Enslavement and Early Christian Literature

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History of American Christianity

The development of American Christianity as a social, intellectual, institutional, and cultural movement. The course includes visits to churches in Boston.

Christianity in Colonial Latin America

Christianity in Colonial Latin America is a graduate-level survey course that introduces students to the historical trajectory of Christianity in Latin America from the arrival of Christopher Columbus (1492) to the period of the Latin American wars of independence (1791-1821). Attention is given to the encounter with pre-Colombian religions as well as the transactional adaptation of core Christian theological, institutional, and ascetical traditions. Accordingly, special consideration will be given to theological discourses of the other, the adaptation of ecclesiastical institutions such as the episcopacy, and missionary practices. Reading selections include primary source material as well as secondary scholarly literature. Students will have the opportunity to acquire both a general appreciation for the historical trajectory of Christianity during the colonial period as well as an in depth understanding of selected topics intended for independent research.�

Reformations

Survey of social, personal, institutional, and theological aspects of reform and renewal in the late medieval and early modern periods, including Nominalism, Conciliarism, the papacy, Luther, the German and Swiss Reformations, Anabaptism and radical reformers, Calvin, the French Reformation, the English Reformation, Catholic Reform, Ignatius and Theresa, and the Council of Trent.

United Methodist History and Doctrine

An exploration of Methodist origins, the Wesleys, the rise of Methodism in England, and the distinctive doctrines of Wesleyan theology. There is a particular focus on the development of the various United Methodist traditions in America and their impact on society. The course is designed to meet one of the requirements for membership in a UMC Annual Conference.

Anglican Formation

An integrative weekly session incorporating worship, spiritual practice, and group reflection on significant texts within the Anglican spiritual and theological tradition. Students will take turns leading the Daily Office and guiding group conversations. This course aims at grounding students in the Anglican spiritual tradition and helping them to develop their own practices of prayer, worship, and spiritual leadership. It is especially recommended for Anglican/Episcopal students but is open to all regardless of religious tradition.�

Spirit & Art of Conflict Transformation

This course is a response to the experience of destructive conflict in the church and in the world, as well as the experience of religion as a source of conflict. More importantly, it is a response to the call to every Christian to be ministers of reconciliation and peacebuilders. The course will introduce students to the theology, theory and practice of faith-based conflict transformation, preparing students to become religious leaders equipped with fundamental tools and skills for engaging conflict and transforming conflict in a way that advances God's goal of shalom, a culture of justpeace.

Literature and Ethics

Good ethical conception and practice often demand that we see things from others' points of view. Great novels, plays, poems, and films are good at helping us to reach empathic perceptions of particular people and situations by involving our intellect and emotion. Novels, tragic dramas, and others have the capacity to make readers identify with fictional characters in ways that show possibilities and potential vulnerabilities for themselves. This kind of empathic identification is important for good ethical practice in diverse and pluralistic communities. Narrative works of art are important for developing the human self- understanding critical for embodying certain religious and theological ideals. This course will explore the connections between literature (novels, plays, and short stories) and ethics: the relationship between creative imagination and moral imagination; the nature of moral attention and moral vision; the role of context-specific judging in ethical decisions. The course will help students to deepen and broaden their ethical understanding in ways that involve and give priority to context-specific moral evaluation, compassion, similar possibilities and vulnerabilities, eudaimonistic judgment, rather than abstract general principles for ethical judgment.

Christian Social Ethics

Comparative study of historical and contemporary Christian approaches to the nature, sources, methods, and concepts of ethics in diverse contexts. The course is in two parts: an historical overview of the development of Christian social ethics from biblical times to the twenty-first century; an in-depth exploration of approaches to specific contemporary social issues including war and peace, ecology, economic justice, and equality.

Performing Ecological Justice

This course introduces you to a variety of ecological justice issues through a combination of excursions, on-campus events, guest speakers, films, art exhibitions, and discussions. There will be 6 units total. You will be required to complete five units. Through this process, you will engage the theological, ethical, spiritual, and practical issues raised by a variety of ecological issues and by different responses to them.

Paradigms of Racism, The Ignorance They Hide, and the Harm They Sustain

Racism is ugly, painful, and seemingly inimical to understanding much less constructive intervention. When it comes to race, people often yell at, talk past, or simply avoid each other. Experiencing frustration, rage, and despair, some fear and may conclude that racism is intractable, even insoluble, while others "know" that racism does not exist. This course offers hope, exploring how groups of people form and defend competing systems of truth (that is, "paradigms") that hide ignorance and sustain harm. By discussing eight "paradigms" of racism and attendant forms of ignorance, we seek to enlarge our understanding as a basis for concrete practical steps that could be taken by different people in different sites.

