Below, you can find descriptions for most of CST’s offered courses.
Please note: Not all courses are offered on a regular basis, and new courses are always being proposed and approved by faculty and may not be listed here.
If you know a keyword for the course you are looking for, please feel free to use the Ctrl+F/Command+F function to search the page.
Language Designations
| T | Courses taught in English |
| I | Courses taught in Korean |
Course Codes by Discipline
| CE | Contextual Education | CG | Global Contextual Theologies |
| CT | Comparative Theologies | CS | Contextual Studies |
| DT | Dharma Traditions | DS | Denominational Studies |
| ES | Ethics, Politics & Society | HB | Hebrew Bible |
| HC | History of Christianity | HS | Historical Studies |
| IE | Interreligious Education | IR | Interreligious Studies |
| IS | Interdisciplinary Studies | JS | Jewish Studies |
| LA | Leadership & Administration | MU | Muslim Studies |
| NT | New Testament | PS | Process Studies |
| RA | Religion and the Arts | RE | Religious Education |
| RS | Religious Studies | SC | Spiritual Care & Counseling |
| SF | Spiritual Formation | TS | Textual Studies |
| TH | Theology | TW | Theological Writing (no credit) |
| US | Urban Studies | WP | Worship, Preaching & the Arts |
| WR | World Religions |
Degree Specific Course Codes
| CR | Continuous Registration |
| DC | Doctoral Project Completion |
| DM | Doctoral Ministry Contexts |
| DP | Doctoral Project |
| DR | Exam & Dissertation Research |
| MC | MDiv Degree Completion |
| MR | MA/MTS Research on Summative Exercise |
CLAREMONT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY COURSE LISTINGS
TCE3000 Elective Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)
MDiv students who have received permission to substitute CPE for a parish placement to meet field education requirements in the MDiv program register for this course. This option is normally limited to those students preparing for ministries in chaplaincy. Prior to registration, students must secure approval for this substitution from one of the professors of Spiritual Care and Counseling and from the Director of Field Education. Students are responsible to gain acceptance into a CPE program accredited by Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. (ACPE) prior to course registration and provide proof of acceptance at time of registration. CPE often follows a schedule different from the School’s academic calendar. Fees charged by ACPE Center are paid by the School out of the student’s tuition.
TCE3075 Religious Leadership
An introduction to contemporary approaches to leadership practices and basic essential administrative tasks and processes in churches and non-profit organizations. Course outcomes include knowledge and skill in these areas as well as understanding of cultural, contextual, and ethical issues and implications. There will be pre-class assignments. Populi site will be open one month before class starts.
TCE3080 Formation: Field Education I
In consultation with the Director of Field Education, students are placed in ministry settings for 10-12 hours per week from September through mid-May. The concurrent weekly seminar emphasizes reflection on the practice of ministry as experienced in the field education setting. There will be pre-class assignments. Populi site will be open one month before class.
TCE3081 Formation: Field Education II
In consultation with the Director of Field Education, students are placed in ministry settings for 10-12 hours per week from September through mid-May. Concurrent weekly seminars emphasize reflection on the practice of ministry as experienced in field education settings. There will be pre class assignments. Populi site will be open one month before class starts. Prerequisite: TCE3080
TCE3086 MA Internship
MA students may take TCE3086 as an elective for one or two semesters, with their advisor’s permission. For 3 units of credits, requirements include a semester-long 8-10 hour per week internship placement or its equivalent and a 3-hour weekly seminar or its equivalent arranged as a directed study. Supervised placements are available and can be developed in a variety of settings including social service, justice and advocacy, non-profit management, health services, and campus ministry. Religious, interreligious, and secular organizations can be considered as placement sites. Students are responsible for arranging their internship placements, with consultation and support from the Director of Field Education. Placement arrangements should be completed at least two months before the planned start date. Permission from the Director of Field Education is required for registration.
TCE3090 Advanced Field Education
MDiv students who want more practicum experience may take up to 6 credits of advanced field education, arranged in consultation with the Director of Field Education. Reflective work is usually done individually, arranged as a directed study. Permission from the Director of Field Education is required for registration.
TCG3000/4000 Introduction to Contextual Theologies
Contextual theologies were sprouted in the late 1960’s. In this course, students will be introduced to recapture the nature of theology, revisiting the history of theologies from contextual perspectives, and re-anchoring the resources and methods of doing theologies in particular contexts. Close attention will be given to the role of cultural resources from students’ respective backgrounds and contexts and be encouraged to do a living theology from their particular realities.
TCG3005/4005, THB3086/4086 Asian and Asian-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Cultural readings and interpretations of the Bible have gained more and more attention in the field of biblical studies in the last two decades. In this course, students will be introduced to the practices, methods, and theory that constitute Asian and Asian American biblical hermeneutics. Close attention will be given to the interpretation of specific texts and students will be encouraged to explore implications for teaching and preaching in their particular contexts.
TCG3025/4025 Pedagogy and Teaching in Global Context
This course explores theoretical models and pedagogical practices of religious education and faith formation in a range of contexts. It is designed to help students reflect critically and constructively on educational design and to equip students with the teaching and curricular skills to facilitate educational practice. Education shall be examined through theological, spiritual, liberative, and cultural perspectives and through the impact that context plays in formation.
TCG3010/4010 Postcolonial Theory and Theology
“Postcolonial” has been popularly used as a self-designated position for the formerly colonized peoples in Africa, Latin American, and Asia. It carries at least three meanings in its current circulation, including historical, political, and socio-cultural. The course will review the history of colonialism and the emergence of postcolonial theology, familiarize students with the postcolonial theories and discourse since the late seventies, and critically analyze postcolonial theologies’ contribution, role, achievements over the past few decades.
TCS3000 Formation: Cultural Fluency
Focus of this course is to enable students to do theological reflection on vocation from the perspective of critical multiculturalism; that is, vocation both as the call to personal transformation and to action as God’s agents of change and transformation within human societies.
TCT/TIR/TPS3008/4008, TSF3021/4021 Mysticism East and West
Mysticism is a name for a multiplicity of longstanding spiritual, subversive, and utterly creative traditions in various philosophies and religions of the East and West, which take the experiential experiment with the Divine as the ultimate approach to an understanding of the world and its meaning. Just what is a mystical experience? And how does it inform and express itself in various philosophical and religious understandings of the world? This seminar attempts a critical examination of the immanent resonance of this mystical approach to process theology, with its insistence on the philosophical method of experiential experiments with reality and God, and to a folio of outstanding thinkers from diverse religions (especially Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and the Baha’i Faith), Christian mystical thinkers like Nicholas of Cusa and Meister Eckhart, and to contemporary philosophy (especially Gorge Bataille and Gilles Deleuze) in their relevance to current philosophical and theological reconsiderations of the Divine. Same as TPS3008/4008.
TCT3014/4014 Faith and Freedom: Cross-Cultural Liberation Theology
How many ways are there to fight for freedom? In the last 45 years, religious communities have asserted that our faith can, does and should work in service of our personal, cultural, social, political, and economic freedoms. Scholars and communities alike have stressed the fact that our experience in this world affects the ways in which we conceive of and practice our faith. This course will explore liberation theologies from different social and cultural perspectives examining how different groups have conceived of God, faith, and their own actions in struggles against oppression. We will consider liberation theologies in the following trajectories: Latin American, black, feminist, womanist, African, Asian, Latino/a, gay-lesbian, disability. Emphasis is on Christianity, but the course includes principles of liberation and theology, in general. Prerequisite: At 3000 level, Systematic Theology, Systematic Theology for Ministry or equivalent; otherwise, permission of instructor.
TCT3021/4021 Religion and Science in Comparative Religious Perspectives
You cannot shelter theology from science, or science from theology; nor can you shelter either of them from metaphysics, or metaphysics from either of them. There is no shortcut to truth. (A.N. Whitehead, Religion in the Making) In this course intersections of religion and science will be discussed primarily from the perspective of process thought. Readings will be from Clayton, Cobb, and Whitehead, among others.
TCT3023/4023 Ecofeminist Theology
The topic of creation is foundational to Christian theology. Yet this theme has been slighted as an area of theological inquiry in its own right. The course will address theological issues of: Creation, apocalypticism and eschatology, sin, evil and the “Fall” of nature, church and redemption, covenantal and sacramental views of nature and how they have been shaped by an anti-ecological view of the God human nature relation but also have resources for ecological sustainability. The course will also focus on concrete issues of these crises: air, water and soil pollution, climate change, agriculture, energy, resource wars over water and petroleum, and the systems of corporate globalization.
TCT3031/4031 Theologies of Liberation
The message of liberation sounds clearly in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Yet it was not until the mid‐20th century that liberation theology as such was born. We will read and discuss Latin American, black, feminist, Minjung (Korean), and other liberation theologies, seeking to understand what they share in common, what is distinctive to each one, and how they can contribute to Christian thought and practice today.
TCT3037/4037 Feminist Theologies in North America
Organized systematically around the major themes of hermeneutics, creation anthropology, evil or alienation, Christology, redemptive hope, and community. Predominantly Christian, but with some work on Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Wiccan feminist hermeneutics and theology.
TCT3039/4039 The Theology of Moltmann and Rahner
In the rich history of Christian theology in the 20th century, two theologians have taken a special place: Jürgen Moltmann and Karl Rahner. Although not of the same persuasion or denomination, and of different generations, these thinkers have attracted or influenced virtually every Christian theologian in one way or another, and, hence, has gained a kind of “universal” importance. We might not find it necessary to think like them, but we should at least always be ready to think with them. This course on the theology of Moltmann and Rahner will explore their work in systematic theology, and also show why their theses and methods are indispensable for doing systematic theology in the 21st century. The course will include most of their major works and statements on topics ranging from the doctrine of God and the Trinity to Christology and pneumatology, to eschatology and ecclesiology. Throughout the course, the discriminating and resonating differences of their central intuitions and styles of thought will be of prime interest.
TCT3042/4042 The Relativity of Religious Truth
Religious Diversity is a fact and a problem. It is a fact of the complex reality of our world, and it is a problem of the interaction between religions and, even more, within religions. The complex discussions of “religious plurality” in philosophies of religion and theologies of different religions have led to many different heated debates about questions of religious truth: does one community or many communities represent its absoluteness; is it exclusive or inclusive? Its major theoretical aporia, however, is this: is religious diversity a welcomed or an unfortunate fact; is it based on description of reality or is it a normative ideal? In other words: should we accept plurality of religious traditions because we cannot avoid the fact of plurality or because it is a philosophical, theological, religious, and ethical imperative that we must be pluralistic in order to allow for Truth? This class will investigate the most prominent venues of addressing the plurality and unity of religions from the standpoint of positions of relativity and plurality of truth and paths of salvation/liberation, as well as the “unity” of (all) religions in conceptualizations of a multireligious “world theology.”
TCT3047/4047, TIR3080/4080, TPS3079/4079 The Transreligious Discourse: Buddhism and Christianity
“Transreligious discourse” is a new approach to interreligious studies that is interested in processes of transformation between religions with regard to their ways of life, doctrines, and rituals. Theoretically, it studies the possibility of such a transfer, not by comparison but by following the trajectories of mutual influences and traces of one religion (way of life, doctrine, or ritual) in the other or by examining their reflection in diverse theologies. Practically, it studies matters and ways of transfer. In this seminar, the perspective is upon Buddhism and Christianity, highlighting the mutual reception of various doctrines, which are considered central and irreplaceable in one religion or the other, and the creative transformation they issue in the other religion. Questions will involve: How are transreligious processes possible and how are they happening? What are the theological presuppositions, implications, and consequences when a tradition not only practically allows for such transfers but also reflects on them as part of its own development? Is there a Buddhist Christology? Is there a Christian doctrine of Emptiness? How do the diverse traditions dare to adopt mutually challenging notions of God and Nothingness? Is there a mutual concept of a “Buddha-Christ”? Also listed as TIR3088/4093.
TCT3048/4048, TPS3077/4077, TIR3050/4050 Spirit Beyond Matter: Religious and Near Death Experiences
In what sense are human mind and spirit bound by matter and bodily existence , are consciousness and spiritual perceptions mere illusions of material organization or a divine gift of genuine reality, deathless, not defined by the wearing away of the impermanent order of physicality? While materialist worldviews have questioned mind and spirit, consciousness, and freedom to the point of nonexistence, recent approaches in the philosophy of mind, science, and religion admit their elementary function in the universe. Supported by the current scientific research into near death experiences, the seminar will ask how this has changed the equations of materialism; how it addresses the ancient journey of the soul, the belief in the survival of death, and the meaning of spiritual realms; but also, why it has been critically received within the dogmatic limitations of diverse religious traditions; and whether it might be a future interreligious bridge between them.
TCT3074/4074 Theology of Creation
Did creation come from nothing or from chaos or has it ever been? Is it historical or eternal? Is it an endless repeating process or will creation end in time? Is the act of creation the beginning of the end or the fulfillment of a previous end? Is it one universe or a multiverse? Important contemporary discussions on creator and creativity, creation, and evolution, chaosmos and ecology, design and social constructions will be brought in as the class examines the contributions of religious traditions, philosophies, science, and contemporary theologies to questions of beginnings and becoming. Also, TPS3074/4074.
TCT3081/4081 Theology for Social Justice
This course focuses on constructing theology in concrete social justice contexts through the use of sources from popular culture. This course examines various narratives in fiction, memoir, music, and film for how they address theological issues in their particular contexts. This course will highlight the role of social location, theological source, and norm in the constructive theology enterprise. Students will develop a contextual theology for a relevant social justice issue using academic tools and popular sources. Prerequisite: At 3000 level, Systematic Theology, Systematic Theology for Ministry or equivalent; otherwise, permission of instructor.
TCT3099 Special Topics in Contextual Theology
When offered, this course will present special topics of interest in the area of Contextual Theology. Students should consult the course schedule for specific courses and subject matter.
TDM4003 Contexts of Ministry – DMIN Ministry
The course is designed to help students (i) reflect on their own vocation and the context of their ministries (ii) attend to the role of research, reading, writing, and teaching for their own continuing education and vocational goals (iii) engage sacred texts, theological or ethical constructs, social and cultural contexts to explore ministry in the local community and the world (iv) review the necessary tasks of research, writing, presentation, documentation and bibliographic forms that the doctoral Project will require.
TDP4005 Mentoring DMIN Thesis and Project Research Colloquium
This course is required for students in the DMIN Mentoring program. The DMIN Thesis and Project Research Colloquium provides DMIN students with a basic introduction and orientation to the tasks and requirements of the DMIN project. The course will review the necessary tasks of research, writing, presentation, documentation, and bibliographic forms that research project will require.
TDP4060 Research Project
This course focuses on designing, researching, and writing the Professional Research Project with faculty guidance.
TDS3000 United Methodist Doctrine
This course examines the foundations of United Methodist theology. Students will explore the theological emphases of the early Wesleyan movement and major theological transitions in the 19th and 20th centuries. This course is designed to meet the United Methodist Church’s ordination requirements for a course in UMC doctrine.
TDS3001 United Methodist History
This course explores the history of the United Methodist Church with an emphasis on the theological, historical, and contextual factors that shape its organizational structure, worship, and attitudes toward social issues. This course is designed to meet the United Methodist Church’s ordination requirements for a course in UMC history.
TDS3002 United Methodist Polity
This course examines the missional priorities, ecclesiological forms, structure, and governance of the United Methodist Church that undergird its effort to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world”. Students will explore the church’s doctrinal statements as well as its understanding of ordination, conferencing, superintendency, and the local church. This course is designed to meet the United Methodist Church’s ordination requirements for a course in UMC Polity.
TDS3013 Disciples History and Polity
This class will survey the history of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), from its founding two centuries ago to the contemporary manifestations of the church. The course will explore the present functioning of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in its congregational, regional, and general manifestations. We will also analyze the theological roots and developments of the Disciples tradition and discuss directions of mission and ministry within the contemporary Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
TDS3017 United Methodist General Conference
This course examines the history, responsibilities, processes, and procedures of the General Conference. Students will explore how this decision-making body functions and research important issues the General Conference will consider. This course includes the material for the United Methodist Polity course and is designed to fulfill the church’s ordination requirement for a course in the subject. Students will attend a portion of the General Conference and be responsible for travel costs to, from, and during the conference.
