With Naomi Washington-Leapheart This retreat asks the question: If God is benevolent, just, and powerful, how can (does) evil persist in the lives of Black people living in the United States? In this retreat that will include both you and students from Rev. Naomi’s Villanova religious studies class by the same name, we will explore …
View course details “Do Black Lives Matter to God? A Theological Exploration of Evil, Suffering, Resistance, and Divine Accountability”
This course explores the nature of the Christian moral life in relation to specific topics, such as care for the environment, wealth and poverty, bioethics, etc. We will apply the major theories of classical and contemporary philosophical ethics and their different understandings of moral psychology and action to these questions and pay special attention to …
View course details “Anglican Ethics”
With Derrick Weston Food is at the heart of human society. The ways we grow, source, buy, prepare, serve, and eat all have the potential to build community or break it down. Food connects us to our own personal histories and can be a source of healing and comfort or pain and trauma. This retreat …
View course details “The Just Kitchen: Connecting to God, Neighbor, and Self Through Food”
We live in a world of power and politics that deeply impacts the lives of individual Christians and the Church. Often too, power and politics are at work in the actions and decisions of our churches and their leaders. It is in such a world that God is at work. In this course we look …
View course details “God & the Kings: Power, Praise, and Pragmatics in 1-2 Kings”
An application-based seminar on covenant epistemology in worship, life, and leadership. What does the philosophy of knowledge have to do with leadership and life? This week-long seminar, directed by Esther Lightcap Meek, offers a restorative philosophical vision that enhances worship and pastoral ministry and can be applied to any walk of life. Covenant epistemology is …
View course details “Loving to Know: Attuning Your Philosophy to Enhance Your Ministry”
Today’s moral and social challenges are complex, and our social discourse is often contentious. Explore how artifacts (such as hip-hop and architecture) enriches our understanding of God’s grace, culture and human flourishing, and in turn, shapes our responses to these challenges. Learn about the narrative arc of Scripture that encompasses not only our personal salvation …
View course details “The Gospel, Discipleship, & Cultural Engagement”
To some extent the history of Christian ethics the history of interpretation of biblical ethical teaching. An increasingly ‘moral’ reading of Scripture emerged with the privileging of the plain (or double literal) sense during the late medieval period. As one considers the bible was looked to in Franciscan moral theology in particular then one becomes …
View course details “Learning to Think Ethically with the Christian Tradition”
Taking each of the five continents in turn, this course looks at the significant missional achievements of their Christian pioneers (both cross-cultural missionaries and local communities of believers) to embody Christian faith and practice in their cultural contexts. The course focuses on each continent’s unique cultural embodiments (such as texts, liturgies, visual arts, architecture, institutions, …
View course details “Christianity & World Cultures: A History of Contextualization”
The climate crisis is an unavoidable pastoral concern in the church today. As the effects of anthropogenic climate change continue to increase in the coming years, increasingly the pastoral work of the ‘cure of souls’ is directly impacted by the intersecting crises of the climate crisis. This class will proceed in two parts. In the …
View course details “Integral Ecology and Theologies of Solidarity Course Registration”
Living in modern nation-states, intensified by globalization, our personal lives and relationships and everyday activities are unavoidably embedded in the complex realities of societal racial disparities and tensions, but in ways often unrecognized and unaddressed. How should we engage Christianly with the historical, political, economic, and cultural factors that condition and either restrict or expand …
View course details “Race, Racism & Christian Identity”
