Spirituality, Health and the Christian Life

This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to investigate concepts of health and illness using both our own experiences and interdisciplinary perspectives from a variety of fields. Faith-based practices and liturgies that support the stories of health and illness will be studied. Biblical and theological understandings of health and wholeness will be discussed. Students will be encouraged to identify a research project that combines aspects of spirituality and health to present in a seminar and to develop further in a final research project. Aspects of spiritual self care for those engaged in pastoral ministry will be examined. The role of empathy and sympathy in empowering one to listen to illness narratives and to bear witness to suffering will be discussed. The course will consist of lectures, small groups, individual presentations and a final paper. Evaluation: participation, 10%; integration paper, 20%; topic proposal, 10%; seminar, 20%; and fnal research paper, 40%.