TDS3018 Mission in World Perspectives
This course examines theological, biblical, and historical foundations for Christian mission in a particular region of the world or through the lens of a particular Christian conference or gathering. Current practices and models of mission are analyzed and critiqued, with a special emphasis on the history and role of mission in the region visited. Students will reflect on how the theology and practice of Christian mission they observe informs their current and future vocation.
TDS3039 Christian Evangelism
This course examines theological, biblical, and historical foundations for evangelism. Current practices and models of evangelism are analyzed and critiqued. Students will develop and articulate a theology and practice of evangelism appropriate for a community of faith. This course is designed to meet denominational requirements for an evangelism course, including that of the United Methodist Church.
TDS3043/4043 Wesleyan Theology and Mission in Theory and Practice
A significant part of the church traces its heritage back to the theology and to the mission practices of John Wesley, including UMC, Nazarenes, multiple traditionally black denominations, the Holiness movement, and many evangelical and Pentecostal/charismatic Christians. We will study Wesley’s blend of theology and practice, and then trace the evolution of Wesleyan theology from Wesley’s own life to the emerging churches of today. We will also explore Wesleyan resources for understanding “mission” and “missional” in today’s world. Also, TTH3043/4043.
TDS3045 Christian Mission
This course examines theological, biblical, and historical foundations for Christian mission. Practices and models of mission, both historical and contemporary, are analyzed and critiqued. Students will develop and articulate a theology of mission appropriate for local congregations. This course is designed to meet various denomination requirements for mission, including that of the United Methodist Church.
TDT3003/4003 The Bhagavad Gita as Religion, as History, and as Literature
This course is based on an in-depth reading of the Bhagavad Gita and selected Upanishads with reference to other important and/or related passages from other sacred texts of Hinduism and secondary sources of note.
TDT3011/4011 Introduction to Jainism: Non-violence as a Way of Life (Core)
This course provides an introduction to Jainism with a focus on the three “B”s-Belief, Behavior, Belonging. The course begins with the emergence of Jainism in ancient India, the life and teachings of Lord Mahavira, and the foundational doctrines of Jain traditions worldwide. The course then turns to Jain religious practice, both monastic and lay, paying close attention to the ethic of ahimsa (non-violence) and its implications for contemporary phenomena such as Jain environmentalism.
TDT3012 Introduction to Sikhism
Sikhism is the fifth largest religious tradition in the world, yet few people are familiar with it. This class will provide a comprehensive introduction to the history, tenets, scriptures, (social justice) practices, culture, politics, and contemporary landscape of lived Sikhism in the U.S. and India. In addition to the facilitating professor, the class will have guest lectures by Sikh practitioners and specialists in the field, as well as the opportunity to visit a Sikh gurdwara (temple) and participate in Sikh cultural events.
TDT3017/4017 Buddhism in the United States
Has Buddhism become Americanized? Has America become more Buddhist? Beginning with these questions, this course provides an overview of Buddhism in the United States. Students will be asked to continually reflect on how (if at all) Buddhism and the United States have altered each other throughout their histories. In particular, this class will focus on the ways power dynamics (race, nationality, gender, age, class, sexual orientation, etc.) have shaped these intertwined histories.
TDT3018 Visions of the Divine Feminine: Goddess Traditions in South Asia
Hinduism has allowed space for the divine feminine through the presence of goddess in worship, sacred texts, and art. Although it is acknowledged that such a presence of the divine feminine does not always translate to privileged or even equal status for the women who are situated within these religious and cultural contexts, this presence can be argued to be potentially liberating for women and also may shed light on how gender is construed. In this course, we will explore the concept of the divine feminine in Hindu thought, practice, worship, art, and sacred texts.
TDT3019/4019 Theory and Practice of Tantra
Tantra is the philosophical foundation of Shakta traditions of Hinduism which conflates two opposite energies to gain enlightenment and experience bliss. This course will trace the history of Tantrism in South Asia by examining primary and secondary sources. Tantra by design is an esoteric tradition; its secrets are to be revealed only to the initiates. Hence, it has been misunderstood by most people in the country of its origin. In the West, however, its view is even more distorted.
TDT3021/4021 Modern Buddhism Through Autobiography
A koan: how can people practice the way of no-self today by writing about themselves? Inspired by this question, this course examines the stories of different historical agents around the world that have transformed Buddhism – affirming both old and new – in response to the emergent values, conflicts, and narratives of the modern era. This class considers what Buddhism autobiographies as “sacred texts” reveal about topics such as secularism, freedom, individualism, gender politics, globalization, and Orientalism.
TDT3028/4028 Introduction to South Asian Religious Traditions
This course introduces the beliefs and practices of South Asian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and folk traditions. The primary goal of this course is to help students develop an understanding and appreciation of philosophical thoughts, worldviews, and practices of the religious traditions of South Asia. This course strikes a balance between historical approach and topical issues religiously, culturally, politically, and socially important for the traditions. Same as TWR 3033/4033.
TDT3029/4029, TES3082/4082, TIR3047/4047 Gender, Women, and Religion: Embracing and Interpreting the Sacred and Feminine Identities
Addressing the field of Gender and Religion, this course will examine the intersection between religion and women, considering how religion informs understandings and assumptions about gender and, in turn, how gendered interpretations embrace, respond, and question women’s identities and religious literature and practices within diverse religious traditions. Also, the course will consider feminist theology to reflect upon the questions concerning embodiment of the sacred hierarchy, patriarchy, and challenges to normative ethics.
TDT3030/4030, TES3076/4076, TIR3089/4089 Hope in the Midst of Environmental Crisis: Insight from the Jains and World Religious Leaders
This course serves as an introduction of the field of Jainism and ecology. In this course, we will explore how Jainism, a religious tradition that originated in South Asia, adopts a more normative and relational attitude towards non-human forms of life, disavows anthropocentric thinking, and merges with the idea of “Ecological Civilization.” The course has four broad segments. First, we will learn how Jain cosmological, and its consequent ethics view the natural world and human nonhuman relationship. Second, we will examine and analyze Jainism’s worldview (beliefs, perspectives, knowledge, understandings) on ecology. Third, we will be exploring the Jain approaches (non-violence, non-possession, and non-absolutism) towards ecocultural ethics. Fourth, we will learn about practices of the lived Jain tradition, and then analyze and synthesize those practices as the responses to environmental degradations and crises.
TDT3031/4031, TIR3048/4048, TSF3029/4029 Spiritual Practices in Global Perspective
This course aims to introduce students to spiritual practices of major/select world religions with a focus on daily/distinctive practices, especially those experienced in people’s ‘internal,’ ‘physical,’ and ‘expressive’ performances. By way of interpreting rituals, meditation, worship, conversation, symbolism, iconography, pilgrimage, scripture, singing, and asceticism, this course offers students the comparative study of spiritual practices by which individuals and groups engage with, challenge, and transform their perceptions for and harmony with philosophical, religious, and moral-ethical ideals.
TDT3032/4032, TIR3049/4049 Jain Tradition in Conversation with Global Traditions
As one of the ancient religious traditions rooted in India, Jainism is a global religion. This introductory course on Jainism offers an opportunity to explore and analyze diverse aspects of tradition, such as history, worldviews, beliefs, communities, practices, and art. By adopting a comparative and analytical approach, this course will also offer an opportunity for the students to establish conversations between the Jain tradition with diverse global traditions, practices, and philosophies.
TDT3033/4033 Jain Philosophy (Elective)
This course is a study of Jain philosophy grounded in the practical and moral imperatives of nonviolence and compassion. Students will learn how non-violence and compassion emerge from the intricate system of Jain ontology, metaphysics, cosmology, epistemology, ethics, and soteriology. Historical context for the development of Jain philosophy in relation to other South Asian philosophical systems is included, while students will also integrate their learning into their personal, social, and/or professional lives today.
TDT3034/4034 Languages I (Classical Sanskrit)
In the first semester of this course, students will complete the first half of the Devavanipravesika Sanskrit primer (Goldman and Goldman, 1980). Students will learn to memorize, recognize, and recall all major paradigms of inflection (conjugations, declensions, indeclinable suffixes, prefixes, etc.(. Students will gain the important research skills of basic Sanskrit grammar and vocabulary, philology such as etymology and syntactical analyses, and will learn cultural points (particularly about the Ramayana) while translating, reading, and reciting.
TEC3001 Introduction to Christian Ethics
This course serves as an introduction to the field of Christian ethics. Students will become familiar with sources for Christian ethical reflection; contemporary issues and global contexts; and relevant scholarship.
TES3008/4008 Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization
Increasing evidence shows that humans and other species face a global climate catastrophe. This class focuses on alternatives to humanity’s current head-long rush toward destruction. We will study local efforts and link with other Ecological Civilization classes across the U.S. and Asia to learn about global theories and local initiatives in their regions. Religions and interreligious partnerships can play important motivating roles. Knowledge of the data and of alternative social and economic systems is also indispensable.
TES3029/4029 Religious Foundations for Social Change
This course examines how a diversity of religions construct the religious foundations necessary for social change. We see that frequently religious practitioners have had to reinterpret traditional religious texts in new ways to create the religious scaffolding to bring about social transformation. We will also be exploring the varied political circumstances in which religious actors enter into the public arena for the purposes of bringing about social change. Often these circumstances bring religious actors into coalitions with secular activists with whom they share common commitments to specific forms of social change, although those commitments are grounded in philosophical commitments rather than particular religious ones. This course rests on the premise that all of the religions we will be studying have within them the capacity to contribute to positive social change, and that no one singular religion exclusively possesses that capacity.
TES3038 Buddhism and Popular Culture
From The Zen of Golf to Buddha toilet seats, the cultural popularity of Buddhism in the United States extends far beyond self-described Buddhist practitioners. Drawing on resources from cultural studies, history, and critical theory, this ethics course will consider the normative reasons underlying this popularity. Students will analyze and evaluate the political and ethical norms revealed in a variety of films, novels, poetry, advertisements, and other media. Some of the topics considered in this class will be: the ethics and politics of war and peace, the commodification and marketisation of religious traditions, the modern bifurcation of religion and spirituality, the politics of representation: race, age, gender, class (i.e. who counts as a Buddhist?), the ethics of appropriation, the responsibility one has to another’s religious tradition (as well as one’s own), the possibility of resistance against hegemony through popular culture, and broader political and ethical issues related to Orientalism, World War II, the Cold War and the War on Terror.
TES3044/4044 Asian-American Christianity
An introduction to the emerging fields of Asian American theology, biblical hermeneutics, and ethics, focusing on the diasporic experiences and diverse voices of Asian Americans following the 1965 Immigration Act. Topics include: immigration, generational conflicts, racism and racial reconciliation, identity construction, model minority myth, ethnic-specific and pan-Asian ministries, Asian American Christian ethics, and comparison with other contextualist approaches from Asia and from other racial-ethnic groups in the U.S. Also, TTH3005/4005.
TES3046 Religious Diversity: Ethical, Political, and Philosophical Perspectives
Reflection on the diversity of religious and non-religious perspectives characteristic of a multicultural society like ours raises perplexing questions: Are all religions equally valid? Can a single set of political institutions accommodate a plurality of divergent (religious) commitments? How should the rights of religious minorities be balanced against the interests of the majority? In this course we will examine some of the challenges posed by religious diversity in the contexts of epistemology, sociology, ethics, and politics, giving special attention to the uses and limits of pluralism as a discursive formation.
TES3060 Topics in Process Ethics
An exploration of a few current sociopolitical issues from a perspective involving process theology. Such issues may include Ecology, Religious Pluralism, and Globalization.
TES3063 Ethics in Global Perspective
This course will examine emerging ethical challenges associated with the various phenomena commonly subsumed under the rubric of globalization- e.g., poverty, terrorism and national security, access to water and health care, the environment. How ought religious believers including religious believers in wealthy, northern hemisphere democracies like the United States, respond to such transnational challenges? What are the prospects for a “common morality”?
TES3067/4067 Animal Theology and Ethics
A philosophical and theological exploration of the ethical status of nonhuman animals and the nature and the extent of our obligations to them. Questions to pursue include the following: How should we regard non- human animals theologically (e.g., What does dominion or stewardship entail? Do animals need to be redeemed?) Which uses of animals are morally permissible (if any?) Is activism on behalf of animals best pursued on a welfarist or rights model?
TES3069/4069 Buddhist Social Ethics
An exploration of the nature of Buddhist ethics in classical Pali texts and contemporary interpreters of Buddhist ethics by both Asian and Western practitioners and students of Buddhism seeking a rationale for moral action in an increasingly complex and fractious world. The course is divided into three sections: I) An introduction to ethical thinking in the Buddhist tradition, II) Interpretations of Buddhist ethics from Pure Land, Theravada, and Zen perspectives, III) An analysis of contextualized thematic issues in Buddhist ethics. Same as LDT3009/4009.
TES3073/4073 Christian Perspectives on War and Peace
This course explores Christian (especially Western) perspectives on the morality of war and peace. We will proceed thematically and chronologically as we cover the major approaches in Christian ethical reflection on the subject matter: pacifism, “just war,” holy war, and Christian realism. We will also consider the recently proposed conceptual frameworks of “just peacemaking” and “just policing” as we assess whether either approach can break the apparent centuries-long impasse between pacifist and just war commitments. Other topics to be discussed include weapons of mass destruction, guerilla warfare, terrorism, humanitarian intervention, preemptive and preventive wars, and postwar justice. While not the focus of this course, some comparative references to Jewish and Islamic reflections on war and peace will be made where relevant.
TES3074/4074, TIE3080/4080, TIR3044/4044 Learning with the Marginalized
This graduate seminar focuses on theoretical and practical discourses on the roots and formations of the epistemologies of the oppressed. The seminar will discuss how and why various forms of marginalization exist, and what constitutes the epistemologies that arise from marginalized contexts. Epistemologies of the marginalized will be discussed both as ways of thinking and living underneath global structures of oppression and, most importantly, as other ways to think and live that can nurture life, instead of producing death. The questions that the course aims to engage are: What are the forms of marginalization that take place in the global, modern context? How were these forms of marginalization created, and how are they sustained? What kind of epistemologies arise from such marginalized contexts? How do we, as scholar-activists and religious leaders, learn from and with the marginalized?
TES3076/4076 Interreligious Justice Movements
This course will examine a wide range or progressive interreligious justice movements that are presently active in the U.S. We will pay particular attention to how these movements construct the necessary religious scaffolding to support their activism, exploring their use of various global liberative traditions, while also looking at their adaptations of various organizing methodologies to fit the particular social contexts in which they are doing their work. Students will be encouraged to undertake research on new emerging movements using the course’s broad framework. Same as TIR3076/4076.
TES3079/4079, TIE3081/4081, TIR3033/4033 Presumed Guilty: Islamophobia in the Global Context
This course is geared towards analyzing Islamophobia and the way it manifests around the world in the modern era. It will analyze how specific cultural and socioeconomic contexts lead to Islamophobia outcomes. The course will focus on North America, Europe, Australia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia in order to provide students from Muslim or non-Muslim backgrounds with a perspective on how Islamophobia has manifested within the context of globalization and the War of Terror.
TES3091 Modern North American Christian Social Ethics
An historical and contextual analysis of major thinkers in 20th century North American Christian Ethics, particularly as they relate to questions of social transformation and social justice. Trajectories may include the now-classical approaches of Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, H. Richard Niebuhr, James Gustafson, Paul Ramsey, and Stanley Hauerwas, as well as more recent trends in post-1970 Feminisms, African-American theologies, Peace Studies, Eco Justice, and Gender/Sexuality Studies.
TES3095/4095 Ethical Theory: Normative Ethics
Specific questions of good and bad or right and wrong (e.g., about abortion or war) are the matter of applied ethics. When we ask more general questions about ethical properties (e.g., what makes something good or bad, right, or wrong?), we move into the realm of normative ethical theory. When we concern ourselves further with the status of morality or ask ourselves what sort of activity morality is, we move into the terrain of metaethics (e.g., are moral judgments true or false, objective, or subjective and relative, and can they be established in the same ways that empirical and scientific claims can?(. This course will focus on the second set of questions (normative ethics); a companion course focuses on the third set (metaethics). It is designed for serious students in ethics who wish to study both the classics and contemporary commentary and critique on those seminar texts. Normative ethical theories to be examined include the following: utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, contractualism, divine command theories, natural law, theories building on Aristotle’s virtue-based approach to ethics, and feminist ethics. We will also consider the various ways in which religious ethics intersects with philosophical ethics.
