Course Catalogue 2025-2026

Encounters between Christian and Hindu traditions have taken many forms: the early establishment of the St. Thomas Christian community, Christian missions to India and colonization, Hindu emissaries to the West, and communal conflicts following Indian independence. In this course, students will become familiar with features of Hindu traditions, the history of this engagement, and the spiritual, theological, and ethical dimensions of current relations.

This course will examine how the Bible has been read, interpreted, and proclaimed by women beginning with the period of the early church and including the writings of medieval visionaries, renaissance exegetes and continuing into the modern and post-modern periods. Women’s interpretations of the Bible will be examined with a view to recovering women’s readings and counter-readings of biblical texts and raising relevant methodological and hermeneutical questions for modern readers. We will particularly focus particularly on women’s interpretations of Genesis 1-3 and Pauline texts.

This course will examine how the Bible has been read, interpreted, and proclaimed by women beginning with the period of the early church and including the writings of medieval visionaries, renaissance exegetes and continuing into the modern and post-modern periods. Women’s interpretations of the Bible will be examined with a view to recovering women’s readings and counter-readings of biblical texts and raising relevant methodological and hermeneutical questions for modern readers. We will particularly focus particularly on women’s interpretations of Genesis 1-3 and Pauline texts.

The course will introduce students to the text of 1 Corinthians and to issues surrounding its interpretation. These will include exploration of the social context of the Corinthian church and the nature of the divisions within it, the problems of communal behavior and belief to which Paul responds, and the theological perspectives and convictions that shape his instructions and advice. Particular attention will be paid (i) to a diverse range of scholarly approaches to interpreting 1 Corinthians, (ii) to questions concerning the contemporary application of 1 Corinthians, and, above all, (iii) to questions of ecclesial and social identity and ethics. The nature of the church, its common life, and its relationship with Greco-Roman society will provide the principal focus of the class. This course aims to assist students in apprehending the distinctive contribution of 1 Corinthians to reflection upon the nature of the Christian church and the relevance of 1 Corinthians in contemporary contexts.

MTS Synthesis Paper

MTS Synthesis Paper

MTS Synthesis Paper

MTS Synthesis Paper

MTS Synthesis Paper

This course seeks to reinforce and expand the musical capability of pastoral leaders in enlivening worship. This course will delve into the liturgical practice of song leadership surrounding the genre of global hymnody and contemporary worship songs. Broader concerns on theological implications and liturgical context of these materials will be explored.

This seminar is an introduction to Sharia, the Islamic ethical-legal tradition or, more precisely, Sharia's interpretation (fiqh). Of primary concern are the methodologies of its derivation, including its core principles, such as the Qur'an, the Prophet's tradition (Sunna), consensus (ijma), and reasoning by analogy (qiyas). The course will also introduce students to the theory of the objectives of the law (maqasid al-shari'a) and legal maxims (al-fiqhiyya al-kulliyya), which are important resources in contemporary Islamic ethical-legal reasoning. It will examine Sharia's institiions, the he historical development of its schools of thought, and the processes by which ethical-legal decisions are made. Students will also have the opportunity to examine its applications in case studies of contemporary significance, mainly in the areas of biomedical ethics and sexual ethics.

The work of Ludwig Wittgenstein has been highly influential on many of the most important theologians of the last two generations. His work has also been influential on moral philosophers and moral theologians. This course in theological ethics will examine both the work of Wittgenstein himself, and those he has influenced, on a variety of the central questions for contemporary theological ethics. Key authors to be studied include Elizabeth Anscombe, Herbert McCabe, Fergus Kerr, Rowan Williams, Cora Diamond, and Stephen Mulhall. Topics to be discussed will include questions of intention and the problem of act-description, the nature of human flourishing, questions of analogy, and the nature of theological claims in relation to the moral life.