Courses

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

• STH TT 998: Theology and Trauma
  This course aims to bring the recent studies in the interdisciplinary study of trauma to bear on the field of theology. What unique challenges does the phenomenon of trauma pose to contemporary theology' The first part of the course explores recent studies in trauma, focusing on three areas of research: 1) neurobiology of trauma, 2) clinical/therapeutic studies, and 3) literary approaches to trauma. The second part of the course examines theological engagements with issues of radical suffering. The third part brings together the insights from the first two and focuses on the question of what it means to witness theologically to individual, societal, and global trauma. We will look at issues and contexts such as the criminal justice system, war, poverty, and racism. In this final part, students will be working towards constructive theological engagements with issues of trauma through interaction with a variety of mediums: art, literature, spiritual practices, and film. The course is not a counseling course. It aims to provide rich theological reflection around issues of suffering, violence, and trauma, both individual and global.
• STH TY 704: Spiritual Care
  Spiritual care is the art of ministry, chaplaincy, and counseling as it relates to the theological, psychological, and sociocultural needs of individuals and communities of faith. This course introduces various theories, methods, and practices of spiritual care and cognate disciplines for students to interpret and examine individuals and their communities as they are shaped by their own communal and sociocultural contexts. Students will have an opportunity to explore some of the personal, interpersonal, and communal issues that spiritual caregivers encounter as they engage in the work of care within congregations, hospitals, schools, the military, workplaces, and faith-based agencies. Furthermore, because of its deep commitment to social justice, spiritual care pays close attention to how social advantages and disadvantages contribute to unjust policies and systems that produce injustices based on class, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or other aspects of one's social identity. (Cluster 3)
• STH TY 803: The Psychology of Religion
  Examining methodological questions and issues in the psychological interpretation of religious matters by considering what is meant by 'religion' and what is involved in interpreting 'religion' psychologically. (Cluster 2)
• STH TY 811: Object Relations and the Study of Religion
  Achieving familiarity with and fluency in a series of psychoanalytic theories of personality/character, development, relationships, motivation, health, and pathology, as a context in which to practice psychoanalytic interpretations of religious matters. (Cluster 2)
• STH TY 826: Couple and Family Dynamics
  This is an introductory course that includes a comprehensive overview of the field of family systems and family therapy. This course will serve as an introduction to the theory and techniques of couples and family therapy. An attempt will be made to integrate theory and practice through assignments, class activities, and personal and professional self-reflection. Students will have the opportunity to reflect upon how they might actually use course content professionally in their respective disciplines. (Clusters 2 and 3)
• STH TY 833: Reading Lives: Story, Autobiography, and Identity
  The course offers an in-depth study of narrative theories from a broad range of fields encompassing disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Students will be introduced to integrative concepts from narrative psychology, narrative therapy, literary studies, narrative (virtue) ethics, narrative gerontology, and narrative medicine to understand the importance of human stories, beliefs, values, and meanings. For the past thirty years, pastoral theologians and spiritual caregivers have engaged narrative theories to understand human identity and experience by listening to and examining stories of individuals and communities. More recently in narrative approaches to spiritual care, scholars and practitioners in religion engage the insights of critical theory to deconstruct harmful narratives and find ways to create more life-giving narratives, especially for individuals and communities from historically marginalized contexts. By exploring the history, theories, and methods of narrative spiritual care, students will be able to think deeply and broadly about its ramifications in ministry and life. (Cluster 2 & 3)
• STH TY 834: Empathy and pluralism:  Understanding, developmentally, varieties of faiths among and within us
  We live among people who differ in many ways not only from ourselves but from one another. This situation, globally as well as locally, often gives rise to fear and anxiety, misunderstanding and conflict, harm and violence. Our response, too readily, is fight, flight, or freeze, and our shorter-term tactics and longer-term strategies are insufficient. The course addresses this situation as it examines texts, perspectives, and experiences having to do with two subject areas: pluralism and empathy. We explore pluralism, interpersonally and socially, in experiences and engagements among differences in (a) religion and theology, (b) race and ethnicity, and (c) sexuality and gender. We explore pluralism within one¿s own psyche, in the interaction among coexisting developmental perspectives (that of the child, the adolescent, and the adult) and in the abiding contrast between a perspective we profess consciously and another we enact unconsciously. We explore the development of empathy from ¿the default position¿ (characterized by egocentrism, presumed objectivity, unexamined simplification, and binary thinking) toward mutually beneficial ways of being and being-with others.
• STH TY 842: Pastoral Psychology of Healing
  Every person, in her or his personal relationships and professional activities, is guided by a complex, often tacit, theory of healing, comprised of judgments about illness/suffering (what's wrong'); health/well-being (what's possible' what's ideal'); the trajectory from one to the other (how do we get there'); and factors that enhance as well as inhibit movement along that trajectory (what should we do'). Examining and comparing a range of theories of healing--in psychology, medicine, Christian traditions, world religions, and non-Western cultures--equips us critically to reflect upon, amend, if not reconstruct our respective theories of healing. (Clusters 2 and 3)
• STH TY 860: Introduction to Chaplaincy
  Organized around three competencies (interpersonal, organizational, and meaning- making), this focuses on the unique dimensions of what it means to provide spiritual care in public settings. The course provides opportunities for students: 1) to identify strengths they bring to the work; 2) explore various sectors of chaplaincy; 3) interact with working chaplains; and 4) engage historical, contemporary, and future-forecasting research on spiritual care in North America. The course is highly recommended for students pursuing chaplaincy, those discerning vocation in this area, and working chaplains eager for further study. The course also welcomes those who are not pursuing chaplaincy as a vocation and interested in the practice of spiritual care in public spaces. (Cluster 1 & 2)
• STH TY 903: The Psychology of Religion
  Examining methodological questions and issues in the psychological interpretation of religious matters by considering what is meant by 'religion' and what is involved in interpreting 'religion' psychologically.
• STH TY 904: Spiritual Care and Social Justice
  
• STH TY 926: Couple and Family Dynamics
  This course includes a comprehensive overview of the field of family systems and family therapy. It will serve as an introduction to the theory and techniques of couples and family therapy. An attempt will be made to integrate theory and practice through assignments, class activities, and personal and professional self-reflection. Students will have the opportunity to reflect upon how they might actually use course content professionaly in their respective disciplines.
• STH TY 945: Cultivating Trauma Responsive Ministries
  This course invites you to approach your ministries with deepened awareness of the impact of trauma on you and members of your community. Together, we explore current research and literatures in trauma, trauma theologies, trauma-informed ministry practices, and consider the ways in which your community¿s mission can be vitalized in response to the phenomenon of trauma as it is showing up in your spaces.This course aims to better equip you to: - identify trauma¿s impact on you and your community - articulate the theological commitments that guide your responses to trauma - adapt the resources of your community in response to trauma - connect with partners in the work to build a network of support The course provides opportunities to develop resources particular to your setting and to interact with colleagues to discover the strengths you and your communities bring to trauma healing.