TES4080 Ethics PhD Colloquium
Seminar style forum for discussion of scholarly and professional issues in Ethics.
THB3002 Biblical Hebrew I
The beginning level of reading biblical Hebrew.
THB3003 Biblical Hebrew II
Continuing study of biblical Hebrew.
THB3007 The Hebrew Bible in Context: An Introduction
An introduction to the study of the Hebrew Bible studies for MDiv/MA students.
THB3010 History of Judaism and Jewish Thought
Survey of the history of Judaism and Jewish thought from the biblical period to the present.
THB3013/4013 The Book of Job
The book of Job is a monumental piece of world literature that has commanded the attention of countless interpreters. The journey through the book has baffled and enlightened, enraged and comforted its readers for over two and half millennia. The influence of the book is wide-ranging in theology, philosophy, psychology, literature, art, music, dance, film, etc. In this course, we will join the journey that others have taken, working our way through the text with the commentary of Samuel E. Balentine as our chief guide. In addition, we will read widely to help us arrive at the final destination of the journey, namely, to answer the question” What is the meaning of the book of Job?” for each of us.
THB3017 Visionaries and Mystics in Jewish Literature
A study of visionary and mystical texts in the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish literature, including the prophetic, Heikhalot, Kabbalistic, and Hasidic literature. Prerequisite: THB3007.
THB3018/4018 Psalms
This course examines the formation and functions of the biblical Psalms. Emphasis will be given to genre classification, devotional content, and musical elements. Various methods of analyzing and interpreting the Psalms will be explored, including contemporary approaches.
THB3025/4025 Reading the Bible after the Shoah/Holocaust
A study of selected texts in the Hebrew Bible in relation to current theological discussion concerning the Shoah or Holocaust. Prerequisite: THB3007.
THB3030 Bible and Suffering
This course aims at analyzing the biblical texts that deal with suffering and the models that are used to explain suffering.
THB3032/4032 Post-Exilic Literature
Much of the Hebrew Bible’s literature originates during the postexilic period, after 538 BCE. This course will examine texts from the biblical tradition written during the Persian period and the early Hellenistic period, including portions of the Torah/Pentateuch, significant parts of the latter prophets, and much of the Ketuvim. We will explore this postexilic period as a time of fecundity and vitality within religious traditions as well as a time of cultural innovation.
THB3033/4033 Aramaic
An inductive introduction to Biblical, Qumran, and Rabbinic Aramaic, including grammar, morphology, and syntax, based on Aramaic texts from the Bible, Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls), and Rabbinic Targumic literature. Prerequisites: Biblical Hebrew or another Semitic language.
THB3034/4034 Social Scientific Method for Biblical Studies
Biblical literature not only reflects a social context but also provides evidence for understanding the many societies depicted. This course will study the social realities of ancient Israel. Special attention will be given to the methodological principles for social-scientific interpretation of texts and contexts, integrating insights from sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, psychology, geography, and critical social theory.
THB3049/4049 The Bible and Immigration
The Scriptures of ancient Israel and early Christianity depict a variety of immigration movements, including exiles, forced migrations, conscriptions, refugee conditions, captivities, and enslavements. This course will examine the social and historical conditions of these migrants and their movements, as well as biblical renderings and interpretations of their condition, with special interest in how immigrant experience formed communal identity and served as a primary metaphor for religious and cultural self-understanding. We will also investigate the role of religious communities in current immigration situations, to see how inclusion of immigrants leads to religious vitality.
THB3053 Prophecy and Prophetic Literature
A study of the Former Prophets (Joshua Kings) and the Latter Prophets (Isaiah XII Prophets) in the Hebrew Bible. Emphasis will be given to issues of literary form and formation of the prophetic literature, socio-political and historical background, and theological perspective. Prerequisite: THB3007.
THB3055 Five Books of Moses
A synchronic and diachronic study of the Pentateuch or the Five Book of Moses, which serve as the foundational literature of Judaism and the Hebrew Bible. Special attention will be given to the final form of the work as well as a reconsideration of its compositional history. Prerequisite: THB 3007.
THB3070/4070 Redaction: Criticism: The Book of Isaiah
A redaction-critical study of the Book of Isaiah designed to examine its diachronic compositional history and its synchronic final literary form. Prerequisites: Hebrew, German, French.
THB3073/4073 Empires and Postcolonial Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible
Biblical literature depicts and reflects historical empires such as those of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome. This course will study such empires in their social and historical contexts, with an emphasis on the effects of empires on religion and on Hebrew Bible texts. Postcolonial methods of biblical interpretation will allow a critical discussion of the interrelation of Hebrew Bible texts and empires, both ancient and modern.
THB 3074/4074 Theologies of Genesis
The book of Genesis is a literary masterpiece, demonstrating complexity as well as lasting religious and cultural impact. Religious traditions have interpreted Genesis as a basis for a range of theological formulations. This course will examine Genesis’s historical and literary features in order to explore the range of theological interpretations of this key biblical text.
THB3075/4075 Writing and Literacy in Ancient Israel
Literary production from ancient Israel consists of the extant Hebrew Bible as well as other texts, letters, inscriptions, lost texts, and other materials. This class will explore how ancient Israel produced and consumed such texts, including the materiality of writing, the practices of the writing process, the storage and reproduction of texts, and the public and private functions of texts, such as reading, with application to the Hebrew Bible’s literary formation and interpretation.
THB3076/4076 Ethiopic
A seminar devoted to an inductive study of the Ethiopic (Ge’ez) language based on texts form the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, and the Apocalypse of Peter.
THB3077/4077 The Book of Exodus
A seminar devoted to the study of the literary form, genre, setting, and interpretation of the Hebrew text of the Book of Exodus.
THB3085/4085 Ancient Israelite and Judean History
Fundamental to a deeper understanding of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Israelites is a knowledge of the socio-political history of ancient Israel and Judah. In this course, students will be introduced to the general history of Israel and Judah from their origins into the exilic period, participate in the examination of specific issues and debates relating to the history of Israel and Judah, and acquaint themselves with the research tools and methods employed in historical reconstruction.
THB4001 Ugaritic
An inductive introduction to the Ugaritic language, including grammar, morphology, and syntax, based on Ugaritic letters, administrative texts, and mythological texts. Prerequisites: Biblical Hebrew or another Semitic language.
THB4004 Form Critical Method
A doctoral seminar in the theory and application of form-critical exegesis from its origins in the late-nineteenth century through the present. Prerequisites: Hebrew, German and doctoral standing. Knowledge of Hebrew, French and German Required.
THB4031 Jeremiah
A doctoral seminar on the books of Jeremiah. Emphasis will be given to the study of literary form and theological outlook of selected texts in both the Masoretic and Septuagint versions of the book. Prerequisites: Hebrew, Greek, German, French and doctoral standing.
THB4033 Aramaic
An inductive introduction to Biblical, Qumran, and Rabbinic Aramaic, including grammar, morphology, and syntax, based on Aramaic texts from the Bible, Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls), and Rabbinic Targumic literature. Prerequisites: Biblical Hebrew or another Semitic language.
THB4037 Women in the Book of Samuel
This course is a close reading of the stories of the Women in the Books of Samuel to understand their role and function in the books.
THB4053 Women in the Book of Genesis
This course is a close reading of the stories of the Women in the Book of Genesis to understand their role and function in the books.
THB4072 Hebrew Bible PhD Colloquium
Seminar style forum for discussion of scholarly and professional issues in the Hebrew Bible.
THC3007 History of World Christianities
The history of world Christianities is an introduction to the historical developments of theology, practice, and institutions within the Christian tradition. The course objective is to provide students with a working vocabulary and a historical narrative for understanding the beliefs that have been central to the Christian tradition, both western and nonwestern. How did Christians formulate their beliefs? How did they interpret the Bible and live out their faith convictions? What are the options of theological belief within the tradition? The historical perspective reveals how Christian doctrines were formed and reformulated, what forces impacted them, and consequently what impact they had. Surveys the history of world Christianity, covering as much of its global spread, theological expression, and conceptual and practical development as possible in a semester. We will use primary texts to anchor our study and to provide us with places for concentrated moments of discussion and exploration. Through these texts, we will meet some of the formative figures and learn about pivotal moments that shaped the history of the church. The purpose of this course is to provide you with a broad sweep of the history of Christianity in order to understand the development of Christian identities in various contexts.
THC3028/4028 Latin for Readings and Research
This course is open to students of all levels of Latin knowledge. The course will foster in students a stronger grasp of the Latin language. Students will be exposed to an entire range of Latin writing styles and vocabulary from Cicero to Vatican II. This range will equip students to read a wide variety of texts. During class, there will be time for student questions, review of grammar, and readings and analysis of Latin texts.
THC3038/4038 Christian Spiritualities Across the Ages
This course surveys influential spiritualities throughout Christian history, focusing on spiritual practices, theologies, views of the person, inner life, and contexts. Participants are to bring their own experiences (e.g., religious, cultural, personal) into conversation with the spiritualities presented (esp. Origen; Desert, Benedictine, and Celtic monasticism; Hildegard; Hadewijch; Meister Eckhart; Julian of Norwich; John of the Cross; John Calvin; Jarena Lee; Therese of Lisieux, Latin American Liberation movements; North American Christian feminists). Same course as TSF3019/4019.
THS3011/4011 Religions in America (God in America)
This survey course introduces students to the history of American religions from First Peoples to the present, including theological themes, religious movements, key texts, spiritual practices, and local religious life. Reading in primary texts is required. Traditions studied include First Peoples, Christianities, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. The course will assume that history is not merely a collection of facts or famous persons but an opportunity to enter into conversation with religious pluralism.
THS3099 Special Topics in Historical Studies
When offered, this course will present special topics of interest in the area of Historical Studies. Students should consult the course schedule for specific courses and subject matter.
TIE3001/4001 Interreligious Dialogue and Leadership
This course gives students an opportunity to gain and practice skills in interreligious leadership for faith communities, in neighborhoods, and across religious groups throughout the world. It is the assumption of this course that dialogical skills are integral for religious (and humanistic) leadership in increasingly pluralistic societies. The course assumes that dialogical encounters take place at different levels of societies-personal and interpersonal, in local communities, among members of different religious traditions, in formal, official national and international gatherings, and in political affairs, both local and global. Further, interreligious dialogue is a form of appreciative engagement that occurs across ethnicity, gender, social class, sexual identity, nationality, language, theological stance, etc.
TIE3002/4002 Seminar in Interreligious Education
This course will focus on the theology, philosophy, and pedagogy of interreligious education. Student projects may focus on theological or philosophical topics and/or the practical application of interreligious education to specific contexts and age groups, such as young people. Same as TRE3041/4041.
TIE3054/4054 Peace Education
This course is an introduction to peace education and peace building approaches. Definitions, theory, skills, and practices will be covered that are relevant for religious and interreligious leaders, educators, members of faith communities as well as members of secular society. Peace education and peace building are integral in fulfilling the mission of the church and religious communities for a better world. Students will learn various models and aspects of peace education and discern relevant applications in their own contexts culminating in designing a peace education plan for implementation.
TIE3084/4084; TIR3084/4084 Feminist Interreligious Dialogue
This course provides an overview and analysis of feminist and/or anti-patriarchal interreligious dialogue, especially with regard to those written and practiced by women of colors. The course focuses on the ways in which different socio-political contexts in South and North countries shape different feminist and/or antipatriarchal interreligious concerns and practices. In general, the course centers marginalized interreligious narratives to deconstruct patriarchal paradigms of interreligious dialogue, while also constructing alternative frameworks for a more vision of interreligious relations.
TIR3001/4001 Interreligious Dialogue & Leadership
This course is to give students an opportunity to gain skills in interreligious dialogue as it is practiced in faith communities, in neighborhoods and community organizations, and across religious groups throughout the world. It is the assumption of this course that dialogical skills are integral for religious (and humanistic) leadership in increasingly pluralistic societies. The course assumes that dialogical encounters take place at different levels – personal and interpersonal, in neighborhoods, among members of different religious traditions, in national and international gatherings, and in political affairs, both local and global. Further, interreligious dialogue is a form of appreciative engagement that occurs across a variety of social diversities, including but not limited to religion, race, ethnicity, gender, social class, sexual identity, nationality, language, theological stance, etc.
TIR3010/4010 Multi-Religious Contemplative Practices
“Basic Human capacities” (e.g., attention, emotion, memory, imagination, sensations) play a role in the contemplative practices of every religion. True? If so, how? This course will explore such practices from various spiritual traditions, as well as neuroscientific understandings of these practices, in order to grasp how they contain certain “basic human capacities’ and how they may cultivate “engaged compassion.” Students engage in practices if/as comfortable. Same as TSF3010/4010.
TIR3025/4025 Comparative Theologies and Practices: One World, Many Faiths
Arguably, no one understands their own faith until they understand at least one other. The rapidly growing field of Comparative Theology helps students to deepen their own religious location(s) by exploring similarities and differences with other beliefs and practices. We will learn, and criticize, the standard ways of combining and dividing the religions. For the final project, students will choose their own theme and may concentrate either on more academic or more practically oriented approaches.
TIR3041/4041 EcoArt and Decolonial Spiritualities to Postpone the End of the World
In 2019, Indigenous Brazilian activist Ailton Krenak wrote an influential book that was entitled Ideas to Postpone the End of the World. In it, he argues that because the world has ended for Indigenous peoples across the Américas many times, there is much to be learned from their ways of knowing and relating to the earth. Though we are faced with the unsettling challenges of global pandemics, wildfires, climate catastrophe, continued extractives and exploitive practices of late stage racial-capitalism, colonialism, cishet patriarchy, and so much more, we are also capable of leaning into spiritual, artistic, and ecological practices from around the globe that continue to offer imaginative and creative possibilities to interrogate, resist, and create new ways of tending to ourselves, our communities, our common home and all our relations. Same as TSF3041/4041.
TIR3043/4043 Eco-Process Theology
Eco-Process Theology is not an application but the essence of a process theology that is concerned with the universal relationality of the world of events in their intertwining, evolution, emergence, and sustainability. The ecological question is pressing and a theological contribution urgent. In the series of great philosophical and theological contributions, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred N. Whitehead occupy a special place in advocating an evolutionary ecology—not just as a scientific reality to be considered by theology but as deeper revelation of the nature of reality as such—that, if it really were taken seriously, must change our philosophical understanding of the world we live in and our theological reconstruction of religious orthodoxies. In contrasting their thought with others, e.g., Deep Ecology, a new conceptual and spiritual framework might arise that, in a profound sense, can be called “eco-centric” in nature. Their ecological impetus unites them in a new understanding of Divine Love as love of the Earth with all its theoretical, practical, and spiritual consequences to live in a Universe in Process. Same as TPS3086/4086.
TIR3046/4046 Art In the Flesh: Queering Cultural Expressions
While it defies a fixed definition, queer is an identity, an approach, and a politics that move—and queer bodies move against normative ways of being and becoming. Many artists in the 20th and 21st centuries across the Américas have queered cultural expressions through their practices, questioning social structures and norms while traversing unconventional routes. This course traces such trajectories investigating the confluences of queer theory, artistic production, and religion. Same as TSF3049/4049.
TIR3047/4047 Gender, Women, and Religion: Embracing and Interpreting the Sacred and Feminine Identities
Addressing the field of Gender and Religion, this course will examine the intersection between religion and women, considering how religion informs understandings and assumptions about gender and, in turn, how gendered interpretations embrace, respond, and question women’s identities and religious literature and practices within diverse religious traditions. Also, the course will consider feminist theology to reflect upon the questions concerning embodiment of the sacred hierarchy, patriarchy, and challenges to normative ethics.
