Course Catalogue 2024-2025

An approved field placement with appropriate supervision and theological reflection seminar.

The requirement for this portion of the Internship program is the successful completion of a major paper in which the intern attempts to integrate theological theory with his or her recent experience as a practitioner of ministry. This paper will, therefore, be based on the intern's direct experience of ministry, as well as on the pertinent literature that the intern has chosen to integrate with that experience.
Please consult the Trinity College Field Education Internship Handbook and other documents found on the Trinity College Web Site, http://www.trinity.utoronto.ca/Faculty_of_Divinity/, under Academic Programs and Courses/Field Education.

Parishes are specific contexts in which the Church, regardless of denomination, lives out its calling. As a course in parish leadership and ministry, our learning will be first grounded in an understanding of the Church; what it is and what it is for. Together we will explore the implications of what it means to say that the Church is the body of Christ in the world. In the context of a deeply rooted ecclesiology we will then begin to understand what it means to be a Christian leader in the Chnrch, exploring practical areas of parish leadership and ministry including: nurturing the traits and disciplines of healthy Christian leadership, developing others as leaders, leading and managing change, dealing with conflict, cultivating missional organizational practices, implementing sound financial management, developing effective parish communications, building an integrative ministry to children, and cultivating healthy community connections.

This seminar assists candidates as they prepare for priestly order and lay ministry. It will provide candidates with the opportunity to reflect on previous ministry experience, identify personal strengths, and anticipated areas of growth for future ministry.

One-year placement in a parish or mission under supervision; course is tailored to individuals.

This seminar studies the life of the Prophe Muhammad as it is presented in the earliest biographical and historical Muslim accounts. It introduces the sira and hadith literatures, in addition to classical and modern critical methods used to determine their authenticity and historical reliability. Topics include the first revelations, emigration from Mecca, the Constitution of Medina, and succession to Muhammad's leadership. Students will learn about Muslim concepts of prophethood, the significance of the prophet in the legal-ethical and mystical traditions, and women in hadith scholarship. They will study the life of Muhammad and relate it to his spiritual as well as temporal experience to explore modern-day concerns.

This course will explore through classroom lectures and seminar discussions the texts and pastoral practice of the core liturgical rites for the Divine Eucharist in the Byzantine (Orthodox and Eastern Catholic) churches, including the historical evolution and theological meaning of those rites. Guest lectures will also cover the Eucharistic liturgies of the Oriental Orthodox churches, specifically the Coptic and Ethiopian rites. The course will also explore the concept of liturgical theology.

This course will explore through classroom lectures and seminar discussions the texts and pastoral practice of the core liturgical rites for the Divine Eucharist in the Byzantine (Orthodox and Eastern Catholic) churches, including the historical evolution and theological meaning of those rites. Guest lectures will also cover the Eucharistic liturgies of the Oriental Orthodox churches, specifically the Coptic and Ethiopian rites. The course will also explore the concept of liturgical theology.

Students who have applied for and been selected as student worship coordinators on the Emmanuel College Worship Team may register for this course as an associated reflexive practicum in worship planning and liturgical leadership, based on their work with the Worship Team. Working with the other student members of the Worship Team, the Director of Chapel, and the Faculty Advisor to the Worship Team, students will engage in collaborative oversight, planning, leadership and evaluation of Tuesday and Thursday Midday Prayer services, Wednesday services of worship, and other occasional services, using United Church of Canada, ecumenical, intercultural and interfaith liturgical and music resources. Students will learn ways to support, resource and animate the Emmanuel College community of faculty and students, guest preachers and presiders, in the worship life of the College. Students will take primary leadership responsibility for several worship services each academic year, including the work of facilitating collaborative worship planning, communications, liturgical creation and design, liturgy/prayer writing, bulletin and/or projection production, celebration of sacraments, preparation of liturgical space, liturgical leadership, evaluation and feedback.

After the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), in its various revisions, is the most important foundational text of Anglican Christianity; Often praised for its literary beauty and influence, it has nevertheless become unfamiliar or even offensive to Anglicans who worship mainly with new liturgies produced in recent decades; This course will explore the sources and historical development of the Prayer Book tradition from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, the BCP's importance in the history of doctrinal controversy and Anglican identity, and how the BCP's liturgies have been variously received and interpreted over time, including critiques by modern liturgical scholarship; Major themes: the Bible and worship; liturgical language; the sacraments; sin and repentance; individual and community; ecclesiology and ecumenism; the BDP and churchmanship

This course assists students to reflect on the multifaceted experience and reality of radical evil and suffering in light of Christian faith and theology. Drawing from the work of significant contemporary theologians, the course aims at enabling students to meet the challenge formulated in and by the experience and testimony of Jewish, African American and Indigenous individuals and communities who were subjected to extreme evil and suffering by individuals, societies and nations reclaiming the Christian faith, values and way of life. The course will encourage students to contribute to forging and living out a contemporary Christian theology enabling lifelong transformative discipleship and service where Christians learn from their Jewish, African American and Indigenous neighbours how to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Central theological concepts such as affliction, kenosis, incarnation, discipleship, vicarious representation, passion and crucifixion will be studied using a methodological approach combining narrative testimony and constructive analysis/interpretation.

The book of Joshua records a crucial moment as Israel transitions from a wilderness people to those in possession of the land promised long-ago to Abraham. The book has encouraged generations of saints. It has also been misused to validate past and present colonial actions and so-called  holy wars.  New Atheists dismiss it as indicative of the violence inherent in Christian texts and faith. Christians likewise struggle to understand this difficult book. This course, acknowledging the real challenges the book presents, examines its historical situatedness, literary art, and theological message to hear it as Word of God for God's people today.