Introduction to Ecological Justice

This course introduces you to a variety of ecological justice issues through a combination of excursions, on-campus events, guest speakers, films, art exhibitions, and discussions. There will be 6 units total. You will be required to complete five units. Through this process, you will engage the theological, ethical, spiritual, and practical issues raised by a variety of ecological issues and by different responses to them.

Engaging Ecological Justice

This course introduces you to a variety of ecological justice issues through a combination of excursions, on-campus events, guest speakers, films, art exhibitions, and discussions. There will be 6 units total. You will be required to complete five units. Through this process, you will engage the theological, ethical, spiritual, and practical issues raised by a variety of ecological issues and by different responses to them.

Watershed Discipleship

As a section of Practicing Faith, Watershed Discipleship explores place-based spiritual and theological practices in order both to connect students to the Boston watershed and to equip them with the skills needed to get to know and live responsibly in other watersheds they might inhabit in the future.

Comparative Religious Ethics

Comparative religious ethics, as a burgeoning academic field, strives to pursue moral wisdom across religious boundaries. In this course, we first juxtapose the ethical teaching of Christianity with another tradition to probe some perennial moral questions: ultimate end, exemplary virtue, social hierarchy, sexuality and marriage, war and peace, as well as political liberation. We then examine some contemporary issues comparatively in feminist, environmental, and postcolonial ethics. Finally, we study the moral significance of religious traditions as "spiritual exercises" (in the senses given by St. Ignatius and Pierre Hadot). There, we explore how bodily practices such as yogic movements, breathing exercises, Benedictine liturgical prayers, meditation of the cosmos, and contemplation of divine love might have far-reaching ethical consequences.

Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period: Old Testament�Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha

An examination of the setting, origin, purpose, and religious outlook of Second Temple Jewish writings usually labeled Old Testament Apocrypha/Pseudoepigrapha, with attention given to the continuity of the Biblical traditions and the background they provide for an understanding of first-century Judaism and the New Testament. 3 credit hours.

NT Greek 1

Introduction to the grammar and vocabulary of the Greek New Testament. For students with no training in Greek.

Biblical Hebrew 1

Hebrew grammar, including exercises in translation and composition, following Lambdin's Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. Prepares students to read Hebrew prose.

Vocation, Work, & Faith (A-Term)

Who am I called to become? What am I called to do? What are my gifts and where will they be recognized and of service? These kinds of vocational questions are fundamental to our lives. The course seeks to open up reflection, study, and dialogue about vocation, work, and spirituality in religious traditions and in our own life experience. Work and vocation are often connected. Work too is a crucial religious question in contemporary society. Work exerts a powerful--and often unrecognized--influence on human beings. It can support life, develop talents, elicit creativity, and enable people to contribute to the common good. Work also can demean human beings, undermining their dignity, perpetuating unjust structures, overpowering values, and crowding out other important spheres of life. Labor issues are important concerns for faith communities and faith-based community organizations. This course explores vocation and work as theological/spiritual issues, including implications for ministry. We will explore themes such as: work as spiritual practice or challenge; labor and justice issues; discerning vocation; creativity; Sabbath; "time poverty"; and work-life balance. The course involves site visits, vocational mentoring, seminar presentations, and individual research/ministry projects.

Contextual Theologies of Mission and Diakonia

In this course, students are introduced to contextual theology and its relationship to missions within mainline denominations through the consideration of ministries of love, justice, and service. Students will examine scriptural and theological grounds for missional outreach, consider church engagement in social justice, explore Christianity's history/tradition, and visit missional sites in the Boston area. Particular attention will be given to students' experiences in dialogue with the assigned readings and local leadership. This is an interdisciplinary course facilitated through a protestant feminist/Mujerista perspective with a decolonizing intent. It will be run in a seminar style with the instructor as facilitator for critical engagement of readings, sharing of experiences, and contextual deconstruction/construction of methods, theories and historical understandings.�

Christian Mission

Exploration of biblical, historical, theological, political, and cultural perspectives on the world mission of the church. This course is a requirement for United Methodist MDiv students pursuing ordination in the United Methodist Church.�

Spiritual Care

[This course is full. Please contact sthregfa@bu.edu to be added to the waitlist.] This course introduces a method of spiritual care as practical theology. Students will be asked to engage the experiences of loss, violence, doubt, and despair reflected in spiritual care conversations. They will be invited to use theological, philosophical, psychological, and cultural studies to reflect upon these issues, and develop theologically and/or spiritually based strategies of care and justice.