TIR3064/4064 Interfaith Care and Counseling
Study of theories and methods for caregiving in situations of religious pluralism. Attention is given to religious pluralism in diverse forms: in multireligious families; religious hybridity in persons and communities; religious pluralism in public institutions and social life, and religious difference in relationships between caregivers and care seekers. Religious pluralism is explored from the perspectives of several religious traditions. Possibilities and limits for practices of interreligious spiritual care and counseling are identified. Same as TSC3064/4064. Pre- or co-requisites: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TIR3082/4082 Jainism and Ecology
This course serves as an introduction to the field of Jainism and ecology. In this course, we will explore how Jainism, a religious tradition that originated in South Asia, adopts a more normative and relational attitude towards non-human forms of life, disavows anthropocentric thinking, and merges with the idea of “Ecological Civilization.” The course has four broad segments. First, we will learn how Jain cosmological, and its consequent ethics view the natural world and human nonhuman relationship. Second, we will examine and analyze Jainism’s worldview (beliefs, perspectives, knowledge, understandings) on ecology. Third, we will be exploring the Jain approaches (non-violence, non-possession, and non-absolutism) towards ecocultural ethics. Fourth, we will learn about practices of the lived Jain tradition, and then analyze and synthesize those practices as the responses to environmental degradation and crisis.
TIR3083/4083 Art and Religion at the Crossroads
Contemporary visual arts are powerful tools that provide imaginative models for interdisciplinary studies. As a laboratory for such research, the arts are poised with the capacity to enhance our understanding of historical and cultural amalgamations while also offering an opportunity to assess and integrate multi-modal and interreligious learning. It is especially among contemporary Indigenous and diasporic artistic expressions that themes such as colonial histories, religious intolerance, and disrespectful encounters with each other, and the land become salient. In this course, we examine how Indigenous and diasporic artists have developed visual poetics aligned with their religious traditions and cosmo-logics. Same as TSF3083/4083.
TIR3084/4084 Feminist Interreligious Dialogue
This course provides an overview and analysis of feminist and/or anti-patriarchal interreligious dialogue, especially with regard to those written and practiced by women of colors. The course focuses on the ways in which different socio-political contexts in South and North countries shape different feminist and/or anti-patriarchal interreligious concerns and practices. In general, the course centers marginalized interreligious narratives to deconstruct patriarchal paradigms of interreligious dialogue, while also constructing alternative frameworks for a more vision of interreligious relations.
TIR3088/4093 Transreligious Discourse: Buddhism and Christianity
“Transreligious discourse” is a new approach to interreligious studies that is interested in processes of transformation between religions with regard to their ways of life, doctrines, and rituals. Theoretically, it studies the possibility of such a transfer, not by comparison but by following the trajectories of mutual influences and traces of one religion (way of life, doctrine, or ritual) in the other or by examining their reflection in diverse theologies. Practically, it studies matters and ways of transfer. In this seminar, the perspective is upon Buddhism and Christianity, highlighting the mutual reception of various doctrines, which are considered central and irreplaceable in one religion or the other, and the creative transformation they issue in the other religion. Questions will involve: How are transreligious processes possible and how are they happening? What are the theological presuppositions, implications, and consequences when a tradition not only practically allows for such transfers but also reflects on them as part of its own development? Is there a Buddhist Christology? Is there a Christian doctrine of Emptiness? How do the diverse traditions dare to adopt mutually challenging notions of God and Nothingness? Is there a mutual concept of a “Buddha-Christ”? Also listed as TCT3088/4093.
TIR3089/4089 Learning with the Marginalized: Wasted Lives and Death-Worlds?
This course interrogates the formation of different conceptions of ‘the disposables’ that are in the background of many humanitarian crises in our time. The course discusses four major ‘secular’ texts on ‘the disposables’ that shall be analyzed from Muslim and Christian theological points of view. The course emphasizes on the formation of ethical ethnographic capacities through which we can learn from and with ‘the disposables’ of the world.
TIS3063 Master’s Summative Exercise
The Masters’ Summative Exercise prepares students to complete their final Summative Exercise for the MA or MTS degree programs. This course assists students in identifying a manageable and appropriate research topic for their final Master’s thesis, major paper, or project in relation to each person’s educational and vocational goals and helps them begin the drafting process. Students develop and practice good research skills and cultivate an understanding of various research methodologies. Attention is given to the organization and design of the final thesis, major paper, or project, as well as the initial writing phase. Students should complete the course with enough materials to present a rough first draft of their summative exercise on the first day of their final semester before graduation.
TIS4022 Research Methods in Practical Theology
Students develop competency to conduct research that involves systematic analysis, using empirical research methods. While both quantitative and qualitative research approaches are valuable, students will primarily learn the qualitative approach, increasingly used in Practical Theology research. Students will design a research study, conduct qualitative research, and compose a qualitative research report. Students may use the course assignment to develop the research methods section of their dissertation. (Note: Successful passing of the course does not guarantee the dissertation committee’s acceptance of students’ dissertation proposal.)
TIS4080 Resources and Documentation for Doctoral Students
PhD Resources and Documentation for Doctoral Students Intensive is a required, one-week, non-credit course offered during the January Interterm, which is taken by PhD students during their first year of study. DMin students are encouraged, though not required, to attend. Thus, early in their program, PhD students receive intensive training on navigating library resources, and adhering to particular standards of style and documentation, which will assist them in research and writing expectations for doctoral study. Particular attention is given to the Turabian/Chicago style, as it is the standard used in all programs at the CST. This intensive class covers research methods; citation and bibliographic styles; and issues related to plagiarism, copyright, fair use, and permissions.
TIS4082 Teaching Colloquium for Doctoral Students
This non-credit intensive is required for 2nd year students in PhD programs. It will cover such Teaching skills as developing a reflective teaching statement, building a course syllabus, and exploring various teaching skills and strategies that create dynamic classroom experiences.
TJS3010 History of Judaism and Jewish Thought
Survey of the history of Judaism and Jewish thought from the biblical period to the present. Same as LHB3010.
TJS3015 Modern Israel in Theological and Historical Perspective
A study of modern Israel in relation to biblical tradition, Jewish history, and theology, modern Zionism, and the modern Middle East. Prerequisite: THB3007 or THB3010/TJS3010.
TJS3017 Visionaries and Mystics in Jewish Literature
A study of visionary and mystical texts in the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish literature, including the prophetic, Heikhalot, Kabbalistic, and Hasidic literature. Same as THB3017 Prerequisite: THB3007 or THB3010/TJS3010.
TNT3003 The New Testament in Context: An Introduction
This course is designed to introduce students to the study of the New Testament and includes an overview of its Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts, intense exposure to New Testament literature, and an introduction to critical methods for interpretation, especially historical and literary criticisms. By the end of the course the student will have read the core literature of the New Testament and will be able to locate important texts in the books that they represent.
TNT3022/4022 Classical Greek Literature and the New Testament
Designed to introduce students to the study of the influence of the literature of ancient Greece, especially Homer, Euripides, and Plato on Early Christian literature, especially the Gospel of Mark and Luke Acts. By the end of the course the student will have read in translation much of the Iliad, all of the Odyssey, two Homeric Hymns and two plays of Euripides.
TNT3024/4024 Jesus the Teacher
This course will survey the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was, after his death and resurrection, understood by the Church to be the Son of God and the Savior of the world. In his own earthly life, however, he was often and widely acclaimed by his contemporaries to be a teacher. What did he teach, and what did he want his disciples to learn?
TNT3027/027 John and the Johannine School
Explores the early Christian literature under the name of the apostle John: the Gospel of John, the Letters of John, the Acts of John, and the Apocryphon of John.
TNT3032/4032 Women and Early Christian Literature
This course on women in the New Testament is designed to familiarize students with issues of gender in early Christian writings: Where are women present? absent? If present, what sorts of roles do they play? How well or badly do the writings reflect the actual roles of women in early Christian communities? The course includes a reading of much of the New Testament (plus the Acts of Paul and Thecla and the Gospel of Mary) from a feminist perspective. Issues of race, class, and feminist Christian anti-Semitism will be addressed as well, but the primary focus will be on gender. Attention will be given to feminist methodologies and hermeneutical options for feminist interpretation of scripture, feminist reconstructions of early Christianity and issues of theology as they affect women. Class sessions will include lectures, group discussion, and small groups.
TNT3033/4033 Advanced Readings in Greek New Testament
This class will study the grammar and syntax of selected passages of the Greek New Testament. The goal of the class will be to understand the meaning of the Greek text at a level that is not always clear in translation. It will treat passages that illustrate the genius and complexity of the Greek language. It will also address the most important issues in textual criticism.
TNT3035 Interpreting the Book of Acts
Interpreting the Book of Acts will examine contemporary reading strategies for interpreting the New Testament book of Acts in historical, literary, and theological perspectives. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which the appropriation of this book has influenced its readers and to contemporary reading strategies for the New Testament narratives.
TNT3037/4037 Spiritual Experience in Early Christian Life and Literature
Direct and indirect experiences of the divine are a cornerstone of ancient literature and history. At all levels of society, people experienced contact and communication with the spirits and gods that inhabited the world with them. Building from modern psychological, anthropological, and sociological approaches to spiritual experience, this course will examine such experiences in the literature of early Christianity and the cultural contexts of the ancient Mediterranean.
TNT3038 Parables in Synoptic Gospels
This course provides a detailed examination of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) with special focus on the parables, The parables are important because they are part of the teachings of Jesus and of the early Church. Although they often appear deceptively simple, parables are highly complex and polyvalent texts requiring exegetical skills. To this end, the course will introduce major interpretive issues and contemporary methods for the study of the gospels and parables.
TNT3042/4042 From Jesus to Christ in the New Testament
Examination of the varied ways in which early Christian communities viewed the person of Jesus.
TNT3045/4045 Paul and the Pauline School
Study of letters and literature under the name of Paul. Includes both New Testament and non canonical literature.
TNT3049 Jesus and Christ
Examination of the varied ways in which early Christian communities viewed the person of Jesus.
TNT3053/4053 Ethics of the New Testament
Ethics-right action before God and humanity was one of the most urgent concerns for the authors of the New Testament. The question of how we should live in the world and with our fellow humans is an equally urgent question for men and women in the 21st century. This class focuses on ethics in the Gospels, Paul’s understandings of ethics or right action, and ethics in the Book of Revelation. Questions of gender, sexuality, and asceticism will also play an important role. The course will balance between biblical perspectives and contemporary ethical and theological views, both with and inside the Church. Other topics will include the nature of evil, perspectives on the afterlife, embodiment, and violence.
TNT3055 Ecclesia: Jesus, the Apostles, and Founding of the Church in the New Testament
An examination of New Testament sources dealing with the early Church in its various communities, including its social composition, rituals, customs of worship and organization. Important documents concerning the Church from other early Christian literature are also examined.
TNT3060 Jesus and Empire in the Gospels
The purpose of this course is to study the impact and influence of the Roman Empire on the Gospels. We will explore the intimate but often tense relationship between the gospel writers and the Roman Empire and its impact on the depictions of Jesus. This class will also introduce lenses such as empire criticism, gender and sexuality, postcolonial theory to help read, interpret, and gain a better understanding of Jesus in the gospels.
TNT3062/4062 New Testament Exegesis and Critical Methods
Designed for intermediate and advanced students of the New Testament to improve their skills in exegesis. In addition to traditional exegetical methods, this course also seeks to integrate newer interpretive strategies, such as social-scientific readings, literary criticism, and various kinds of inter-textual strategies, including mimesis (literary imitation).
TNT3071/4071 The Gospel of Luke and Acts
Studies in depth Luke Acts and compares it with classical Greek poetry and Platonic dialogues. The course proceeds through Luke Acts from the perspective of viewing it as a Christian prose epic, somewhat analogous to Vergil’s Aeneid.
TNT3084 Greek I
Basic Grammar for the beginning level of reading biblical Greek.
TNT3085 Greek II
Continuing study of Biblical Greek.
TNT3087 Spirituality and Worship in the Early Christian Church
An investigation of early Christian spirituality, mysticism, views of body and soul, the physical and spiritual world (Angels and Demons, Satan, and spiritual warfare) and their expressions in community worship.
TNT3088/4088 Greco-Roman Religions
A study of the Greco-Roman religions and their relationship to and influence on the New Testament.
TNT3092 Gnosticism
An investigation of the rise of Gnosticism and its various expressions from pre-Christian times into the second Christian century.
TNT 3093/4093 Feminist Perspective on the New Testament: Gender, Class, and Empire
A study of selected New Testament writings (e. g. Mark, Luke, First Corinthians, some deutero-Pauline epistles, Revelation and the non-canonical Acts of Thecla and the Gospel of Mary) paying particular attention to issues of gender, social class, wealth and poverty, and attitudes to the Roman Empire. Attention will be given to the relation of these issues to each other and to the theologies of the particular writings.
TNT4080 New Testament PhD Colloquium
Seminar style forum for discussion of scholarly and professional issues in the New Testament.
TPS3003/4003 Whitehead Research Seminar: Process and Reality
Designed to aid a greater comprehension and appreciation of this challenging text, this seminar examines Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality as it is enfolded in its first part from which everything else flows. In Part One Whitehead asks the question of philosophy, wrestles with a reformulation of metaphysics, and develops his philosophy of organism, introducing such important themes as the categorical scheme, the ultimate, novelty, creative advance, and the primordial nature of God. In a concentrated, in-depth, and detailed exploration, including discussions of Whitehead’s background, his inherited and exerted philosophical influences, and the creative philosophical transformation he thereby initiates, we will explore what led the great French post-structuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze to acclaim Whitehead’s Process and Reality to be “one of the greatest books in modern philosophy.”
TPS3008/4008 Mysticisms East and West
Mysticism is a name for a multiplicity of longstanding spiritual, subversive, and utterly creative traditions in the various philosophies and religions of the East and West, which take the experiential experiment with the Divine as the ultimate approach to an understanding of the world and its meaning. Just what is a mystical experience? And how does it inform and express itself in the various philosophical and religious understandings of the world? This seminar attempts a critical examination of the immanent resonance of this mystical approach to process theology, with its insistence on the philosophical method of experiential experiments with reality and God, and to a folio of outstanding thinkers from diverse religions (especially Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and the Baha’i Faith), Christian mystical thinkers like Nicholas of Cusa and Meister Eckhart, and to contemporary philosophy (especially Gorge Bataille and Gilles Deleuze) in their relevance to current philosophical and theological reconsiderations of the Divine. Same as TCT3008/4008.
TPS3017 Process Theology and Ethics
This course will introduce the process worldview and process theology, explore key principles of Whitehead’s own approach to ethical questions, and examine contemporary ethical approaches derived from process philosophy and theology. Reading includes works by Keller, Coleman, Henning, Mesle, Faber, Latour, and Whitehead, among others, with the aim of developing an adaptive understanding toward new applications of process thought.
TPS3026 Religious Education and Process Theology in Faith Traditions
This course will investigate the link between dynamic worldviews and education models that reflects the needs of such a vital life. In addition to exploring the process worldview in relation to Whitehead’s theory of education, students will also look at other theories of education from Dewey, Tagore, Durka and Smith, Evans, Zoe Weil, and G. E. Moore. The class will include theory, reflection, and practical applications of both religious/community education models (including digital, the arts, and peer-to-peer alternatives) and process thought. Same as TRE3036.
TPS3032/4032 Religions and Exo-Life
Since the discovery of the massive presence of exo-planets in our galaxy, the old question whether there may be life on other worlds than our Earth has sparked new interest not only in scientific fields such as ex-biology, but also regarding the views of diverse religions on this question. While in many cultures this assumption was part of their expansive worldview and while philosophies in the East and West have speculated on life and even human-like or strange forms of intelligence in the universe for ages, the impact this possibility might have on religious identities has become a more pressing issue today: How to think about creation, the human predicament, salvation and eschatological visions in light of many worlds full of life and maybe even intelligent life? This seminar will explore the history of the integration or exclusion, embrace or limitation of such a vision throughout different religious traditions, the constraints it puts on religious worldviews and doctrines, and the insight the horizon of exo-life can offer when it is applied to religious self understanding.
TPS3033/4033 Whitehead and Postmodern Thought
Today, Whitehead’s philosophy is newly discovered to be in the line of ancestors of the postmodern, deconstructive and poststructuralist philosophy. It is this discovery that led Gilles Deleuze to acclaim Whitehead’s Process and Reality as “one of the greatest books in modern philosophy.” The seminar will investigate this claim in light of the manifoldness of postmodern thought—e.g., Baudrillard, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, Lyotard and Zizek—and their sources of inspiration—de Saussure, Freud, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche—but also in contrast with streams of Whiteheadian thought, such as Rescher’s “process metaphysics” and Griffin’s “constructive postmodernism.” In exploring Whitehead’s resonance with, and difference from, postmodern thought, we will ask for the potential of a mutual reconstruction of their thought from ontology to theology, from cosmology to culture, with the intention of slowly building up an understanding of the different “architecture” of their philosophies and their contribution to contemporary questions.
