Courses

• STH TC 850: Identity, Preaching, and Leadership in Postcolonial Contexts
  This course provides distinctive postcolonial lenses through which students will explore and examine how persons and communities practice intercultural preaching (alternatively, public speech) and leadership in relation to identities: culture, race, gender/sex, religious traditions, and religious communities. Through investigating various historical sociocultural religious traditions and religious leaders in terms of postcolonialism, class, race and sex/gender, students will critically reflect on challenging conditions of power and authority and engage with the complexities of leadership and preaching. Building on these studies and reflections, students will gain a keen sense of understanding different leadership and preaching practices interculturally, and develop their own approaches for their varied contexts and identities.
• STH TC 851: Preaching and Worship in the African-American Traditions
  Study of the preaching, prayer, and music in African-American churches.
• STH TC 852: Spirituality and Leadership
  Changing times in church and society challenge our understandings about and practices of leadership. This course will examine the nexus of leadership and spirituality. We will examine theories about leadership, both secular and church-based, focus particularly on the systemic nature of leadership. We will also consider the importance of the 'being' of the leader, not just the 'doing'. The quality of a leader's life and work can be significantly enhanced by being supported with spiritual practices. Those spiritual practices may involve the leader as well as individuals and groups with whom the leader engages. Students will be given opportunity to reflect on biblical models of leadership, to explore a leadership in a contemporary setting, as well as to learn, experience, and practice spiritual disciplines for leaders and those with whom they lead.
• STH TC 854: Leadership in Times of Change
  Although it sounds like an oxymoron, change is a constant, whether in the context of the individual, the family, the local church, the university, the nation, or the world. How a leader defines, understands and deals with change, both personally and in the leadership setting, is important both for the leader and those in the organization or group. Leadership for change may emerge from anywhere in the group/organization. Exploring theories and practices from both secular and church-based resources, students will seek to deal with these questions such as: What is the nature of change? How does our understanding of God shape our understanding of change? How does our understanding of change shape our understanding of God? Are there healthy ways to lead in times of transition and change? Are there leadership patterns and practices that are counterproductive in times of transition and change?
• STH TC 857: Spiritual Resources and Disciplines
  An introduction to Christian spiritual practices and traditions. The course explores topics such as prayer, lectio divina, discernment, spiritual guidance, justice, and hospitality, with attention to the importance of spiritual practice as the ground of ministry in diverse contexts. Students will develop their own Rule of Life as part of the work of the course.
• STH TC 858: Dismantling White Privlege
  This course will explore issues of racial justice through various lenses: history of "whiteness" and white privilege; evidence of racism throughout the history of the United States as well as currently; biblical and theological grounding; understanding of differences between personal prejudice, multiculturalism, and institutional systems of racism; consideration of ways of dismantling white privilege and power in those personal, institutional, and organizational contexts. While the course will focus primarily on the United States and white privilege and power expressed against African-Americans, Latinos, Asian, and Native Americans, other national & global cultural expressions will also be included and explored.
• STH TC 861: Theologies of Church Music
  The Church, throughout its history, has sought to clarify its relationship to culture. In particular, is the Church to accommodate its worship to culture or avoid adoption of cultural forms? The relationship of culture and worship will be explored in this course from the angle of the historical Church's use of music. How have the Church's theologians defined the role of music in the Church? What are the most appropriate musical forms for use in the Church? These issues will be examined with an eye to discussing and evaluating contemporary Christian musical expressions.
• STH TC 862: The Liturgical Year
  The historical development of a Christian calendar of both weekly and annual cycles. Descriptions of related liturgical and catechetical customs and contemporary calendar revision.
• STH TC 863: Reading and Writing Rites of Passage
  An examination of historical, theological, and pastoral aspects of the occasional offices that address life's passages and crises: birth, adolescence, Christian marriage, sickness and death, and Christian burial. An ecumenical and international approach will be taken in studying both historic and contemporary rites.
• STH TC 865: Disability and Theology
  This workshop serves as an introduction to disability as it relates to the study of theology and the practices of ministry. The purpose of this workshop is to expose students to people with disabilities through narratives, film clips and a panel discussion to help students think through the theological issues disability raises while developing potential responses to future encounters with people with disabilities. To this end the workshop will first explore the question: "What is disability?" as it has been defined from historic, social and medical perspectives. The workshop will explore disability through a theological lens exploring concepts, such as, creation, theological anthropology, and theodicy while attempting to answer critical theological questions related to disability. The workshop extends the reflection on disability and theology into the practices of ministry. This will involve reflection upon the meaning of welcoming and inclusion, worship and preaching when examined through the lens of disability.
• STH TC 867: Theology and Popular Culture
  This course places the Christian gospel into dialogue with a variety of expressions of North American popular culture (film, television, art, music, entertainment, sports, etc.) in an effort to understand the complex relationship between the two. The course takes up at with this dialogue against the wider background of the study of religion and popular culture and by exploring the nature of self and transcendence, morality and the spiritual quest as those are constructed and configured within popular culture. The course asks to what extent contemporary expressions of Christian worship, preaching, Ministry, evangelism, and spirituality might better engage popular culture and to what extent these expressions already reflected the values, patterns, and practices of popular culture.
