How should the white Church’s participation in chattel slavery change what we believe about Holy Communion? The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops has called white supremacy the most present sin in Western culture today. From Manifest Destiny to owning slaves, from opposing Civil Rights to continuing to hoard wealth from stolen land and stolen people, …
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Beyond Empire: Rethinking the History of Global Christianity
Christianity was a demonstrably global faith (with its center of gravity in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East) before it became a predominantly Western religion (c.1500). Now, after roughly five centuries, it has once again reemerged as a hugely non-Western phenomenon. A full historical account reveals a faith that is inherently global because it is …
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Heaven in the Theological Imagination
The concept of heaven has played an important role in Christian thought since the earliest New Testament writings, and the Christian vision of Heaven has influenced the world. How do we intersect with this concept, starting with what we were taught and continuing through the sense-making we’ve done for ourselves around the idea of heaven? …
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Deuteronomy and the Formation of Racial/Ethnic Worldviews
This course will explore the book of Deuteronomy as well as literature focused on the formation of ethnicity and processes of racialization. Students will evaluate our own connection to ethnic and racialized worldviews while we will seek to understand what sort of community Deuteronomy is attempting to form in ancient Israel. Then, we will consider …
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Listening to and Learning from Children in the Ancient World
What did it mean to be a child in the ancient world? Did Jesus and the early Christians accept and value children in different ways than their fellow Jews or neighbouring Greeks and Romans? This course will look at Jesus’ teachings on children, on reading other New Testament texts that deal with the life of …
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Thomas Merton and Racism
Merton’s writings on the problem of racism are perhaps the least known of his works. They are, however, among his most important, not only because they address issues that arose at the height of the Civil Rights movement, but also because his writings continue to have astonishing relevance today. In this course, we will examine …
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Spirituality of Everyday Life: Learning from the Celtic, Benedictine, Franciscan and Ignatian Traditions
This course is about embodying an authentic spirituality that is rooted and lived out in the ordinariness of our daily existence—a life with God that is both human and holy – an everyday spirituality (based on exploring and learning from the varying yet overlapping features of Celtic, Benedictine, Franciscan, and Ignatian spiritualities). It seeks to …
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Listening to the Heart of Genesis: A Contemplative Path
The purpose of the course is to introduce students to a new gateway to the Book of Genesis through a Jewish contemplative practice called kriat hakodesh (reading the sacred) which has its roots in the Christian practice of lectio divina. Students will learn at least five important stories from the Book of Genesis and the …
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Paul Tillich and Howard Thurman: The Ethics of Love in a Hostile World
In today’s culturally and religiously diverse societies, with their intense political divisions amongst people, the idea of loving our neighbor and enemy may appear sentimental, pollyannish and impractical. The notion of self-love also seems to border on reinforcing an unhealthy individualism that distances us from one another and our sense of interconnectedness. We are challenged …
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Exodus: The Liberation Chronicles
The course involves study of Book of Exodus focusing on its narrative sections, and especially on the biography of Moses and the female characters in his story, with sensitivity to Christian and Jewish interpretations of this material. The method of the course is to practice close reading of the materials in English translation. We will …
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