Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• 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. (Clusters 2 and 3)
• 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) (Clusters 2 and 3)
• 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. (Clusters 1 and 3)
• 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. (Clusters 1 and 3)
• 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. (Cluster 3)
• 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. (Clusters 2 and 3)
• STH TC 899: Practicing Justice
  This course explores the nature of social justice and its place within the mission of the church by: a) surveying the varied conceptions, contexts, and practical contours of justice in contemporary societies; and b) investigating key theological and religio-critical perspectives on the historical, biblical, and theological foundations of social justice as a constitutive attribute of Christian community and Christian ministry. Upon this examination, the church's pursuit of social justice emerges as a multifaceted practice that disturbs traditional distinctions between the prophetic and priestly dimensions of the church's identity. Through careful attention to the required texts, as well as the conduct of student research and constructive reflection, course participants are encouraged to rediscover the practice of seeking justice as an art of ministry -- as a dance through which prophetic and priestly activities engage one another as partners. (MDiv Practicing Faith Section) (Clusters 2 and 3)
• STH TC 906: Situational Preaching
  This course is designed with occasional and situational preaching in view. It presupposes the probability of both recurring and unique situations in which the gospel (the "good news," not the final lection in the ecumenical order) must be preached in a way both clear and arresting. To deal with this presupposition, the course will deal with preaching the gospel when some situational feature of congregational or organizational life demands attention. Indirectly, it is also an exploration of theological method. In whatever situation, the preaching task will be viewed as a theological one, i.e., as an opportunity for discerning the import of and articulating the gospel anew in a given situation. Thus students will be equipped to be "theologians of the Word" who can interpret situations from a variety of viewpoints, evaluate the usefulness of various tools for preaching in light of the gospel and then employ them fruitfully. In order to do this, we will work on the following tools: 1. Bringing to critical awareness our own understandings of the gospel, 2. Developing skills and resources as contextual theologians in residence, , and 3. Developing skills and resources as homiletical exegetes of situations. As a result students should develop greater pastoral sensitivity, rhetorical savvy and think-on-your-feet theological acumen while preparing for preaching in a context in which transformational theological leadership needs to be exercised.
• STH TC 909: Spiritual Autobiographies
  Participants in this course will read selected spiritual autobiographies in order to gain an understanding of the varieties of religious experience and the interrelationship between spirituality, theology, and historical and cultural context. We will examine the nature of religious experience and the difficulties in translating this experience into language. Moreover, we will explore the important issue of how spirituality relates to the institutional churches, and the various shapes spirituality takes outside these institutions. Through close, empathetic, and critical examination of the texts, participants also will reflect on their own spiritual journeys and spiritual identities. They will prepare written analyses of course texts and, by the end of the course, will write a portion of their own spiritual autobiography.
• STH TC 912: Classics in Christian Spirituality
  This course serves as an introduction to the study of Christian spirituality through in-depth reading of selected classics in Christian spirituality as well as secondary source scholarship in the discipline. We will delve into texts by early monastics and visionary medieval mystics; look anew at Protestant hymns and poetry; go deeper into Ignatian discernment; and engage the spiritualities of Latin American liberation theologians and African American women. This interdisciplinary seminar opens up reflection on spirituality and theology; spirituality and history; spirituality, gender, race, and ethnicity; spirituality, poetics, and autobiography; spirituality and ministry; and spiritual practice. Students are encouraged to integrate the material with an eye toward their own spiritual lives and vocations. The course will integrate music, art, and poetry to offer a fuller engagement with spiritual classics.
• STH TC 913: Embodying the Kingdom
  Embodying the Kin(g)dom fosters transformational leadership by helping students to discern and interrogate habitual ways of mentally separating the physical body from spiritualized visions of what Jesus calls the "kingdom." This course assists students in appreciating the embodied nature of enacting and experiencing faith through personal, congregational, and social practices such as prayer, eating, and moral injury. The course is designed to prepare students to help those they serve to reflect critically and creatively on the connections between body, Spirit, and faith.