• STH TC 868: Worship in the Anglican and Wesleyan Traditions
  A study of the historical, theological, liturgical, and sociocultural influences which have shaped the worship patterns of the major American denominations claiming a Wesleyan heritage.
• STH TC 869: Prophetic Preaching, Pastoral Ministry, and Social Change
  This course is designed to help students wrestle with several central issues around prophetic preaching in contemporary Christian churches: the relationships of prophetic preaching to the gospel, to the Bible, to the social-political context, and to pastoral ministry generally. Since the course is designed to be a seminar, students will be expected to wrestle with these issues not only in class but also through a sermon and a public message. By the end of the course, students should be able to develop their own vision for prophetic preaching in a way that integrates the above concerns by moving from a specific Biblical text to a sermon as well as a public message in light of a situation. Pre-requisite TC715 Intro to Preaching or its equivalent.
• STH TC 871: Spiritual Foundations for Peace Building
  Through reading and reflection on biographies and autobiographies of national and international peace-builders, students will look at how the cultural contexts and spiritual practices of the peace-builder influenced their peace- building work. The focus will be on peace-builders beginning in the 20th century with Gandhi, King, Chavez, Day, Deming, and others. Students will also explore their own contexts and how those contexts impact their perspectives on both spiritual formation and confliction transformation.
• STH TC 872: Animals, Theology and Healing
  Explores various dimensions of divine/human/animal interactions, but with a focus upon healing relationships. The course ranges across the areas of theology, spirituality, liturgy, pastoral care, history, psychology, mind/body medicine (stress reduction), and public policy. While Christian theologies of creation and stewardship/ecology are central, the approaches of other religions and their practices will also be examined for purposes of comparison (and perhaps dialogue). J-Term Course, Jan. 9-13, 17 (9am-4pm)
• STH TC 878: Sabbath: Theology and Practice
  This course explores Sabbath keeping as a central practice of faith and a core practice of transformative religious leadership. Drawing upon Jewish and Christian traditions, we will study theologies and practices of Sabbath keeping and reflect upon their meaning in contemporary contexts. Topics include Sabbath keeping and spiritual formation, Sabbath and "time poverty", Sabbath and the Lord's Day, Sabbath keeping as a dimension of pastoral excellence, Sabbath keeping as countercultural practice, Sabbath and ecological stewardship, and Sabbath and social justice. The course includes contextual site visits in an effort to learn across traditions. Students will be encouraged to cultivate a practice of Sabbath keeping throughout the semester and are invited to draw upon music and the creative arts in their practice and reflections. As the culmination of the course they will have the opportunity to do a substantial research paper or design a practical theological project relevant to their own community and context of leadership.
• STH TC 879: Preaching Apocalyptic Texts
  This seminar helps students gain competence in exegetical and homiletical approaches that aid preaching apocalyptic texts in the New Testament (e.g., Revelation). The course does so by focusing on the literary matrix of first-century apocalyptic literature and and how that literature can aid students in developing in- class sermons that reflect its unique rhetoric and form.
• STH TC 890: New Church Development
  The planting and birthing of new congregations requires careful planning, innovative leadership, organizational savvy, a strong spiritual base, and endless creativity. This course is a study in the theology and practice of starting new congregations and covers such topics as contextual worship, organizational development, finance and facilities, exegeting a community, and creative community outreach. Coursework includes specific congregational development research projects.
• STH TC 897: Our Lady of Guadalupe as Resource for El Pueblo
  This course will consider the contextual dynamics of power and agency that contributed to the establishment of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a powerful symbol for diverse communities across chronological and geographical boundaries. Students will explore narratives, rituals, faith practices, and visit historical sites in Mexico. Facilitated through a protestant feminist /Mujerista perspective, this course will be a travel seminar to Mexico and run in a seminar style with the instructor as facilitator for critical engagement of readings, sharing of experiences, and contextual deconstruction/construction of methods, theories and 'official" historical understandings.
• STH TC 898: Blessings, Black Power, and the New Black Church
  This course explores the concept of church renewal through specific reference to "the Black Church" in the United States. The course investigates the economic, political, social, and cultural contexts of black communities and identifies the theological and practical challenges that these shifting contexts pose for the ongoing ministry of black churches. In light of these contextual challenges, students will assess the adequacy of diverse theological visions for the future of the Black Church. The course pays special attention to the ways in which "blessings" and "black power" function as dialectic theological emphases which both aid and constrain theological and ministerial reflection on the nature and mission of black churches. The course queries whether the present moment can birth novel theological paradigms for a "new Black Church" or whether "the Black Church" as a coherent tradition and identifiable ecclesial entity is dead.

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