Spiritual Autobiographies

In the course, students will explore classic and contemporary spiritual autobiographies. These autobiographies reveal the diverse paths of religious seekers, the crises and epiphanies that became focal points of meaning and revelation. Students will learn about the practices of faith that sustained and challenged religious people from Augustine to Teresa of Avila to Tolstoy. Through close, empathetic, and critical examination of the texts, students will reflect on their own spiritual journeys and identities. They also will engage first-hand in the crafting of spiritual autobiography, and students will have the opportunity to work intensively in small groups throughout the writing and sharing process. Throughout the course, students will explore potential uses of spiritual autobiography as pathways of discernment and growth in congregational and retreat settings, small faith groups, spiritual formation and companionship.�

Faith and Film

This course uses the medium of film as an avenue for reflection upon the meaning and truth of the central doctrines of the Christian church as expressed in the historic Apostle's Creed. The course uses a broad cross-section of film genres to open up new and creative windows for understanding and communicating the Christian faith in contemporary culture and also assists the student in thinking critically about film from a Christian theological perspective.�

Pastoral Psychology of Healing

Every person, in her or his personal relationships and professional activities, is guided by a complex, often tacit, theory of healing, comprised of judgments about illness/suffering (what's wrong?); health/well-being (what's possible? what's ideal?); the trajectory from one to the other (how do we get there?); and factors that enhance as well as inhibit movement along that trajectory (what should we do?). Examining and comparing a range of theories of healing--in psychology, medicine, Christian traditions, world religions, and non-Western cultures--equips us critically to reflect upon, amend, if not reconstruct our respective theories of healing.

Reading Lives: Story, (Auto)biography, and Identity (new course)

The course offers an in-depth study of narrative theories from a broad range of fields encompassing disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Students will be introduced to integrative concepts from narrative psychology, narrative therapy, literary studies, narrative (virtue) ethics, narrative gerontology, and narrative medicine to understand the importance of human stories, beliefs, values, and meanings. For the past thirty years, pastoral theologians and spiritual caregivers have engaged narrative theories to understand human identity and experience by listening to and examining stories of individuals and communities. More recently in narrative approaches to spiritual care, scholars and practitioners in religion engage the insights of critical theory to deconstruct harmful narratives and find ways to create more life-giving narratives, especially for individuals and communities from historically marginalized contexts. By exploring the history, theories, and methods of narrative spiritual care, students will be able to think deeply and broadly about its ramifications in ministry and life.

Psychodynamics of Marriage and Family

[This course is full. Please contact sthregfa@bu.edu to be added to the waitlist.] This is an introductory course that includes a comprehensive overview of the field of family systems and family therapy. This course will serve as an introduction to the theory and techniques of couples and family therapy. An attempt will be made to integrate theory and practice through assignments, class activities, and personal and professional self-reflection. Students will have the opportunity to reflect upon how they might actually use course content professionally in their respective disciplines.

Introduction to Christian Worship [DISCUSSION]

Discussion section

Homiletical Options

This course is an advanced homiletics seminar that in alternate years either reviews contemporary homiletic theory ("Homiletical Options") or explores practices of sermon analysis ("Homiletical Analysis").

Book of Common Prayer

This course provides an overview of the development of the Book of Common Prayer beginning with sixteenth-century England and leading up to the Book of Common Prayer 1979 of the Episcopal Church. Attention will be paid especially to the content and theology of the current BCP and the supplemental materials found in Enriching Our Worship, as well as to current discussions about ongoing liturgical revision in The Episcopal Church.

Seminary Singers

Open to all students who are interested in singing. Participation in one weekly rehearsal and chapel service, including any special concerts/events/tours that may come up during the semester. Please note: students who are employed by the Seminary Singers may not take the course for credit

Introduction to Christian Worship [DISCUSSION]

Discussion section

Narrative Sermon

In this course, students will learn approaches to preaching narratively. By the end of the course, students will also begin to integrate their homiletical practice with their own emerging narrative theology of preaching.�

Marsh Chapel Choir

Audition required. Schedule includes Sunday worship in Marsh Chapel and several major concerts.

Introduction to Christian Worship [LECTURE]

An introduction to the spirit and structure of Christian worship. Word, sacraments, calendar, music, and pastoral offices are analyzed and described in terms of their relevance to congregational life, spirituality, catechesis, and mission. When registering for this course, you must also register for a discussion section.