• STH TC 914: Worship in Times of Change
  Birth, maturation, sickness, and death are life changes that are addressed ritually in most human societies and cultures. Christian communities, though initially slow to do so, have introduced worship events/liturgies that speak the Gospel in such times of crisis or change- -those human as well as institutional. Even so, new occasions or circumstances arise in each generation where Christian communities may be called upon to supply ritual interventions that both sustain and transform. This course will focus on contemporary rites addressing human and institutional "life-cycle passages," which will be examined and evaluated with attention to contextual, theological, liturgical, ritual, and pastoral criteria. After learning basic skills for ritual writing, students in pairs or triads will work collaboratively on a project to address a "gap" in the liturgical resources available to churches and other Christian communities and institutions.
• STH TC 919: The Sacraments: Rites and Theologies
  Contemporary study of the sacraments brings together ritual studies, liturgical history, the history of dogma, and systematic reflection. This course examines the baptismal and eucharistic rites of the Church, both past and present, along with theological rationales of and commentaries on them offered by ecclesiastic writers of the patristic, medieval, Reformation, and modern periods.
• STH TC 937: Vocation, Work, and Faith
  Who am I called to become? What am I called to do? What are my gifts and where will they be recognized and of service? These kinds of vocational questions are fundamental to our lives. The course seeks to open up reflection, study, and dialogue about vocation, work, and spirituality in religious traditions and in our own life experience. Work and vocation are often connected. Work too is a crucial religious question in contemporary society. Work exerts a powerful--and often unrecognized--influence on human beings. It can support life, develop talents, elicit creativity, and enable people to contribute to the common good. Work also can demean human beings, undermining their dignity, perpetuating unjust structures, overpowering values, and crowding out other important spheres of life. Labor issues are important concerns for faith communities and faith-based community organizations. This course explores vocation and work as theological/spiritual issues, including implications for ministry. We will explore themes such as: work as spiritual practice or challenge; labor and justice issues; discerning vocation; creativity; Sabbath; "time poverty"; and work-life balance. The course involves site visits, vocational mentoring, seminar presentations, and individual research/ministry projects.
• STH TC 938: Church Renewal
  Literature on church renewal abounds, as theologians and practitioners respond to the declining attendance and cultural influence of the church in Western societies. This course engages a variety of approaches to church renewal, requiring students to compare and contrast the selected proposals with respect to their contextual analyses, theological foundations, and practical strategies. The course functions as an advanced workshop in which students explore the efficacy of "church renewal" as a conceptual framework for guiding contemporary ministry praxis. The aim of the course is to equip students with the tools to construct a theologically informed plan of action for transformational leadership in their own specific contexts of ministry.
• STH TC 960: Theologies of Preaching
  This doctoral seminar course helps students become familiar with attempts across multiple traditions to understand what preaching is theologically. It aims to equip them to engage the theological task constructively as homiletical theologians in their own right.
• STH TC 978: 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. As part of this work, we also will explore Christian theologies of the Lord's Day, including the meaning of Sabbath in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The course will include attention to Jewish-Christian dialogue as well as consideration of debates internal to faith communities about Sabbath keeping. We also will focus attention on questions of Sabbath keeping and spiritual formation, Sabbath keeping as a dimension of pastoral excellence, Sabbath as countercultural practice, and implications of Sabbath for social justice. Students will be encouraged to cultivate a practice of Sabbath keeping throughout the semester and as the culmination of the course they will have the opportunity to design a practical theological project relevant to their own community and context of leadership.
• STH TE 808: Creative Pedagogy
  This course examines the transformative potential of creative pedagogy, in which individuals and communities learn through the free play of possibilities that deepen faith. By engaging practical, historical, theological approaches, students learn to consider the tensions, risks and opportunities of creative pedagogy, while acquiring skills to teach and learn through the body, the imagination, and the senses. (Cluster 3)
• STH TE 811: Doing Theology Aesthetically
  In this course learners explore the aesthetic dimensions of meaning-making through visual art and aesthetic practices. Discussion of texts, experiences of making art, and engagement in aesthetic practices shed light on the potential strengths and limitations of using aesthetic experience as an effective teaching approach in religious education. (Clusters 1 and 3)
• STH TE 812: Introduction to Christian Education: Person, Community, and Religious Education
  This course is a practical introduction to ministries of learning and teaching in Christian communities. It will explore the dynamics of individual and communal faith formation in diverse contexts, drawing on a range of perspectives from theology and the philosophy of education. Students will analyze the education offerings of religious communities, evaluate educational resources, practice effective teaching approaches, and design educational strategies appropriate to their community of faith. (Cluster 3)

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