All descriptions of the death of members of monastic communities in the Middle Ages have in common that music and song are part of the scenario. Nobody had to die in silence. The community accompanied their brothers and sisters on their last journey with singing. Death and dying are also important subjects in the history …
View course details “Sounds of Death and Mourning: Requiems and Funeral Songs through the Ages”

For centuries many have perceived a strong bond between the work of the Spirit and artistic creativity. Talk of inspiration, spirituality, and the life of the spirit abounds when the arts are in view. This course asks why this might be so. What is it about the arts that lends themselves so easily to “spirit-talk”, …
View course details “The Holy Spirit & the Arts”

This course explores the person of Jesus and how he has been understood through the ages. We begin with the representations of Jesus in the Gospels, study how the early church made sense of Jesus as a God-man, and look at how people see Jesus today. We will also see how the doctrine of Christ …
View course details “Christology Ancient and Modern”

The church has too often lost its way in reading the Old Testament for lack of sound principles of interpretation. When careless habits get us off track, we can lose sight of what the Bible is really saying, derailing our own spiritual growth and even risking discredit to God’s word. We need a consistent approach …
View course details “Becoming Faithful Readers of the Old Testament”

This course integrates history and theology together in away that shows how doctrine matters in shaping the mission of the church in every generation. It gives the opportunity for students to discover how doctrine has been contextualized in church practice, and how God has restored and renewed his wayward church time and again.

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”

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”

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”

The Gospel of John is one of most distinguished books in the Bible. It has unique literary and theological dimensions that we will explore together in details. The book is divided into the book of signs (John 1-12) and the book of the hour (13-21). In the book of signs we discover how the coming …
View course details “Reading the Gospel of John through Palestinian Eyes”

Augustine of Hippo was involved in many debates over his lifetime. He took on Manichees, Donatists, versions of Arianism, and even some aspects of the Platonism of his day. But the most famous controversy associated with this most famous theologian (excepting only the gospel writers and Paul) is the Pelagian controversy, in which Augustine tackled …
View course details “Augustine & the Problem of Pelagius”