Introduction to Christian Worship [DISCUSSION]

Discussion section

Introduction to Christian Worship [DISCUSSION]

[This discussion section is full. Please contact sthregfa@bu.edu to be added to the waitlist or choose a different disucssion section for this course.] Discussion

Gospel of John

[This course is full. Please contact sthregfa@bu.edu to be added to the waitlist.] The purpose of this study of the Fourth Gospel is to acquaint the student with this work from the later New Testament period in a way that provides understanding of and the capacity for criticism of the text involved (in addition to some non-canonical Johannine literature, e.g., the Gnostic Apocryphon of John). Appreciation for both the unity and the diversity within the Johannine literature should increase during this study. (Requires TN 721 or equivalent)�

The Cultural Background of the Hebrew Bible

Investigation of the cultural background and presuppositions of the biblical writers by interpretation of biblical texts and archeological remains and by comparison with materials from other ancient Near Eastern cultures. Implications for understanding and use of the Bible.�

Womxn in Leadership (A-Term)

Through current feminist leadership research, findings reveal many womxn are hesitant to claim themselves as �leaders�. Despite their leadership and impacts, their actions are dismissed as �followership� and their work is considered secondary to that of men. These trends are not solely self-identifiers but rooted in a larger colonial and postcolonial framework that has existed from the ancient to current era as upper-class male elites dominated leadership positions. This course aims to deconstruct and demystify �leadership�, encourage active participation in discovering individual and communal leadership styles, and expand how we approach leadership through the lens of womxn. By exploring the ways womxn understand and practice their leadership (i.e., struggling and fighting for their communities), this class will provide the skills to analyze how society has systemically and culturally undervalued and/or suppressed womxn�s leadership; reconstruct womxn�s stories across sociohistorical periods as examples of leadership; examine the impact these stories have on current practices and meanings of leadership; and analyze these practices across different cultures. Exploring models of womxn leaders and understanding various contexts, we will re-define new meanings of leadership and create new models of leadership for ourselves and our society.

Advanced Qualitative Research

This course is for students involved or interested in independent qualitative research, including interviews, ethnographic projects, and/or content analysis. It will function much like a workshop, providing extensive guided practice with project conceptualization and design, finding funding, meeting university ethics requirements, gaining access to communities, recruiting participants, managing and storing data, creating coding schemes and using software, integrating mixed types of data to support an argument, balancing "home" and "field," being reflexive, and exercising respect and care for both oneself and one's interlocutors. Relative attention to these issues will depend on the needs and interests of the students. It can fruitfully be taken either separately or in addition to TR 800, Ethnographic Research.

Political Theology

Recent developments across a variety of disciplines have led to deep and widespread interest in "political theology" -- a diverse range of approaches to interrogating, (re)imagining, and (de)constructing the intersection of politics, religion, and theology, present and past. Scholars have argued that dominant paradigms of sovereignty, the secular, modernity, and liberalism are themselves secularized, corrupted, or otherwise transformed versions of Jewish and Christian theology. Others contend that modern political practices and paradigms represent not the legacy of early modern secularization but the trail of an early modern reinjection of theology in political and social theory. Others still find in the practices of contemporary communities lived political theologies that subvert existing power structures and cast doubt on common conceptions of contemporary political life and possibilities. This course examines these competing developments, readings, and proposals; their interactions; and the contested histories, theories, and values that underwrite them. Considering political theology as both a historical and contemporary phenomenon and engaging a range of perspectives and figures, the course also considers relations and interactions between political theology and other approaches to questions of "religion and politics."

Constructive Theology [LECTURE]

This course introduces students to the major themes of Christian theology with the aim of providing them with a framework for effective and faithful theological reflection. Beginning with revelation and ending with eschatology, we follow a familiar progression in the study of systematic theology, examining modern and postmodern theological perspectives on God, creation, human nature, sin, Christology, ecclesiology and other doctrinal loci. The methodological approach is constructive, in that emphasis is placed on helping students integrate central issues of faith in response to contemporary issues.

Constructive Theology [DISCUSSION]

Discussion

Queer Theology

This course explores queer theology's potential to shape Christian thought and practice as a whole. Topics include eros and agape, sin and sexuality, pleasure and asceticism, dissent and sainthood, apophatic theology, trans* theology, queer sexual ethics, and queer spiritualties within and beyond Christianity. For fall 2022, a special focus will be on the meeting of AIDS with the present pandemic, asking what we might learn about loss, grief, ritual, and activism from collective queer life during AIDS. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent) (Clusters 1 and 2)

Constructive Theology [DISCUSSION]

[This discussion section is full. Please contact sthregfa@bu.edu to be added to the waitlist or choose a different disucssion section for this course.] Discussion

Spirit

[This course is full. Please contact sthregfa@bu.edu to be added to the waitlist.] The course shifts focus from studies of the Holy Spirit in Christian teachings to examine what it means to tend to the human spirit, especially under conditions of threat, struggle, and oppression. It features the writings and teachings of three figures -- Howard Thurman, Julian of Norwich, and Gloria Anzald?a -- and positions them as spiritual guides for exploring our capacities: 1) for connection and care; 2) for living with intention and purpose; and 3) for reimagining collective life. With primary focus on the works of Thurman, this course is an invitation to think with him about what makes religious/spiritual teachings about the human spirit distinctive and compelling. It also invites students, through readings and assignments, to engage with their own spiritual lineages and the spiritual traditions of the communities whom you serve.