TPS3044/4044 Whitehead and Deleuze
Today, Whitehead’s philosophy is newly discovered to be in the line of ancestors of the postmodern, deconstructive or poststructuralist, French based “philosophy of difference”, which was co-initiated by Gilles Deleuze, for whom Whitehead’s Process and Reality was “one of the greatest philosophies of the 20th century.” The seminar will investigate their relationship by seeking to explore the potential for a mutual reconstruction of their thought regarding epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, theology, ethics, and their relevance for process studies. This course is designed to maximize opportunities for discussion. Therefore, most of the time will be assigned to the study of important parts of the primary texts of these philosophers, their thorough reading and interpretation, creating a mosaic of references and a field of relations that will slowly build up to the realization of the respective “architecture” of their philosophies and the “plane of resonances.”
TPS3057/4057 God as Poet of the World
With the advent of “process theology,” in the history of theology, a new way of thinking (feeling) “God” appeared which in the interaction with several theological movements from the 1920s on created a whole new network of paradigms for God-talk. This seminar investigates how this new body of paradigms formed, and continues to form, while contrasting other theological, philosophical, political, and ecological developments; what its “novelty” is all about; of what importance it will be for inter-religious and inter-cultural contextualization in the future; and, finally, what “future” we might anticipate for itself judged by its internal complexity, essential openness, and inherent self-transcendence formed around the image of God as “Poet” of the world.
TPS3074/4074 Theology of Creation
Did creation come from nothing or from chaos or has it ever been? Is it historical or eternal? Is it an endless repeating process or will creation end in time? Is the act of creation the beginning of the end or the fulfillment of a previous end? Is it one universe or a multiverse? Important contemporary discussions on creator and creativity, creation, and evolution, chaosmos and ecology, design and social constructions will be brought in as the class examines the contributions of religious traditions, philosophies, science, and contemporary theologies to questions of beginnings and becoming. Same as TCT3074/4074.
TPS3076/4076 Relational Theologies: Methodism and Process
Why does God allow innocent people to suffer? How does God relate to the world? Does God know the future? If God is “in control,” do we have free will? Insufficient answers to these types of questions are a major reason why Millennials (and others) are leaving the Church in droves. Yet Open-Relational Theology, among the fastest growing theological movements in America today, offers alternative answers that many find appealing. This course is an introduction to Relational (and Open-Relational) thought by way of an introduction to both the Wesleyan and Process traditions. Students will explore the connections between Relational, Wesleyan, and Process traditions. Students will explore the connections between Relational, Wesleyan, and Process frameworks, and the reasons why Process has been both extremely controversial and extremely influential in Methodist circles. Special guests will include leading figures such as Thomas Jay Oord, John Cobb, and others.
TPS3077/4077 Spirit Beyond Matter: Religions & Near-Death Experiences
Of the many related questions regarding existence of human mind and spirit beyond the bounds of matter and bodily existence, few are more vital for the meaning of human existence, at least in any reasonable religious and spiritual context, than whether or not the human mind, consciousness, and spiritual perceptions are mere illusions of material organization or its emergent organic features, or a divine gift that not only owns some form of genuine reality, but even a kind of independence that would allow it to the considered deathless, not defined by the wearing away of the impermanent order of physicality, but related to a divine or eternal order or personality. Although we may not find a religious view that would not, in some sense, know of such a spiritual destiny, especially in the wake of the materialist worldviews and the scientific inability to address non-physical realities, mind and spirit, consciousness, and freedom have become questioned to the point of nonexistence. Recent approaches in the areas of philosophy of mind, science, and religious as well as the longstanding spiritual traditions and religions, however, which argue for the difference and independence from physicality, and the profound elementary function of mind and spirit in the universe, are supported by the research into, and current increasingly scientific evidence from near death experiences., The seminar will ask how such
research has changed equations of materialism, naturalism, and their philosophical and scientific expositions; whether it is bound to dualisms of mind and matter; how it is part of an ancient and persistence multireligious understanding of the journey of the soul, survival of death, and meaning of spiritual realms; but also why it has been critically received within the dogmatic limitations of diverse religious traditions; and whether it might be a future interreligious bridge between them.
TPS3081/4081 Intimacy with God: Process, Jungian, and Mystical Perspectives
This course will explore philosophical, theological, and psychological frameworks for understanding God’s immanence. Since an intimate relationship with God is best understood through lived encounters, participants will ground theoretical and empirical study in the experiential through mystical readings and personal practice. Students will be invited to enter more deeply into their own spiritual life through such practices as dream work, journaling, and reflection. Appropriate for ministry, chaplaincy, and doctoral students in religion, theology, or psychology.
TPS3086/4086 Eco-Process Theology
Eco-Process Theology is not an application but the essence of a process theology that is concerned with the universal relationality of the world of events in their intertwining, evolution, emergence, and sustainability. The ecological question is pressing and a theological contribution urgent. In the series of great philosophical and theological contributions, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred N. Whitehead occupy a special place in advocating an evolutionary ecology—not just as a scientific reality to be considered by theology but as deeper revelation of the nature of reality as such—that, if it really were taken seriously, must change our philosophical understanding of the world we live in and our theological reconstruction of religious orthodoxies. In contrasting their thought with others, e.g., Deep Ecology, a new conceptual and spiritual framework might arise that, in a profound sense, can be called “eco-centric” in nature. Their ecological impetus unites them in a new understanding of Divine Love as love of the Earth with all its theoretical, practical, and spiritual consequences to live in a Universe in Process. Same as TIR3043/4043.
TPS3088/4088 Theology of the Body
Cultures and religions are about bodies, their multiple states and incredible plasticity, physically and categorically. Nevertheless, in philosophy and theology, the body has long played only a rudimentary role as me-on (something not to be), something to overcome or to be left behind, quite in opposition to key biblical notions such as resurrection of the body and soma pneumaticon. Especially in their critique of the longstanding metaphysics of presence, process thought, post structuralist and deconstructionist scholarship, and gender studies have ‘uncovered’ the profound bodily basis of all our philosophical and theological claims, in terms of both their epistemological and ontological preconditions and their social and political consequences. This seminar will focus on three areas of thought: the gender-oriented work of Judith Butler (and her engagement with Foucault, Kristeva, and Irigaray); the critique of the development of the concept of the body and its contemporary reevaluation (in Casey, Derrida, Deleuze, and Whitehead); and, finally, the theological renewal of new conceptualizations of the event of the body in the context of sex and gender, multiplicity and diversity, the organic and the orgiastic, and inclusion and liberation.
TPS 3093/4093 Introduction to Process Theology
Provides an introduction to Process Theology in the tradition of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne demonstrating ways in which Process Theology has relevance for interaction between theory and practice, between theology and church life. Topics to be discussed include, but are not limited to, the Nature of God, Christology, Theodicy, and Eschatology. Readings include works by Artson, Cobb & Griffin, Hartshorne, Keller, Mesle, Suchocki, and Whitehead.
TPS4094 Process Studies PhD Colloquium
Seminar style forum for discussion of scholarly and professional issues in Process Studies.
TRA3099 Special Topics in Religions and the Arts
When offered, this course will present special topics of interest in the area of Religions and the Arts. Students should consult the course schedule for specific courses and subject matter.
TRE3001 Introduction to Religious Education
This course provides students with a basic introduction to religious education within faith communities. It is designed to give students skills to facilitate religious education in a range of contexts, as well as locate and develop resources and ideas to enhance educational ministries. This course will also examine religious education from the perspective of historical and contemporary models. Multicultural education will be addressed.
TRE3004/4004 Formative Figures in Religious Education and Practical Theology
Reading and reflection on major figures in religious education and practical theology in the 20th and 21st centuries. Attention will also be given to various perspectives in the fields. Practical theologians and religious educators from a variety of different traditions and social identities will be studied, as well as mainline perspectives. This course will be thought seminar-style and require the student to read and digest different academic texts; students will also need to set a research agenda. This course is ideal for PhD and DMin and students doing theses who need to broadly survey their field.
TRE3009/4009 Multicultural Religious Education
This course is a comprehensive look at the philosophical and theological frameworks of multiculturalism in relation to religious educational praxis. Linguistic and cultural knowledge and its relationship to power and powerlessness are discussed. The course explores the latest perspectives on race, language, culture, class, gender, ability, among other forms of difference, and their relationship to oppression and marginalization. We will examine how faith communities and religious organizations reflect social patterns of institutional oppression, and approaches to addressing those patterns.
TRE3031/4031, TSF3052/4052 Young People in Faith Communities
This course provides students with a basic introduction to religious education within churches and faith communities. It is designed to give students skills to facilitate religious education in a range of contexts, as well as locate and develop resources and ideas to enhance educational ministries. This course will also examine religious education from the perspective of various groups including adult learners, youth and young adults, children, families, etc. from the perspective of historical and contemporary models. Differing contexts for ministry, such as urban, suburban, etc. will be examined. Issues such as cultural contexts, as well as the connections between religious education and other aspects of congregational life such as preaching, worship, pastoral care, etc. will be addressed.
TRE3036 Religious Education and Process Theology in Faith Traditions
This course will investigate the link between dynamic worldviews and education models that reflects the needs of such a vital life. In addition to exploring the process worldview in relation to Whitehead’s theory of education, students will also look at other theories of education from Dewey, Tagore, Durka and Smith, Evans, Zoe Weil, and G. E. Moore. The class will include theory, reflection, and practical applications of both religious/community education models (including digital, the arts, and peer-to-peer alternatives) and process thought. Same as TPS3026.
TRE3040 Vocational Praxis
This is a required course for all Master of Divinity students in their final year at CST, and it is an opportunity for individual and community-based integration and assessment of learning and vocational goals. The class will form a community and assessment will be organized around Institutional Learning Objectives of CST, focused in particular on the Master of Divinity Program Learning Objectives (PLOs): Demonstrate religious intelligence gained through the study of theological disciplines; Embody ethical integrity in one’s vocation; Engage in dialogue across cultures and religions; Provide effective ministerial, community and/or public leadership.
TRE3041/4041 Seminar in Interreligious Education
This course will focus on the theology, philosophy, and pedagogy of interreligious education. Student projects may focus on theological or philosophical topics and/or the practical application of interreligious education to specific contexts and age groups, such as young people. Same as TIE3002/4002.
TRE3048/4048 Justice Formation and Education in Faith Communities
This course engages the field of justice education from the perspective of religious education in faith communities. How can faith communities become vehicles for justice and peace? What are the methodologies and resources available for this work? How can justice education be integrated within the overall spiritual formation of faith communities? What is the role of religious education in the transformation of faith communities and human societies? The search for justice and transformation are interrelated. It is the responsibility of faith communities to engage religious traditions in ways that transform and liberate and to reject that which seeks to control and oppress. All students are encouraged to work within their own religious contexts, as well as look at how greater religious diversity may impact justice education. The goal of the class is to equip students with as much basic background in the field as possible, along with enough flexibility for students to pursue their own interests and do work most valuable to them.
TRE3049/4049 Narrative Pedagogies
A study of the use of the narrative arts—storytelling, creative writing, playmaking, spiritual autobiography, improvisational role-plays, and dramatic presentations—as a means for religious education, theological reflection, spiritual growth, and social empowerment.
TRE4074 Education and Formation PhD Colloquium
Seminar-style forum for discussion of scholarly and professional issues in Education and Formation.
TRS3006/4006 African American Diasporic Religions
This course will acquaint students with African-American religions practiced in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora. This class will discuss the historical trajectories, beliefs (theology), cultural and political influences, and contemporary challenges at work in each religious tradition. This course gives attention to both published scholarship and lived experience. The class involves four required field trips in the Los Angeles area (usually on Sundays). The class will focus on four religions each semester. Same as TWR3053/4053.
TSC3000 Elective Clinical Pastoral Education
MDiv or MA students who chose to use elective credits for Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) register for this course. (MA students concentrating in clinical spiritual care register for TSC3001/3002.) Students are responsible to gain acceptance into a CPE program accredited by The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. (ACPE) prior to course registration and provide proof of acceptance at the time of registration. Often follows a schedule different from the School’s academic calendar. Fees charged by the CPE Center are paid by the School out of the student’s tuition.
TSC3001/3002 Required Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)
Required clinical training for MA students in the clinical spiritual care track and for students enrolled in the Interfaith Chaplaincy concentration of the MDiv Students are responsible to gain acceptance into a CPE program accredited by The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. (ACPE) prior to course registration and provide proof of acceptance at the time of registration. Often follows a schedule different from the School’s academic calendar. Fees charged by the CPE Center are paid by the School out of the student’s tuition.
TSC3004 Theories and Practices of Spiritual Care
Effective leadership for the spiritual care of persons and communities requires ethical integrity, religious intelligence, and intercultural understanding. With these outcomes in mind, the course:
- explores ways to think critically about core themes of practical theology, pastoral theology, and spiritual care
- prepares you to respond appropriately to common spiritual care situations
- provides basic training in listening, relational, and conversational skills
An overarching theme is the construction of a theological-spiritual framework to inform your understandings of your pastoral, religious, and caring identities; the meaning of the care of persons, communities, and worlds; and the role of communities in spiritual care.
TSC3027/4027 Small Group Processes
This course introduces students to group dynamics as manifested in a variety of settings. The course provides instruction in group formation, assessment of group dynamics, group leadership, conflict management, and group influence, as well as methods for developing groups and evaluating existing groups. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3032/4032 Spiritual Care and Counseling for Death, Dying, and Bereavement
Study of the dynamics of grief and mourning and of appropriate spiritual care and counseling with the bereaved in the context of religious communities, chaplaincy, and spiritually integrated counseling. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3034/4024 Care and Counseling with Addictions/Substance Abuse
Study of the dynamics of addiction and recovery with a focus on alcohol and chemical addictions, treatment for addiction, and the spiritual care of persons and families affected by these conditions. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3035/4035 Chaplaincy in Contexts
An introduction to the theory, practices, and major issues of chaplaincy as a specialized form of spiritual care. The arts and challenges of interreligious and intercultural care are a particular focus. The course is appropriate for those preparing for ministries in hospital, hospice, military, or corporate chaplaincies. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3036/4036 Counseling for Children and Adolescents
This course introduces students to child and adolescent psychological evaluations, diagnosis, and treatment issues. The course provides instruction in conducting diagnostic interviews and basic therapeutic techniques as well as general approaches to the treatment of children and adolescents. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3039/4049 Spiritual Care and Counseling with Couples and Families
This course provides students theological and clinical foundations for working with couples and families. Topics of the course include psychology, sociology, and theology of intimate relationships such as, but not limited to, cohabitation, marriage, divorce, blended and multicultural families, and domestic violence. Students will be introduced to relationship/marriage education as a spiritual care and ministry model and will learn a set of relationship/marriage education skills for premarital counseling and couples’ and family
communication. Students will reflect on their own family-of-origin experience, focusing on how this experience shapes their understanding of self and capacities for spiritual care. Students will learn core counseling skills to better care for marriages and families. Pre- or co-requisites: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3041/3044/4044/4047 Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy Internship
Required clinical training for M.A. students in the spiritually integrated psychotherapy track. Completion of one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education and an evaluation acceptable to the professors of spiritual care and counseling are prerequisites. Students serve as Interns/Residents at The Clinebell Institute (TCI). No other placements are allowed, except those arranged by TCI. Clinical training begins in late August with a required three-day staff meeting and retreat. Training continues for a full calendar year unless the student graduates. Students are expected to complete their required training without interruption. The clinical training program at the TCI does not follow the academic calendar; due to the intensive nature of the training and the needs of clients, students are on a year-round schedule and continue to serve their clients during school breaks, though vacation times are arranged through TCI. If students’ training must be interrupted due to unforeseen life circumstances, students must make up the time missed within one year from the time of interruption. In addition to the weekly meeting time, students schedule clinical work, research, and study in preparation for clinical service, individual supervision, and other training meetings as required. Lab fee and the cost of training psychotherapy required. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3054/4054 Contemporary Narratives of American Muslims
Students will engage in a thorough examination of contemporary issues that American Muslims face today. Close study of their ‘lived experiences,’ with emphasis on their historical, cultural, and political contexts, will frame our conversations around current counseling and spiritual needs of this population. Students will be encouraged to uncover assumptions and belief systems that influence their own comfort levels of working with this population in order to develop understanding, awareness, and sensitivity towards American Muslims. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3057/4057 Womanist Pastoral Theology and Spiritual Care
This course utilizes pastoral theological method by engaging resources in theology, psychology, and culture. As such, key texts in womanist theology, womanist pastoral theology, and Black psychology will be resourced to strengthen students’ developing theories and practices of care. Students will be encouraged to think critically about the ways that gender and race impact their own identities and that of care receivers. Additionally, students will develop pastoral theologies and practices of care intended to deconstruct patriarchal and racist norms. An ultimate goal will be for students to function as theorists, clergy and/or clinicians capable of fostering liberation and healing amongst individuals, families, and communities against the strain of gendered and racial oppression. Pre-requisite: TSC3004
TSC3060/4060 Short-term Counseling in Religious and Spiritual Contexts
The course introduces a short-term counseling approach that is faithful, effective, and ethical; sensitive to context; and appropriate for religious leaders with limited time and expertise. Learning and applying a spiritual-theological and clinical framework that can be adapted to various settings (chaplaincy, faith communities, community organizing, etc.), students learn, and practice (a) skills and interventions rooted in social-constructionist psychology and (b) a counseling model that emphasizes mutuality, relational justice, and attention to people on the margins. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3064/4064 Interfaith Care and Counseling
An exploration of spiritual care and counseling in interfaith relationships and multi-faith communities or contexts. Attention is given to: necessities, limits, and values related to interfaith caregiving; history and socio-religious contexts significant for contexts of interfaith caregiving; differences between religious traditions significant for issues in and practices of interfaith caregiving; competencies related to interfaith caregiving and caregivers’ reflexive self-assessment of their competency in practice.
