Course Catalogue 2026-2027

We all leave doctoral studies as experts in our fields and walk into classrooms full of non-expert students. What now? This course addresses the relationship between subject knowledge and teaching. Topics include issues related to course design and delivery (e.g., syllabus construction, assignments, development of outcomes; objectives) as well as to broader pedagogical issues (e.g., education for [trans]formation, relationships between classroom and context, professional identity).

This course gives an overview of qualitative research methods in light of the students' respective research theology and design. It is focused on the elaboration of the DMin thesis proposal.

Explores Christian Kenosis as an expression of the unconditional love of God made known in Christ. Here the mutual relations of self-giving in the Trinity may be reflected in the lives of human persons. Of key significance is Hans Urs von Balthasar's appreciation of the paschal mystery. Also in dialogue are: Sarah Coakley, John Paul II and Thomas Merton.

1-2 Chronicles had little attention paid to it after the solidification of historical-critical biblical studies in the mid-19th century. This began to change in the 1980s with a new appreciation for the book as a literary whole. This course examines Chronicles in its context and in ours. Topics include: the context of Persian-period Judah, with comparative materials from elsewhere in the Persian Empire shedding light on the imperial context of Judah and Jerusalem; ancient media and scribal practice to understand textual production and reproduction; questions of individual and community identity formation (gender, ethnicity, class); how Chronicles has been read through the centuries, in both Jewish and Christian contexts. Collaborative and decentering frameworks will be front and centre in both course material and pedagogy.

The book of Jeremiah is the longest of the major prophets and is the source of significant New Testament quotations. Its central focus on judgment and lament is countered by only a few chapters of hope for restored fortune. Despite the book's complexity that lends itself to sustained critical engagement, it also serves as a profound theological and pastoral resource. This course explores the book through six key questions: what is the import of the textual variance in the Jeremianic material? does the book have a discernible structure or modes of organization? what is the role of history and of the prophetic person/persona within the book? what message does the book have and how is it communicated? how has the book been received and responded to? how does the book relate to the larger canon of scripture? Each question takes up enduring critical issues and will immerse students in deep exegetical study of the text, engage them with diverse scholarship across the ages and globe, and call them to consider the message and implications of the text in our own contexts.

This course will focus on the translation of a variety of types of Hellenistic texts (e.g., decrees, sacred laws, magical papyri, aretalogies, Philo, hermeneutic corpus) and on their grammatical and syntactical analysis.

This course is a close reading of the English text of Calvin's Institutio Christianae religionis of 1559. We begin by situating Calvin's theology in the historical and theological context of the 16th century Reformations before turning to a careful examination of the Institutes' major doctrinal themes and their significance both for Calvin's context and the subsequent history of Protestant theology.

This course offers an in-depth exploration of key theological ideas, concepts, and models that characterize contemporary African Christianity and are foundational to the field of African (Christian) theology. Students will engage African theologians who have explored seminal theological issues such as an interface between African indigenous religions and Christianity, the relationship between grassroots theologies and peer-driven academic theologies, theological sources, gospel-culture relations vis-à-vis women's experience and oppressive societal structures, and christological models. The course encourages robust reflections on contextual theologizing and the contribution of African Christianity to the phenomenon of world Christianity.

This course is a 5000-level seminar focused on the final published volume of Barth's Church Dogmatics (CD 4.4, the doctrine of Baptism) as well as the posthumously published fragment titled The Christian Life. Together with an unwritten treatise on the Lord's Supper, these works would have crowned Barth's massive Doctrine of Reconciliation with a treatment on how Christians should live in light of Christ's achieved act of atonement. The seminar will consist primarily of close reading of the relevant texts, along with student presentations and occasional lectures. Topics to be discussed will include: Barth's ethics of divine command and its relation to other ethical models, e.g., virtue ethics; his changing views on sacraments, and his mature account on Baptism and the Lord's Supper as non-mediating human acts of witness; his teaching on the "principalities and powers," especially in light of the Church Struggle of the 1930s and post-World War II political developments, and his views on the church's responsibility to the nation-state; the theology of prayer, and Barth's specific exegesis of the Lord's Prayer as a framework for the Christian moral life.

Central ideas in the Kierkegaard corpus and their relevance to contemporary theological and philosophical concerns.

The history of interpreting the parables can be divided into several periods. Early interpretations tended to read the parables as allegorical moralisms. From roughly 1900 to the 1960s, the dominant approach understood the parables primarily as apocalyptic symbols. Contemporary scholarship often treats the parables as narrative-theological devices, emphasizing metaphor, ambiguity, and theological meaning, and focusing on what the parable does to the hearer and how it challenges prevailing assumptions. This course, however, shifts attention away from abstract theological or purely narrative readings toward the material, social, political, religious, and economic realities reflected in the stories told by Jesus between 27 and 30 CE. When read in light of these realities, the parables are interpreted as realistic narratives rather than as symbolic or purely theological constructions. The authenticity of the parables, as we have them in their literary contexts, is not assumed, and the parables are read as atypical stories of social transformation told by a Galilean social prophet. Interpreted from this perspective, the parables are not earthly stories with heavenly meanings, but earthly stories with heavy meanings. The parables Jesus told are not stories about God, but stories about God's kingdom.

The purpose of this course is to survey the contemporary trends in the theology of faith and culture with an emphasis on mission, dialogue, interculteration, and the emergence of contextual theologies. A major portion of the course will focus on understanding the paradigm shift from a classicist notion of culture to one that has given rise to the various contextual approaches and the so-called "World Christianity(ies)." We will survey some of the various models, methods, and issues involved in this paradigm shift. The course will also highlight certain tensions arising from this context such as the local-universal church tension, the dialogue-evangelism tension, the interculturation-syncretism tension, and the question of the theology of religions.