It has become rather commonplace to suppose that Anglican Christians care mostly about liturgy and not very much about theology. That’s not true! Anglican traditions exhibit a rich and diverse history of theological reflection. Anglicans have always insisted that that how Christians think and talk about God makes a critical difference in what Christians believe. …
View course details “What We Believe: Theology in the Anglican Tradition”

Whenever the church has aligned itself with worldly, coercive power, it ends up on the wrong side of important justice issues. But when the church cooperates with God’s power through his presence among the least powerful, its witness for Jesus transforms the world and the church into a better place. Join us for a 4-week …
View course details “Reckoning with Power: Why the Church Fails When It’s on the Wrong Side of Power; Book Club with David Fitch”

Over the course of ten academic weeks, students will encounter ten “crossroad” moments in Christian history, each reflecting epic and representative developments in the evolution of faith communities. This course survey’s the broad sweep of history of Christian history, from the Patristic Age to the 21st century. For each week, a “crossroad” event serves to …
View course details “Crossroads of Christian History”

How-to Bible is a high-energy introduction to the content and context of Scripture. It is designed for those new to the faith and lifelong Episcopalians who have never cracked the spine. If you’ve ever tried to read the Bible but quit somewhere in the middle of Leviticus, if you’ve ever been very confused by the …
View course details “How to Bible”

This course will explore the combination of literary and conceptual elements of the most intriguing of Gospels. The gospel displays a wide variety of literary techniques, many associated with ancient drama, and it engages the reader with complex theological issues about how God is known, about what God has done in the life and death …
View course details “Salvific Drama in the Gospel of John”

What is Islam? This course will provide a comprehensive introduction to understanding and engaging with Islamic tradition, practice and culture–and it will thus enable participants to offer answers to this far from straightforward question. In particular, the course will engage with Islam as a living tradition – a vibrant faith that is constantly and dynamically …
View course details “Towards Oneness and Mercy: Exploring the Foundations of Islam”

Don’t we just pick up the Bible and read it? What are various ways of interpreting the text and why do these methods matter? With attention to texts of the Hebrew Bible, this class offers an introductory sampling of different approaches in biblical studies, reading with feminist, disability, African, queer, and childist lenses. Course elements …
View course details “The Joy of Text: Reading the Bible with Liberating Lenses”

The poet Dana Gioia once asked in a book of this title, “Can Poetry Matter?” That question of course begs another question: matter in what ways? We may read poetry for any number of reasons, but this class considers how poetry nurtures, and enriches, our spiritual lives. By our close reading of poems together from …
View course details “Reading Poetry Devotionally: How Poems Nurture Our Spiritual Lives”

The Song of Songs, or “Song of Solomon,” is among the strangest books of the Bible. It is difficult to translate, hard to understand, and impossible to reconcile with moralistic styles of religious belief. The title of the course, “Locksmithing,” alludes to a famous Jewish saying that sums up both the enigma and attraction of …
View course details “Locksmithing: Unlocking the Song of Songs”

The early eighteenth-century British-American philosophical theologian Jonathan Edwards has often been called a “mystic.” Through a selected series of primary and secondary readings, supplemented by presentations and discussions, this course seeks to evaluate Edwards’ place within the mystical tradition, the contours and nature of his mysticism, and his appraisal of how mystical experience was appropriated …
View course details “Jonathan Edwards, the Mystical Tradition, and Revivalism”