TSC3065/4065 Justice in Spiritual Care:
Students will apply critical social theory in analysis of race, class, gender, and sexuality and develop models of spiritual care appropriate in their sites of practice including religious community leadership, chaplaincy, counseling, and education. Readings will cover the topics of privilege, power, and difference from the theoretical perspectives of critical pedagogy, critical multiculturalism, critical psychology, and liberation theology. The class is structured in a semi seminar format including lectures, discussions, presentations, and structured exercises.
TSC3066 Buddhist-Christian Thought in Spiritual Care
The course engages the literature of Buddhist-Christian studies to identify its implications for spiritual care and to clarify its potential contributions to the disciplines of spirituality, practical theology, and pastoral theology. Central concerns include multiple religious bonds and the care of religiously multiple people. While the course might strengthen spiritual care skills, it focuses on complex questions of theory and pastoral theology that inform care with seekers and religiously multiple people. Pre- or corequisite: TSC3004 or an equivalent.
TSC3069 Critical Race Theory and Practical Theology
This course surveys methods and aims of critical race theory in dialogue with practical theology. It engages in an analysis of social systems and cultural norms and considers their impact on human experience. Students will be encouraged to consider how they are ‘placed’ in the social system and how they will participate in it as leaders, clergy, scholars, and clinicians. An aim will be to construct a practical theology of race which fosters emotional and systemic survival, liberation, healing, and flourishing.
TSC3075/4075 Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy
The core of this course consists of the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE)’s Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy (SIP) training program, which explores the ways spirituality, religion, and the search for meaning influence counselor’s own lives and the lives of their clients. “Psychotherapy” is understood as “care of the soul.” While the history of psychotherapy includes theorists and practitioners with a bias against spirituality and religion, there have been those who found effective ways to include spiritual wisdom in psychotherapeutic work. In recent years, there has been an outpouring of research and instruction in SIP, and empirical evidence demonstrating the therapeutic efficacy of attending to clients’ spiritual beliefs and practices. In addition to teaching theory and skills foundational to SIP, the course emphasizes personal integration, development of professional identity, and growth in a distinctive way of being. This course will provide practical and usable resources to help therapists integrate spirituality into their work. The course will help students learn to elicit and make therapeutic use of their clients’ spiritual perspectives and how to make ethically appropriate use of their own spiritual perspectives. This course consists of interactive seminars and employs the use of role plays, small group work, and case consultation. The course consists of 10 modules of content (3-hours each) and is taught by an ACPE certified trainer of SIP.
TSC3076/4076 Spiritual and Theological Dimensions of Suffering
Offers an overview of differing religious perspectives on human pain and suffering. Students engaged Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, Christian, philosophical, political, and musical responses to suffering in order to explore their potential to support or thwart healing from physical and emotional suffering.
TSC3078 Liberation Psychology for Ministry Contexts
This course engages psychology as a tool for social transformation in ministry contexts. Additionally, it identifies the psychological dynamics operative in persons and groups who perpetuate oppression (such as colonizers, white supremacists, and sexists). Unmasking oppressive psychologies operative in those who abuse their power enables the oppressed to resist in ways that question the identities of the oppressor. Similarly, unmasking oppressive psychologies enables the oppressed to resist the oppressive ways in which those who abuse their power relate to the less powerful. Students will also be encouraged to reflect on the psychology of the oppressed and develop strategies to catapult the psychological liberation of the oppressed. The course engages the writings of Frantz Fanon, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Thema Bryant-Davis, Lillian Comas-Diaz, and Carroll Watkins Ali. An aim will be to equip students with tools to see the psychological underpinnings of oppression and to, subsequently, spark and sustain the work of liberation in ministry, clinical and/or scholarly contexts.
TSC3079/4079 Spiritual Care for Prisons: Supporting Prisoners and Staff in Challenging Systems and Environments
This course will engage the question of what it means to “be the conscience” of an institution; specifically, a prison. It will examine the imperative of the prison chaplain to provide spiritual care for all faith groups; how to develop spiritual programming that meets the needs of incarcerated people; navigation of complex bureaucratic systems as a spiritual provider; and approaches to working interdepartmentally to achieve the wellbeing of incarcerated people and staff.
TSC3081/4081 – Chaplaincy in Military Contexts
Military Chaplains have provided specialized spiritual care and ethical guidance to service members since they were first introduced in English armies in the 1600’s. Apart from other chaplaincy contexts, military chaplains play a critical role in issues of crisis and advising on ethical dilemmas. What is the role of the chaplain when their commander gets an order to consider civilian casualties? What are the limits of absolute confidentiality and a suicidal service-member? This course will introduce the skills, challenges, and major issues of military chaplaincy through a series of case studies and scenarios-based discussions to explore the theories and practices needed for chaplaincy in the military context. The course is appropriate for those preparing for ministries in healthcare, military, prison, higher education, and other types of chaplaincies, but will focus on unique skills for military chaplaincy.
TSC3082/4082 Care In “The New Jim Crow” Age: Incarceration and Spiritual Care
This is a course that defines for students, “How do we provide spiritual care to those who are incarcerated?” To this end, this curse helps students gain proficiency in facilitating inclusive, interreligious spiritual care practices with incarcerated persons, their families/loved ones, and the larger community of support. Students will also gain cultural competence on how our current United States mass incarceration system is steeped in racism and other forms of oppression. Students will gain self-awareness on how their own unique spiritual care strengths and growing edges impact how they provide spiritual care to those incarcerated. This course will ultimately help students gain compassion and sensitivity for those behind prison walls and how spiritual care must be grounded in a holistic approach to adequately care for incarcerated bodies.
TSC4001/4002/4003 Required Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)
Required clinical training for PhD students in the clinical spiritual care track. Students are responsible to gain acceptance into a CPE program accredited by The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. (ACPE) prior to course registration and proof of acceptance into an ACPE-accredited program is required at the time of registration. Often follows a schedule different from the School’s academic calendar. Fees charged by the CPE Center are paid by the School out of the student’s tuition.
TSC4021/4022/4023 ACPE Educator Training
Required clinical training for PhD students in the ACPE Educator training track. Students are responsible to secure a position as an ACPE Educator in training. Often follows a schedule different from the School’s academic calendar.
TSC4033 Religion and Psychology
Investigation of religious experience and the interrelationship of the disciplines of psychology, religious studies, and theology through literature in the areas of psychology of religion, religion and psychoanalysis, religion and personality theory, and religion and health.
TSC4042 Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy Internship/Residency
Required clinical training for doctoral students in the spiritually integrative counseling track. Completion of one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education and an evaluation acceptable to the professors of spiritual care and counseling are prerequisites. Students serve as Interns/Residents at The Clinebell Institute (TCI). No other placements are allowed, except those arranged by TCI. Clinical training begins in late August with a required three-day staff meeting and retreat. Training continues for a full calendar year unless the student graduates. Students are expected to complete their required training without interruption. The clinical training program at the TCI does not follow the academic calendar; due to the intensive nature of the training and the needs of clients, students are on a year-round schedule and continue to serve their clients during school breaks, though vacation times are arranged through TCI. If students` training must be interrupted due to unforeseen life circumstances, students must make up the time missed within one year from the time of interruption. In addition to the weekly meeting time, students schedule clinical work, research, and study in preparation for clinical service, individual supervision, and other training meetings as required. Students pay the clinical lab fee of $1,500.
TSC4045 Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy Residency
Required clinical training for doctoral students in the spiritually integrative counseling track. Completion of one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education and an evaluation acceptable to the professors of spiritual care and counseling are prerequisites. Students serve as Interns/Residents at The Clinebell Institute (TCI). No other placements are allowed, except those arranged by TCI. Clinical training begins in late August with a required three-day staff meeting and retreat. Training continues for a full calendar year unless the student graduates. Students are expected to complete their required training without interruption. The clinical training program at the TCI does not follow the academic calendar; due to the intensive nature of the training and the needs of clients, students are on a year-round schedule and continue to serve their clients during school breaks, though vacation times are arranged through TCI. If students` training must be interrupted due to unforeseen life circumstances, students must make up the time missed within one year from the time of interruption. In addition to the weekly meeting time, students schedule clinical work, research, and study in preparation for clinical service, individual supervision, and other training meetings as required. Students pay the clinical lab fee of $1,500.
TSC4085 Spiritual Care and Counseling PhD Colloquium
Seminar-style forum for discussion of scholarly and professional issues in Spiritual Care and Counseling.
TSF2005 Contemplative Prayer Group
A spiritual formation process in which students will engage in transformative spiritual practices in a contemplative context. This process will include weekly prayer and reflection on the prayer practices.
TSF3007/4007 Spiritual Formation for Compassionate Social Engagement
One dimension of spirituality is engaging the world and its social wounds in ways that promote justice, peace, and the flourishing of all creation. This course explores ways of engaging in socially transformative work that are spiritually sustaining and restorative. Themes include the personal and political dimensions of nonviolence, the relationship between inner work and social activism, the tensions between personal empowerment and social compassion, the complexities of forgiveness and truthful reconciliation, as well as spiritual practices that sustain justice work.
TSF3008 Formation: Spiritual Practices
This course provides an exploration of spiritual practices that foster wise, empowered, non-reactive, spiritually-grounded, compassionate engagement with all of life. Topics for attention may include vocation, spirituality, and the experience of theological studies. The primary ‘text’ is the student’s life–including, e.g., the ‘interior landscape,’ relationships, and issues related to transforming/repairing/healing the world. Course work focuses on appropriately engaging spiritually formative practices of one’s own tradition(s) and other traditions through individual and/or group processes. There will be no pre-class assignments. Populi site will be open one month before class starts. Students can count on small group meetings online every two weeks, dates to be determined by small groups to be assigned during the intensive.
TSF3010/4010 Multi-Religious Contemplative Practices
“Basic Human capacities” (e.g., attention, emotion, memory, imagination, sensations) play a role in the contemplative practices of every religion. True? If so, how? This course will explore such practices from various spiritual traditions, as well as neuroscientific understandings of these practices, in order to grasp how they contain certain “basic human capacities” and how they may cultivate “engaged compassion.” Students engage in practices if/as comfortable. Same as TIR3010/4010.
TSF3011/4011 Teaching Contemplative Prayer Practices
This course explores both theoretically and experientially a variety of contemplative prayer practices with specific attention to methods of teaching such practices in various contexts. A laboratory dimension of this course will entail a weekly contemplative prayer group in which Claremont students will serve as participant/observers and occasional assistants.
TSF3015/4015 Your Brain on God: Neuroscience and Spiritual/Contemplative Practices
What do current neuroscientific studies and understandings have to say about and learn from spiritual/contemplative practices/experiences/understandings? How do neuroscientific perspectives help us (or not) understand, (re)formulate, and engage in cultivating the spiritual/contemplative life? This course will explore answers to these questions through carefully attending to and engaging in contemplative/spiritual practices. No previous work in science or spiritual/contemplative practices required.
TSF3017/4017 Teaching the Compassion Practice
This course explores theoretically and experientially a spiritual practice “The Compassion Practice” that cultivates a life of contemplative, restorative, and engaged compassion in relation to the self, the other, and the world. Students will engage methods of teaching this practice in various forms and contexts. A laboratory dimension of this course will entail a weekly contemplative prayer group in which CST students will serve as participant-observers and occasional assistants.
TSF3019/4019 Christian Spiritualities Across the Ages
This course surveys notable spiritualities from early Christianity to the present, attending to their spiritual practices, theologies, views of the person, understandings of the movements of the inner life, and socio-historical contexts. Students will bring their own spiritual traditions and vocational aspirations into conversation with the spiritualities and spiritual practices that have served as the roots of (or contrasted with) many contemporary forms.
TSF3022/4022 Embodied Spirituality: Psycho-physiology of Contemporary Practice
This course explores-in theory and in practice- the psycho-physiological foundations and adaptations that occur through routine contemplative practice. It focuses first on the psychological and physiological systems that are activated through habitual, harmful, and reactive emotional states, and subsequently on the adaptations and healing processes, including those in behavior and perception, of those systems through intentional contemplative practice. The focus of the course will be on scientific background, as well as practical understanding. Differences between the forms and foundations of various practices, as well as the physiological implications of each,will also be highlighted. Attention will be given to critical analysis of which practices may be most beneficial, under what circumstance, by those in helping professions.
TSF3024/4024 Practicing Awareness and Discernment for Spiritual Formation
This course cultivates basic practices of awareness and discernment that foster wise, empowered, non-reactive, spiritually-grounded, compassionate engagement with all dimensions of life. Topics may include vocation, spirituality, and the CST experience (academic and beyond). The primary “text” is the student’s life — including, e.g., “interior landscape,” intrapersonal integration of experience, relationships, and issues related to transforming/repairing/healing the world. Course work focuses on engaging in and reflecting on awareness and discernment practices through individual and/or group processes.
TSF3026/4026 Psycho-Spiritual Approaches to Contemplative Transformation: ISF as a Spiritual Path
Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) is a contemplative, soulful, and non-pathologizing approach to personal healing and spiritual transformation. This course, taught by a trained IFS practitioner, introduces students to the core concepts and practices of the model, places the model into dialogue with contemplative spiritual traditions, and adapts the model as an accessible and uniquely liberating pathway toward psycho-spiritual wholeness and social reconciliation rooted in empowered compassion.
TSF3028/4028 Compassion-Based Methods of Social Healing and Reconciliation
Violence pervades our world. The violated cry out for healing and justice; violators need to be contained and transformed. This course explores methods and dynamics involved in nurturing social reconciliation that is empowering and just, accountable, and compassionate. Themes include liberative pedagogies of social empowerment, the healing of social trauma, dynamics of interpersonal and communal conflict transformation, restorative versus retributive justice, and the principles and techniques of non-violence.
TSF3032/4032 Leading with Compassion
This course teaches contemplative attitudes and practices for the formation of compassionate behavior and stances within leadership contexts, including groups and organizations. Course processes and content will cultivate self-compassion and compassionate interpersonal behavior as foundations for contemplative practices that cultivate wise, compassionate leadership. The primary ‘texts’ will be your own ‘interior landscape’ in relation to your experience of yourself and the world around you (e.g., physical settings, cultural expressions, individuals, relationships, systems & structures).
TSF3036/4036 The Way of Radical Compassion
This course is part of a compassion formation pilot project with international participants. The formation process is grounded in the teachings of Jesus, who promoted a spiritual path of radical compassion rooted in contemplative encounters with an all-inclusive sacred Source and embodied in compassionate action that extends toward all-oneself, one’s neighbor, even one’s enemies. This course does not so much study compassion; it teaches how to be a compassionate presence in the world.
