This course introduces students to basic themes and processes that are important to the discipline of theology. The course explores how faith interacts with lived experience, scripture, tradition, and contemporary challenges. Through diverse voices and reflective tools, students will learn to integrate theology with everyday practice in ways that are thoughtful and responsive to the world around them.

Learning objectives:

- Students will expand their theological vocabulary

- Students develop the capacity through practice to explore sources and engage in informed dialogue

- Students will practice the art of writing reflectively and analytically.

This course focuses on the elements that play a part in the interpretive process of the biblical text. Students will be exposed to the nature of the text and how it came to be. They will analyze and apply scholarly approaches and theoretical frameworks to biblical texts.

Learning Objectives:

- Students will learn various interpretive approaches.

- Students will be introduced to development of the documents that form both testaments and to the process of canonization.

- Students will understand the role of their own personal context in their interpretation of Scripture.

This course will introduce students to theoretical and theological foundations of effective spiritual care. Students will also begin to develop some core skills needed in effective caregiving (such as listening and using diagnostic questions). In the process, students will begin to practice the art of reflecting theologically and theoretically on the human experience, including their own.

Learning objectives:

- Students will understand the basic parameters of the field of pastoral theology and practices of spiritual care

- Students will begin to learn to draw on theories and theologies to explore and understand more deeply human experience

- Students will develop their capacities for understanding self and other

This course introduces students to theological ethics with a particular focus on the concept and practice of justice. Students will explore different conceptions of justice, how moral reasoning is shaped by context, and how individuals and communities can engage in justice-seeking practices. Emphasis is placed on cultivating critical thinking, reflective writing, and theological imagination.

Learning Objectives

- Articulate a basic understanding of Christian ethical reasoning.

- Critically analyze and distinguish Western theories of justice from biblical conceptions, highlighting their underlying assumptions, values, and implications.

- Evaluate the relationship between personal values, social systems, and theological commitments.

- Engage in theological writing that demonstrates critical thinking, clarity, and imagination.

- Reflect on the meaning and implications of justice in their own context and vocation.

In this course, students will examine several issues related to calling and vocation in ministry, including both the general call to all people of faith and the particular vocations to which individuals may be called. Students will explore a variety of lay and clergy leadership roles, identifying their own emerging sense of calling to particular contexts and types of ministries, and examine several perspectives on leadership and authority in ministry.

Learning objectives:

• Students will become familiar with and be able to articulate theological perspectives on call and vocation in ministry (lay and clergy).
• Students will begin to identify their own emerging understanding to the type of vocation (whether that is lay or clergy) to which they may be called.
• Students will become familiar with their own faith tradition’s understanding of religious leadership and authority in ministry.