This course will study the relation between faith in God and the capacities of human reason.  The main topics will be the relation between faith in God and morality, religious experience, the problem of evil, the nature of faith, the traditional proofs for the existence of God, miracles and science, immortality, and religious pluralism. In all …
View course details “Faith and Reason”

The American physician-poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. once observed that the famous eighteenth-century theologian and revivalist Jonathan Edwards believed not in a Trinity but in a Quaternity—and that for Edwards the fourth person was “Justice.” Holmes was active during the late nineteenth century, when Edwards’ trinitarian credentials were in doubt: supposedly there were manuscripts his …
View course details “Jonathan Edwards on the Trinity”

This course will explore sacramental theology through the lens of the Episcopal Church and, specifically, how the sacraments are encountered through the liturgies of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The majority of the course will focus on the sacraments of baptism and eucharist, but the other sacramental rites will be examined. By the end …
View course details “Sacramental Theology”

From biblical times to the present, God has been in the middle of politics. Charismatic leadership, the election of leaders and nations, political parties and their social policies, scandal and sin, kingship and triumph—all of these have been peppered with theological rhetoric. Building on biblical and contemporary studies, this course asks whether there is more …
View course details “The Bible & Politics: A Biblical Perspective”

This course explores the age-old problem of suffering from a unique and often overlooked perspective: mental health. Traditional theological approaches to suffering tend to offer simple answers that are too thin for the complex reality many people face. This course will dive deeper, exploring what a “thick” account of suffering—one that takes into account the …
View course details “Theology, Mental Health & the Problem of Suffering”

Why are dystopian novels, movies, and television series so wildly popular? After sitting in a theater watching a film about nuclear annihilation (cozily nestled between car and beer commercials), we walk into the light of day to face the “real” media-controlled world of diversion and distraction, of ever-regenerated images that never die. Why is our …
View course details “Apocalypse Now, Then, or Never? Why We Love Dystopian Stories”

The formative period of early Christianity was crucial to the development of Christian faith. It was during this time that the basic parameters of many of key doctrines of the church were worked out—parameters that have exerted a normative influence on Christian life and thought ever since. Many of the issues that were debated in …
View course details “The First Christian Centuries”

In many parts of today’s world, Christians are deeply divided from their neighbours—and from one another—by political allegiances. The stakes seem so high, and biblical teaching about government so clear and urgent, that agreement on politics is often treated as a test of faith. In this course we will take a step or two back …
View course details “Christianity & Politics”

In this course, we will work through several examples of early Christian dialogues from writers such as Justin Martyr, Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine of Hippo, and consider what difference a dialogical reorientation of theological method might make. There are rich resources available to us in early Christianity that can inform our …
View course details “Theology as Dialogue in Early Christianity”

This course will trace major historical shifts in cultural understandings of gender, sexuality, marriage, and the family from the time of the early church to the present day. Together, we will explore how Christian belief and practice have shaped these categories over time, and how Christians have engaged with culture over these issues at different …
View course details “Marriage, Sex, & Family in Historical Perspective”