TSF3041/4041 EcoArt and Decolonial Spiritualities to Postpone the End of the World
In 2019, Indigenous Brazilian activist Ailton Krenak wrote an influential book that was entitled Ideas to Postpone the End of the World. In it, he argues that because the world has ended for Indigenous peoples across the Americas many times, there is much to be learned from their ways of knowing and relating to the earth. Though we are faced with the unsettling challenges of global pandemics, wildfires, climate catastrophe, continued extractives and exploitive practices of late stage racial-capitalism, colonialism, cishet patriarchy, and so much more, we are also capable of leaning into spiritual, artistic, and ecological practices from around the globe that continue to offer imaginative and creative possibilities to interrogate, resist, and create new ways of tending to ourselves, our communities, our common home and all our relations. Same as TIR3041/4041.
TSF3042/4042 Decolonizing Shame for Theology
This course examines theories about the effect of shame through decolonial/deimperial frameworks, identifying the political, cultural, social, economic, and theological contexts of modern and postmodern theories about shame, and how these theories contributed to concepts of individual, communal, and theological identity. Students in this course will construct public theologies around shame that attend to these differing contexts, with a goal toward destabilizing and dismantling systems of oppression that use shame as a mechanism of control. Same as TTH3032/4032.
TSF3049/4049 Art In the Flesh: Queering Cultural Expressions
While it defies a fixed definition, queer is an identity, an approach, and a politics that move—queer bodies move against normative ways of being and becoming. Many artists in the 20th and 21st centuries across the Americas have queered cultural expressions through their practices, questioning social structures and norms while traversing unconventional routes. This course traces such trajectories investigating the confluences of queer theory, artistic production, and religion. Same as TIR3046/4046
TSF3083/4083 Art and Religion at the Crossroads
Contemporary visual arts are powerful tools that provide imaginative models for interdisciplinary studies. As a laboratory for such research, the arts are poised with the capacity to enhance our understanding of historical and cultural amalgamations while also offering an opportunity to assess and integrate multi-modal and interreligious learning. It is especially among contemporary Indigenous and diasporic artistic expressions that themes such as colonial histories, religious intolerance, and disrespectful encounters with each other, and the land become salient. In this course, we examine how Indigenous and diasporic artists have developed visual poetics aligned with their religious traditions and cosmo-logics. Same as TIR3083/4083.
TSF4043 Discernment Based Strategic Leadership
This course explores the contributions of spiritual discernment processes, contemplative practice, and compassionate relationality to organizational leadership. Topics will include grounded and generative approaches to strategic visioning, decision-making, conflict transformation, team building, and creating organizational cultures that promote compassion, dignity, empowerment, effectiveness, and personal and social renewal.
TSF4046 Spiritual Renewal Through Engaged Compassion
This course for the Doctor of Ministry Program in Spiritual Renewal, Contemplative Practice and Strategic Leadership, will teach contemplative, relational, and socially engaged spiritual practices that cultivate the interpersonal skills necessary for wise, effective, and compassionate leadership in communities, interreligious contexts, organizations, and the world.
TSF4047 Compassion Based Approaches to Conflict
Teaches compassion-based conflict transformation perspectives and processes that are vital for strategic leadership and grounded in contemplative practices. Themes may include approaches to conflict situations in inter-cultural and/or inter-religious contexts, neuroscientific understandings of the nature of contemplative practice, explorations of contemplative practices from a variety of spiritual/religious traditions and working constructively with difficult emotions and stances within persons, between individuals, and within & across groups.
TTH3000 The World So Loved: Prayer From a Process-Relational Theology
Prayer engages our spiritual/worshiping selves as well as reflecting our understanding of God, human beings, and how they relate in the world. This course explores the meaning, practice, and language of prayer from the perspective of process-relational theology, with practical applications for worship, pastoral care, and personal enrichment.
TTH3002 Prophet and Pastor: Introduction to Deitrich Bonhoeffer
This course examines theological and practical insights into the role of prophet and pastor using the model and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, famous Lutheran theologian, and pastor. It will offer an introduction to Bonhoeffer’s life, work, and ministry through the use of DVDs, dramatic presentations, his writings, and letters from prison. Students will be given tools to analyze and perceive their own role as prophet and pastor in their own ministry context. This course is designed to meet denomination requirements for the Luther year in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and provide an introduction of Lutheran theology to non-Lutheran students.
TTH3005/4005 Asian-American Christianity
An introduction to the emerging fields of Asian American theology, biblical hermeneutics, and ethics, focusing on the diasporic experiences and diverse voices of Asian Americans following the 1965 Immigration Act. Topics include: immigration, generational conflicts, racism and racial reconciliation, identity construction, model minority myth, ethnic-specific and pan-Asian ministries, Asian American Christian ethics, and comparison with other contextualist approaches from Asia and from other racial-ethnic groups in the U.S. Also, TES 3044/4044.
TTH3029/4029 Current Trends in Church Renewal: Where Growth is Happening
This course examines recent movements within the Church, with a particular focus on North America. We explore shared concerns, critiques of traditional Christianity, and common dimensions in the Christian renewal movements. Then we concentrate on unique features of each particular movement. Students will have the chance to visit church renewal projects in our area and to prepare a case study. Numerous outside speakers and Skype interviews.
TTH3032/4032 Decolonizing Shame for Theology
This course examines theories about the effect of shame through decolonial/deimperial frameworks, identifying the political, cultural, social, economic, and theological contexts of modern and postmodern theories about shame, and how these theories contributed to concepts of individual, communal, and theological identity. Students in this course will construct public theologies around shame that attend to these differing contexts, with a goal toward destabilizing and dismantling systems of oppression that use shame as a mechanism of control. Same as TSF3042/4042.
TTH3033/4033, TES3081/4081 Asian and Asian North American Christian Theologies
This class surveys the major writing of Asian and Asian North American Christian theologies, and the global, local, transnational, and transhistorical forces that shaped these theologies and the theologians/theological communities that created them. It also interrogates the ideas of “Asian/Asian,” “Asian/American,” and “Christian,” and the relationship to liberation movements and solidarities in the US and around the world. Learners will construct their own theologies with attention to their Asian and Asian North American histories, movements, politics, oppression and liberations, and their relationships with other theological and political movements.
TTH3036/4036 Systematic Theology
Theology means “God-Talk.” But can we “talk” what must infinitely surpass our understanding? What would we say in face of multiple possibilities in which people experience this infinite reality we name “God?” How would we think of the multiplicity of the answers which were given to these experiences both within a certain tradition and between religions and cultures? Why should we try to express, and why has theology experimentally sought and found, modes of thought to address such questions instead of just being assured of certain experiences, beliefs, and convictions, or by remaining silent? In fact, Christian theology is a “creature” from a multicultural and interreligious milieu, in which it has asked, and still asks, the major questions that Christians, in their multiple contexts, have faced through time and addresses them by adventurously testing the most influential responses that Christians have given to them. This course will seek understanding (fides quarens intellectum) of these questions by exploring the variety of Christian understandings of God, God’s relation to the world, Christ, the Spirit, Trinity, creation, the intercultural and interreligious contexts of the Church, and the quest for God’s kingdom-to-come. The class encourages students to address these topics in relation to contemporary intellectual, cultural, ethical, social, and political issues, as well as its application to practical and ministerial situations.
TTH3043/4043 Wesleyan Theology and Mission in Theory and Practice
A significant part of the church traces its heritage back to the theology and to the mission practices of John Wesley, including UMC, Nazarenes, multiple traditionally black denominations, the Holiness movement, and many evangelical and Pentecostal/charismatic Christians. We will study Wesley’s blend of theology and practice, and then trace the evolution of Wesleyan theology from Wesley’s own life to the emerging churches of today. We will also explore Wesleyan resources for understanding “mission” and “missional” in today’s world. Also, TDS3043/4043.
TTH3061/4061 The Trinity Revisited: Models, Alterations, Alternatives
In times of a global and growing multireligious consciousness, no religious doctrine can be viewed as being reserved for only a specific religion or even some of its streams. Although the doctrine of the Trinity seems to be specific to the identity of Christianity, in interreligious horizons, a trinitarian understanding of God is a shared awareness, flowing through the history of the concept of God in the development of religions since the axial age. Nor is the trinitarian understanding of God identical with Christianity, as not all of its streams share either the same or even the necessity of such an understanding. This seminar will draw on the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, relate the diversity of models, explore the alternations and alternatives to it within and outside of established Christian doctrine, and recover the multireligious presence of trinitarian thought patterns, as well as arguments and counter-arguments as to their relevance. It is the aim of such a transreligious approach to loosen the grip of a possession model of religious doctrines and transform it into a model of transreligious mutuality in the interest of a common and peaceful future of religions.
TTH3067/4067 The Problem of Evil: Theological and Pastoral Responses
More people leave religion because of evil than for any other reason. Perhaps no challenge is more difficult to answer: why would a good God allow horrible, pointless suffering? After understanding all that is meant by evil, we will explore the strongest responses that have been made in past and present, and across the world’s traditions. It is not just about theory; it is about the entire way ‘religion’ is understood, and how faith is lived out in the world today.
TTH3071/4071; TES3033/4033 Environmental, Ethics, and Theology
This course examines various religious perspectives on the meaning and value of the natural world and the normative relationships that are posited between humans and nature. We will study these questions comparatively within and across major religious traditions, while also engaging contemporary movements such as ecofeminism, deep ecology, animal ethics, rights of nature, and ecological civilization. Our goals will be to gain an overview of conceptual resources for thinking about environmental problems, describe what religion has to offer thinking through these problems, and to articulate responses to environmental problems that draw on theological resources.
TTH3073/4073 Sacred Lives: Exploring Theologies through Ethnography
This doctoral intensive seminar aims to explore the use of ethnography as a methodological lens to study theologies. Ethnography will be introduced as a branch of Anthropology that can provide a gateway to an interdisciplinary way of doing theology. Furthermore, the course takes a critical practical approach that requires students to develop theoretical acumen in understanding ethnography and ethnographic work, and to be immersed in practical applications of ethnography as the primary method in studying, researching, and writing about theologies. To this end, theologies are seen as spiritual and religious embodiments that are rooted in the politics of daily life.
TTH3078/4050 Eschatology: Apocalyptic and Counter-Apocalyptic Discourse, or The End of the World (as we know it)
From the times of the late Hebrew Bible on, the eschatological hope for the Coming of God took an apocalyptic turn that became a defining moment for early Christianity and the development of its entire outlook on theology and politics. While the eschatological dimension was famously rediscovered in 20th century theology, thereby restructuring the whole body of theology, its apocalyptic implications were challenged greatly by process theology (and other movements) on a metaphysical basis, uncovering its devastating political implications. This seminar will follow the challenge of the apocalyptic discourse and the counter-apocalyptic discourse of contemporary theologies with an emphasis on the theopoetics of process theology.
TTH4004 Contemporary Catholic Theologies
There are two ways to investigate the “essence” of Catholic theology: on the one hand, one could “define” what it means to be Catholic, and to be a Catholic theologian, and then measure the theologies under scrutiny regarding their orthodoxy, heterodoxy, or heresy. This is the “transcendental” way. On the other hand, one can also ask what contemporary Catholic theologians think and how they define their being Catholic. This more “empirical” way, which will be followed in this course, will allow us to “construct” the multiplicity of different theologies as a “measure” so as to understand the multiplicity of current Catholic theology and its relevance for contemporary theology in general and its “identity” in particular. In the tension of both ways, this course will introduce us to the “polydoxy” of Catholic theologies in their honest and passionate search for the ways in which to responsibly conceptualize what it means to be a Christian in today’s multiplicity of societies, the current interaction of religions, and the urgent need to recognize the organic integrity of the Earth.
TTW206 Workshop in Oral Communication for International Students
Helps students of various backgrounds develop the rhetorical and grammatical skills needed to communicate effectively in written academic English in a theological school context. As needed, time will also be given to improving the speaking and listening skills needed to participate in classroom discussions and to give presentations at Claremont School of Theology. Credits for this course cannot be used to fulfill degree requirements.
TWP3013 Preaching in the Worship Context
Introduces students to the fundamentals of the art and craft of preaching within the context of worship. Prerequisite: TWP3015 or permission of the instructor.
TWP3015 Introduction to Christian Worship and the Arts
In a time of rapid cultural change, worship too will change, often in ways we can predict only with difficulty. The best way to prepare for a dynamic future is to ground ourselves solidly in our liturgical heritage, including the worship forms which we have received from others, both in the past and in the diverse contemporary churches; to learn to think analytically and theologically about worship; and to develop resources needed to create and lead original worship services appropriate to our evolving communities of faith. Students enrolled in the course are expected to have “access” to a local congregation as a dialogue partner for several assignments during the on-line portion of the class (know the congregation’s context and worship practices, be able to interview the pastor/laity, arrange to have a service held in the church at a time other than Sunday morning).
TWP3032 Preaching and Exegesis
How to move from a biblical text to a sermon; how various forms of exegesis work to do this; practice in the art of preaching. Prerequisites: THB3007; TNT3003; TWP3013.
TWP3040 Preaching Through the Christian Year
Examines the themes, images, and texts of the various seasons of the Liturgical Year of the Christian Calendar (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost) and ways to preach the lectionary texts throughout the seasons.
TWP3047 Preaching Galatians
Focuses on Paul’s letter to the Galatians and is designed to give each student exegetical and preaching experience. The first half of the course focuses on close exegetical work on issues in Galatians. The course seeks to highlight and develop interrelated elements: skills and insights that are necessary to read and interpret the biblical text, and also analysis of theological and pastoral issues in the life of the faith community. Effective preaching links these elements in its invitation to the hearers to see their lives through the lens of the biblical text.
TWP3048 Preaching 1 Corinthians
Designed to give each student exegetical and preaching experience. Effective preaching links the skills and insight necessary to (1) read and interpret the biblical text, and (2) analyze the theological and pastoral issues that are relevant to the contemporary faith community.
TWP3055 Theologies of Liberation and Preaching
Examines theologies of liberation (i.e., their emphases on liberation from social, economic, racial, sexual, environmental/religious oppression). The course prepares students to design sermons that are informed and shaped by their critical reflection and engagement of the various perspectives on liberation.
TWP3057 Preaching the Parables
Engages diversity through exploration of multiple readings/perspectives and approaches to the New Testament parables (historical-critical, cultural, and ideological; feminist/womanist; socioeconomic). Sermons reflect critical engagement of parables, as well as creative designs.
TWP3079 The Church and the City: The Corinthian Correspondence
The course is designed to give each student an exegetical experience. The course will focus on close exegetical work of the text of 1 Corinthians. Students will explore and engage the social, historical, literary, and theological issues arising from the text and relate these issues to practice/contexts of ministry and public life.
TWR3031 Understanding Islam in the American Religious Landscape
This course covers the origins, key historical milestones, and institutional developments of Muslims in North America. Students will develop a critical understanding of internal and external discourses regarding the presence of Islam in the West. The political, social, and cultural features of diverse Muslim American communities will be examined in the light of common narratives regarding multiculturalism, immigration, enfranchisement, and social mobility. Finally, the place of Muslims in the American public square will be explored.
TWR3033/4033 Introduction to South Asian Religious Traditions
This course introduces the beliefs and practices of South Asian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and folk traditions. The primary goal of this course is to help students develop an understanding and appreciation of philosophical thoughts, worldviews, and practices of the religious traditions of South Asia. This course strikes a balance between historical approach and topical issues religiously, culturally, politically, and socially important for the traditions. Same as TDT3028/4028.
