Spirituality & Practice is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In line with this focus, we are pleased to offer the anti-racism training program “Racial Resilience” to our community members who share the goal of becoming anti-racist members of society. Our facilitators, Rev. Dr. Christopher Carter and Dr. Seth Schoen, utilize compassion-based contemplative practices when …
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Holy Eucharist & Transatlantic Slavery
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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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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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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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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Professional and Personal Ethics
In this course professional ethics in chaplaincy and counselling ministry settings will be considered. In this regard, issues such as codes of conduct, personal rights and freedoms, pertinent legal issues, knowing one’s professional limits, how and when to make a referral, maintaining confidentiality, and standards for ongoing professional and personal development will be addressed. Attention …
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Theology and Ethics: Liberation Perspectives and Praxis
In this course, students will be introduced to theological-ethical perspectives from liberation traditions with attention to various cultural, social, ethnic, and political contexts that have emerged from historically marginalized communities, with a focus on the United States and Latin America. This course places scholars from various liberation traditions (Latin American/Latinx, Black/Womanist, Indigenous, Asian American, Feminist, …
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The Sermon on the Mount
No portion of Scripture has been more thoroughly studied, preached upon, or written about than the Sermon on the Mount. This famous and influential passage from the Gospel of Matthew has a bearing on many fundamental questions of Christian life: What is the nature of God’s kingdom? What does godliness look like? What ethical considerations …
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The Arts, Empathy, and Spiritual Formation
Our malnourished capacity for empathy flows out of an equally malnourished imagination. To truly love and welcome others, we need to strengthen our imagination, learning to see our neighbours as God sees them. To do this, we need stories–stories that illuminate and convict, take us beyond ourselves, and enable us to see the beauty and …
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Smartphones, Surveillance, and Human Flourishing
Explore tools for building a theological framework for one of the most rapidly developing ethical challenges of our day: data collection and surveillance. Smartphones are everywhere, a valuable tool with thousands of uses in everyday life. But smartphones, along with many other daily-use devices, also perform regular surveillance. What happens to the data they handle? …
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