar examines the life, thought, and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a resource for the conceptualization and development of ethical leadership. The seminar will examine his perspective on the public role of religion against the background of contemporary leadership theories and practices, classical Christian views, late nineteenth-century dissenting traditions, the early twentieth-century American Social Gospel Movement, the modern Civil Rights Movement, Black Theology and Black Nationalism, Womanist Studies and Critical Race Theory.
• STH TS 829: Christian Ecological Ethics and Political Issues
  This course will introduce students to the character and dimensions of the ecological crisis and will; to help them reflect theologically and ethically on ecological problems, to develop or enhance their particular faith tradition's theoretical and practical engagement with ecological issues, gain knowledge of the intersection of ecology and economics, and political and public policy implications of this relationship, and to formulate public policy possibilities and practical projects to address and seek to solve ecological problems.
• STH TS 837: Comparative Religious Ethics
  Philosophical and religious perspectives in the meaning of the good life and the good society. Comparative study of social ethics in Christianity and other world religions with particular attention to one or two selected contemporary issues, such as the erosion of community, economic problems, humanity's relationship to the environment, and human rights.
• STH TS 840: Seminar in Religion and Social Change
  An exploration of the relationship between religion and social change, including the problems of modernization and globalization. Particular attention to the ways in which religion either supports the status quo or promotes social change, involving such problems as fundamentalist and utopian movements in the worldwide and contemporary setting.
• STH TS 845: Christian Social Ethics
  Comparative study of historical and contemporary Christian approaches to the nature, sources, methods, and concepts of ethics in diverse contexts. The course is in two parts: an historical overview of the development of Christian social ethics from biblical times to the twenty-first century; an in-depth exploration of approaches to specific contemporary social issues including war and peace, ecology, economic justice, and equality.
• STH TS 854: The Boston University Ethical Tradition
  This seminar is designed to orient participants to the BU tradition in theology and ethics that has its roots in the 19th century. We will consider the Boston Personalists beginning with Borden Parker Bowne, John Wesley Edward Bowen, and especially the work of Edgar S. Brightman, as well as the later Personalists -- Albert C. Knudson and Francis McConnell. We will also explore the works of Georgia Harkness, L. Harold DeWolf, Peter Bertocci, and in particular, Walter Muelder (and the Moral Law tradition). There is an emphasis on Howard Thurman and his impact on BU, as well as the influence of the BU ethical tradition on the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. We will also consider the ethics of contemporary exponents of the BU ethical tradition. Throughout the seminar, there is consideration given to the philosophical and theological roots of the BU ethical tradition as well as its social, economic, and political applications. This tradition is based on the belief in a personal God who cares about people, and made each person in the divine image-endowed with inherent value, worth and dignity. This is a central message of the BU ethical tradition, and in the seminar, we will look at is foundations as well as its evolution, and also why that tradition historically was attractive to Black graduate students in theology and social ethics.
• STH TS 862: Global Ethics in Cultural Contexts
  An in-depth study of distinctive approaches to economic, ethnic, gender and political justice in diverse regions: North America, Latin America, Africa, Asia and Israel/Palestine. Liberation theology perspectives - African American, Feminist, Womanist, Mujerista, Latin American, Native American, Asian, African, Jewish and Palestinian - will provide bases for developing transcultural social ethics.
• STH TS 863: Literature of Memory III: The Seduction and Fall of Evil
  Looks at evil from a variety of perspectives, exploring the human weaknesses beguiled by evil and the human strength capable of opposing it. Course readings include selections from the Bible, Shakespeare, and contemporary literature. Please email Jean McIntyre at mcintyre@bu.edu to enroll. Prerequisite: 400-level course in the Humanities or upper-level literature class. Preference given to seniors & graduate students. No WebReg; stamped approval from the instructor's office required.
• STH TS 867: Christianity and Ecology in Community Contexts
  A study of Christian and Native American spiritual insights related to ecological perspectives, principles, and practices. Student classroom sessions, research, and analysis will be complemented by field work: engagement with members of faith traditions and environmental organizations in the Boston area. Writings of theologians and ecologists, statements from individual denominations and ecumenical associations, teachings of native elders, and the relationship of the proposed Earth Charter to religious teachings and current ecological issues will be discussed. Economics, ethics, and ecology will be integrated with the evolving School of Theology Green Vision statement, its implementation on campus, and its engagement in projects with community organizations and faith communities off-campus.

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