This course represents an Introduction to Christian Systematic Theology through the loci of select, significant doctrines. The term “theology” derives from two Greek terms – theos (meaning God) and logos (meaning speech or reason). Thus, Systematic Theology is nothing more than talking about God in a systematic (ordered or methodical) manner. The course will consider different ways that Christians have talked about God, and God’s relationship to the world, by focusing on the topics of creation, “the fall” and original sin, Incarnation (the work of God in the human life of Jesus Christ), redemption (God’s work of salvation), Christology (a theology of Jesus Christ), Eschatology (teachings about last things), and Ecclesiology (teachings about the church).

September 17 – November 5, 2018

Instructor: The Rev. Kathryn L. Reinhard, Ph.D.

Kathryn L. Reinhard is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theology at Fordham University and a lecturer in Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary. She was ordained a priest at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in September of 2008. Kathryn received her Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Fordham University in 2015. Her research interests are directly tied to her ecclesial identity – a member of a church communion that in recent years has been rife with conflict. Her dissertation considers the problem of how to negotiate diversities in identity and practice within the unity of ecclesial relationship in both ecumenical and intra-church contexts of ecclesial division and conflict. This work offers a constructive Pneumatology aimed at addressing ecclesial issues of today by drawing on the resources of Continental philosophies of recognition (found in thinkers like G.W.F. Hegel, Judith Butler, Charles Taylor, and Paul Ricoeur), Augustinian Pneumatology, and the Pneumatology and Ecclesiology of Eberhard Jüngel.