While parish life, in its ideal, can be bliss, at its worst it can be fraught with power struggles, abuses of authority, political divisions, and characterized more by hurt than Christ’s love. The point of this course is to equip participants with some means of recognizing and addressing issues of conflict, power abuse, and unethical behavior in their parishes. In addition to the core of the class, which centers on weekly case studies from real parishes (balanced between clergy and laity behaving badly), we’ll be looking at some elementary power theory, and some theories of ethics that translate well to parish life, including Niebuhr’s Responsibility Ethics, Habermas’ Dialogical Ethics, and interrelational/interdependent Feminist Ethics.
The Rev. Austin Leininger has been an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Northern California since 2006, and is working toward completing a PhD in Ethics and Social Theory at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He is husband to Jane, and papa to their three children (Marie – 7, Anthony – 5, and Lily – 3 ½), and to their three furry companions Ginger (canine), Fred and Pele (feline).
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$225.00
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Standard Rate
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$190.00
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Early Rate
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Fri, Mar 21, 2014
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$175.00
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AED Rate
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