TWR3037/4037 The Future of Religions: The Baha’i Faith
The Baha’i Faith is in its own understanding the newest of the world’s universal religions. This novelty is a program: Its task amounts to nothing less than the unity of humanity through the unity of religions in a renewed world of physical and spiritual peace in harmony with the environment. Although still nascent, but with a wide distribution throughout continents, countries, ethnicities, cultural and religious backgrounds only second to Christianity, it offers unique resources for social, cultural, and interreligious discourses on pressing global issues today and a renewal of life to which only mystical and spiritual wisdoms can contribute. Although of Persian origins and of Islamicate background, the Baha’i Faith emerged as a profoundly global religion that understands the world’s faiths as being of divine origin and in their own truths organically relevant to the grand development of humanity toward maturity and bound together by a process of progressive revelation of which its founder Baha’u’llah is the latest, but not the last, manifestation. In its own relativity, the Baha’i Faith relates to many movements, not only of its immediate heritage—Shi’i Islam, Sufism, the Shaykhi school and the Babi religion—but also world traditions such as Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity, and more indirectly Hinduism and Buddhism, by affirming their founders—Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Zoroaster, Krishna and the Buddha—as theophanies of the utterly unknowable divine reality engaging with humanity’s exigencies of time, culture and consciousness in ever new form. This course will explore the becoming, origins and developments of the Baha’i Faith, its persistent and still ongoing struggles with persecution, its structures and essential elements of spiritual life, its founders, its revelation, vast sacred text and thought as well as its worldwide reception. In introducing a faith tradition of non-violence and universal peace, interreligious integrity and spiritual renewal, this course offers the unique opportunity to witness religion in the making today.
TWR3053/4053 African American Diasporic Religions
This course will acquaint students with African-American religions practiced in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora. This class will discuss the historical trajectories, beliefs (theology), cultural and political influences, and contemporary challenges at work in each religious tradition. This course gives attention to both published scholarship and lived experience. The class involves four required field trips in the Los Angeles area (usually on Sundays). The class will focus on four religions each semester. Same as TRS3006/4006.
WO500 Intro to Worship (MTSO)
A theological and practical study of worship in the church. Students will practice leading a variety of worship experiences in class.
COURSES TAUGHT IN THE KOREAN LANGUAGE PhD, EXAM/DISSERTATION/ PROJECT RESEARCH/COMPLETION; SUMMATIVE EXERCISE; CONTINUOUS REGISTRATION; ETC.
I420 Practical Theological Approach to Conflict and Reconciliation
This course is an introduction to the DMIN Program in Practical Theology of Healing, Reconciliation and Transformation in Korean Contexts, and has two interrelated foci. First, practical theology is introduced as both an academic discipline and an analytical and empirical research method. Attention is given to the historical emergence of the discipline, its theological foundations, and its interdisciplinary nature. Second, the course explores theoretical understandings of conflict and models of pastoral caregiving appropriate for Korean contexts through which conflict and reconciliation may be facilitated. In relation to this second focus, the course will address how trauma (both interpersonal and social) and difficult emotions often fuel conflict. It will then examine theological conceptualizations of conflict. Participants will engage in the self-examination required for effective caregiving and professional leadership amid
conflict. Pedagogical methods for the course include team-teaching, analytical reading, interactive lecturing, group discussion, experiential exercises, bibliographic research, and writing. The course will be taught in Korean and English, with simultaneous translation provided as needed. Almost all required assignments are available in both Korean and English, Translation of assigned reading from English into Korean will be provided as needed.
I421 A Cross-cultural and Theological Approach to Healing and Transformation in the Korean Church and Society
This course is to study conflict, wound, woundedness, sin, and healing from a perspective of the sinned against, exploring uncharted theological ideas across them. We will compare major theological themes for sinners with their counterparts for the sinned against. Sinners need to pursue transformation, while the sinned-against yearn for healing or liberation. Using the Bible as our primary source we will critically examine major theological ideas from psychological, sociological, philosophical, and medical aspects and will make an effort to reconstruct biblical and theological theses of transformative salvation for sinners and healing processes for the sinned against.
I422 Gender Related Conflicts, Healing & Transformation in the Korean Church
This course examines conflicts arising from social and religious gender constructions in the Korean church and society and considers how Christian ministry may contribute to healing and liberation. The course further explores social values, cultural and religious symbolism, gender stereotypes and taboos, Contemporary feminist discourse in gender and religion will be introduced and the patriarchal ideology and practice of both Confucianism and Christianity in Korean contexts will be also analyzed.
I423 Interpreting Conflict, Healing, and Reconciliation in the New Testament
This course is an investigation of texts that deal with interpersonal conflicts in the New Testament. The range of texts is quite large and covers what it means to be a healthy and mature Christian person, as well as common types of conflicts faced by people in churches everywhere. The course will seek to discover the biblical methods for promoting healing and bringing reconciliation.
I424 Healing and Transformation Through Preaching and Worship
This course analyzes the ways in which “healing” and transformation can occur through preaching and worship. “Healing” will be dealt with from both an individual perspective as well as a community or collective perspective. The section on Preaching will discuss one’s options in the form/structure of the sermon as well as the content and delivery of the sermon that allows for healing to take place. The section on Worship will deal with worship contexts and the ritual and liturgical elements that are appropriate.
I427 Project Seminar
The course instructs D.Min. students with regard to the conceptualization, associated research and writing, and program requirements for the D.Min. Project. Attention is given to: choosing a focused problem to be researched; qualitative research methods, including formulation of research design; bibliographic research methods; structuring the written form and argument of the D.Min. Project; writing a literature review; and proper documentation.
I431 Group Dynamics and Small Group Care and Counseling Toward Healing
This course introduces students to a group dynamic as manifested in a variety of settings. The course provides instruction in group formation, assessment of group dynamics, group leadership, conflict management, and group influence, as well as methods for developing groups and evaluating existing groups. Focus on the hands-on experience of group dynamics and process through that students’ experience will enhance personal and professional growth. Critical evaluation of the church group setting will be done based upon the group counseling theories.
I434 Interpreting Conflict, Healing and Reconciliation in the Old Testament
This course is a seminar that will investigate the narratives of conflict in the Old Testament. In particular, this course will deal with 7 narratives of conflict in the Old Testament, i.e., conflicts between God and a man/woman, among family members, and among the members in a believing community, etc. This course will interpret each narrative of conflict by a synchronic approach (rhetorical or structural analysis), re-read each narrative in relation to conflict, and find some principles for the solution of conflict from each narrative. The first part of each class period will be devoted to exegesis of each narrative of conflict. The second part of each class period will be devoted to critical reading of each narrative in the perspective of conflict.
I435 Research Methods and Project Seminar
The course instructs D.Min. students with regard to the conceptualization, associated research and writing, and program requirements for the D.Min. Project. Attention is given to: choosing a focused problem to be researched; qualitative research methods, including formulation of research design; bibliographic research methods; structuring the written form and argument of the D.Min. Project; writing a literature review; and proper documentation.
I436 Liberating Spiritual Formation: Toward Wholeness and Reconciliation
This course explores Christian spiritual formation processes that nurture personal wholeness and social reconciliation. The formation processes are grounded in the teachings of Jesus, who promoted a spiritual path of radical compassion rooted in contemplative encounters with an all inclusive sacred Source and embodied in compassionate action that extends toward all-oneself, one’s neighbor, even one’s enemies. This course does not so much study compassion-based spiritual formation; it teaches how to be compassionate disciples in the world. It is structured in the spirit of Nelson Mandela’s recognition that all social transformation begins with personal transformation. The course invites the participants into a journey of self-exploration that cultivates a genuine compassion toward oneself, and others rooted in a connection to a compassionate God. Focus, therefore, is on personal transformation, cultivation and embodiment of a genuinely compassionate spirit that infuses any transformative social engagement.
I437 Conflict, Healing, and Transformation in the Postcolonial World
This course analyzes postcolonial conditions that have caused “conflicts” among communities. It aims for students to gain concepts and knowledge that are critical to understanding the world marked by colonial legacies. The course will engage students in grasping these postcolonial conditions that shape current realities in order to bring healing and transformation to Christian churches and marginalized communities for the sake of creating a most just world.
I438 Transforming Self and Educational Ministry in the Multicultural World
The course will be a practical seminar in helping students engage in each learning process as participants. Students will experience critical thinking on themselves and the Christian Ministry in Korean society that faces multicultural and multiracial changes. This course will provide participants three dimensional opportunities including to reflect their inner selves utilizing cognitive behavioral theories, to analyze Korean situation of the immigrant, and to practice engaged learning process for transformative ministry.
I439 Conflict, Healing, and Reconciliation in Family Therapy
This course introduces students to understanding family conflict and its healing and reconciliation through various theoretical perspectives. The course provides instruction in the nature of family conflict, conceptual maps for understanding dysfunctions to learn family conflict, and various methods of healing and reconciliation through family therapy and ministry. Students will improve their intervention skills of how to solve family conflicts and provide healing and reconciliation. Based on the experience, students will enhance their capability to do family ministry in Christian and non-Christian environments.
ICR4000 Intensive Cohort DMin. Continuous Registration TCR 3000
D.Min. students who are not taking courses or registered for TDC4999 D.Min. Project Completion must register for this course. Continuous Registration is taken only after a student has exceeded the statute of limitations for a degree program.
IDC4999/TDC4999 DMin. Project Completion (0 credit, full-time)
Register for this when working on completing the Practical Research Project in semesters when not enrolled in credit-bearing courses.
IDM441 Ageing, Ageism, Generational Conflict, Healing and Reconciliation in Korean and Korean-American Contexts
This course attempts to explore the way to heal the conflict between old and young generations in Korea through the understanding of aging and ageism. This course provides a perspective on the nature of aging and the characteristics of the elderly and explores the issues in ageism that causes the marginalization of the elderly based on cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and institutional discrimination. This course also explores the biblical and theological concept of aging and addresses theories for understanding the life stage of the elderly and strategies for facilitating optimum pastoral care of Korean elderly.
IDM443 Pastoral/Spiritual Leadership: Conflict, Healing and Reconciliation in Korea and Korean American Contexts
We are living in the context of rapid and discontinuous societal changes. It is so vulnerable as pastoral leaders in leading congregational life, but also an opportunity to give impacts constructively by the pastoral/Spiritual leadership in uncertain times. Cultural challenges, unhealthy ecclesial habits, and dysfunctional systems, result in conflicts and lost feelings in our church leadership today. This course will lead and define pastoral/spiritual leadership facing many changes, conflicts, and its transformation. In this course, we will focus on some specifics of socio-cultural settings in Korean and Korean American church leadership and seek creative passages through the class works. Leadership discussion will construct together for possible future leadership and healing and holistic restoration. Theological discourse will bring the clear and effective understanding of postmodern criteria of pastoral/spiritual Leadership.
IDM422 Gender Related conflicts, Healing and Transformation in the Korean Church and Society
This Course examines conflicts arising from social and religious gender constructions in the Korean church and society and considers how Christian ministry may contribute to healing and liberation. The course further explores social values, cultural and religious symbolism, gender stereotypes and taboos. Contemporary feminist discourse in gender and religion will be introduced and the patriarchal ideology and practice of both Confucianism and Christianity in Korean contexts will be also analyzed.
IDM423 Interpreting Conflict, Healing and Reconciliation in the New Testament
This course is an investigation of texts that deal with interpersonal conflicts in the New Testament. The range of texts is quite large and covers what it means to be a healthy and mature Christian person, as well as common types of conflicts faced by people in churches everywhere. The course will seek to discover the biblical methods for promoting healing and bringing reconciliation.
IDM4003 DMIN Context of Ministry and Project
This course aims to equip Doctor of Ministry students with the necessary competency to conduct qualitative research within religious contexts. Qualitative research methods have become increasingly significant in the field of Practical Theology, and this course seeks to provide students with the skills to conceptualize, conduct, and write their DMin. Project. Through this course, students will gain insight into how to select a focused research problem, be introduced to qualitative research methods and formulate research design, learn bibliographic research methods, structure the written form and argument of the DMin. Professional Research Project, write a literature review, and properly document their research.
IDM4034 Interpreting Conflict, Healing and Reconciliation in the Old Testament
As a course of the Doctor of Ministry Program In Practical Theology related to Conflict, Healing, and Transformation in Korean Contexts, this course will provide students with biblical foundations for dealing with contemporary conflict, healing, and reconciliation topics. For this aim, students will read several texts from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament to identify problems/issues of the text and estimate how much the textual scope gives the reader interpretational freedom. Then, the course introduces various contemporary perspectives to ponder the methodologies with the critical examinations of hermeneutics. Based on these observations, this course will eventually help students make a new interpretation within the textual scope and use that interpretation to propose a practical project in their ministry.
IDP4060/TDP4060 DMin. Practical Research Project
Focuses on designing, researching, and writing the DMIN Project with faculty guidance.
-
- TDP4060-01 and IDP4060-01. 2 credits (needed twice if -02, below, is not used)
-
- TDP4060-02 and IDP4060-02. 4 credits
TCR3000 MDiv Continuous Registration
MDiv students who are not taking courses but have not yet finished the degree must register for this course. Continuous Registration is taken only after a student has met the statute of limitations for a degree program.
TCR3500 MA/MTS Continuous Registration
MA/MTS students who are not taking courses but have not yet finished the degree must register for this course. Continuous Registration is taken only after a student has met the statute of limitations for a degree program.
TCR4000 DMin and Mentoring DMin Continuous Registration TCR4500
D.Min. students who are not taking courses nor registered for TDC4999 D.Min. Project Completion must register for this course. Continuous Registration is taken only after a student has met the statute of limitations for a degree program. CAP must approve an extension of a student’s time to degree before a student may sign up for Continuous Registration.
TCR4500 PhD Continuous Registration
PhD students not taking courses or registered for TDR4080 PhD Qualifying Exam Research or TDR4090 PhD Dissertation Research must register for this course. Continuous Registration is taken only after a student has met the statute of limitations for a degree program.
TDC4999 D.Min. Project Completion (0-credit)
After all course work is completed and before completion of the degree, students must register for TDC4999 D.Min. Project Completion. This course is 0 credits and designed to give students formal time to complete the Project.
TDM4003 D.Min. Contexts of Ministry and Project
The course is designed to help students (i) reflect on their own vocation and the context of their ministries (ii) attend to the role of research, reading, writing, and teaching for their own continuing education and vocational goals (iii) engage sacred texts, theological or ethical constructs, social and cultural contexts to explore ministry in the local community and the world. (iv) review the necessary tasks of research, writing, presentation, documentation, and bibliographic forms that the doctoral Project will require.
TDP4060-01 (2 credits)/TDP4060-02 (4 credits) D.Min. Project
This course focuses on designing, researching, and writing the Professional Research Project with faculty guidance.
TDR4080 PhD Qualifying Exam Research (0-credit)
PhD students must register for TDR4080 PhD Qualifying Exam Research, prior to completion of qualifying exams and language/research tool requirements.
TDR4090 PhD Dissertation Research (0-credit)
PhD students must register for TDR4090 PhD Dissertation Research after completion of course work, qualifying exams, and language/research tool requirements, but before completion of the dissertation.
TIS3063 Master’s Summative Exercise
The Masters’ Summative Exercise prepares students to complete their final Summative Exercise for the MA or MTS degree programs. This course assists students in identifying a manageable and appropriate research topic for their final master’s thesis, major paper, or project in relation to each person’s educational and vocational goals and helps them begin the drafting process. Students develop and practice good research skills and cultivate an understanding of various research methodologies. Attention is given to the organization and design of the final thesis, major paper, or project, as well as the initial writing phase. Students should complete the course with enough materials to present a rough first draft of their summative exercise on the first day of their final semester before graduation.
TIS4080 Resources and Documentation for Doctoral Students
The PhD Resources and Documentation for Doctoral Students Intensive is a one week, required 0-credit course offered during the Winter Term that is taken by PhD students during their first year of study. Early in their program, PhD students receive intensive training on navigating library resources, adhering to particular standards of style, and appropriate documentation to assist them in writing expectations for doctoral study. Particular attention is given to The Chicago Manual of Style, as it is the standard used in all programs at CST. This intensive class covers research methods and resources, bibliographic styles, and documentation, as well as issues related to plagiarism, copyright, fair use, and permissions.
TIS4082 Teaching Colloquium for Doctoral Students
This non-credit intensive is required for 2nd year students in PhD programs. It will cover such teaching skills as developing a reflective teaching statement, building a course syllabus, and exploring various teaching skills and strategies that create dynamic classroom experiences.
TMC3000: MDiv Degree Completion (0-credit)
Register for this class when coursework for the degree is almost completed but remaining requirements being offered in one’s final semester and/or Winter Term before graduation would require the student to be enrolled less than half-time. This course will bring the student’s enrollment to full-time status.
TMR3090: MA Research on Summative Exercise (0-credit)
Register for this when working on the summative exercise in semesters when not enrolled in credit-bearing courses or when credit-bearing course enrollment in those semesters is less than half-time. This course will bring the student’s enrollment to full-time status.