We live in a world of power and politics that deeply impacts the lives of individual Christians and the Church. Often too, power and politics are at work in the actions and decisions of our churches and their leaders. It is in such a world that God is at work. In this course we look …
View course details “God & the Kings: Power, Praise, and Pragmatics in 1-2 Kings”
The course New Testament Foundations explores the literature of the New Testament (NT) with the purpose of providing a basis for engaged reading, further study, and application to life and church. The primary focus will be on reading the New Testament wisely, offering a multifaceted paradigm for reading/hearing this literature that includes a sensitivity to …
View course details “New Testament Foundations”
By virtually all accounts, the Book of Ecclesiastes is a strange book and its presence in the canon, if not anomalous, is at least in need of some discussion if not formal explanation and defense. This course proceeds through Qoheleth (the book’s Hebrew name) while considering and pursuing “Qohelutian” themes in other, biblical and extra-/non-biblical …
View course details “A Skeptic in Scripture: Ecclesiastes & Its Friends”
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”
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”
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”
This course will examine the nature of Paul’s spirituality—the transformative, lived experience of participating in Christ by the power of God’s Spirit—as it applies to believing communities, individual believers, and ministers in Paul’s own day and in the life of the contemporary church. The class will combine close reading of selected passages and themes with …
View course details “The Spirituality of Paul”
Instructor: John Boopalan, Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Canadian Mennonite University We welcome guest learners to join our students in this circle. Contact [email protected] with questions and to register.
This pilgrimage is a prayerful journey on the footsteps of St Paulin the City of Rome where he came to share the gospel and hislife for his brothers and sisters in Christ. During four days we willfollow and reexperience Paul’s mission in Rome, by visiting sitesrelated to his Jewish faith, the early communities of followers …
View course details “Pilgrimage to St Paul’s sites in Rome”
This course explores biblical views on and responses to material poverty. We will examine the nature and dimensions of economic inequality in the biblical world and how that reality is addressed by various parts of Scripture, from the Law and Prophets to the Gospels and Epistles. We also will explore the scope and causes of …
View course details “Bible and Poverty”