Previous Years' Course Catalogues

What can theology bring to a consideration of authority, mediation and asymmetrical relationships in the Church in the light of the abuse crisis? This is a question that runs throughout the course. In this area the focus has been on protocols and policies: legal, canonical, procedural, psychological, financial, sociological and cultural all factors that must be considered. The forgotten dimension, however, is the theology that informs our response as churches to this crisis. Within the Christian faith tradition there are theological resources that can be re-appropriated so as to bring life-giving insights. In order to access these, it is important that we acknowledge that abuse is not just wrong or sinful (of course it is) but that it profoundly wounds both those who are abused and the body of Christ. At its heart it is a profanation of the very person of Christ. It is Jesus himself who asserts this reality “whatever you do to the least … you do to me.” (Matt 25:40).

What can theology bring to a consideration of authority, mediation and asymmetrical relationships in the Church in the light of the abuse crisis? This is a question that runs throughout the course. In this area the focus has been on protocols and policies: legal, canonical, procedural, psychological, financial, sociological and cultural all factors that must be considered. The forgotten dimension, however, is the theology that informs our response as churches to this crisis. Within the Christian faith tradition there are theological resources that can be re-appropriated so as to bring life-giving insights. In order to access these, it is important that we acknowledge that abuse is not just wrong or sinful (of course it is) but that it profoundly wounds both those who are abused and the body of Christ. At its heart it is a profanation of the very person of Christ. It is Jesus himself who asserts this reality “whatever you do to the least … you do to me.” (Matt 25:40).

What can theology bring to a consideration of authority, mediation and asymmetrical relationships in the Church in the light of the abuse crisis? This is a question that runs throughout the course. In this area the focus has been on protocols and policies: legal, canonical, procedural, psychological, financial, sociological and cultural all factors that must be considered. The forgotten dimension, however, is the theology that informs our response as churches to this crisis. Within the Christian faith tradition there are theological resources that can be re-appropriated so as to bring life-giving insights. In order to access these, it is important that we acknowledge that abuse is not just wrong or sinful (of course it is) but that it profoundly wounds both those who are abused and the body of Christ. At its heart it is a profanation of the very person of Christ. It is Jesus himself who asserts this reality “whatever you do to the least … you do to me.” (Matt 25:40).

This course explores the fundamental theory, assumptions and practices of narrative therapy, a form of therapy developed in New Zealand and Australia in connection with indigenous people. Using a combination of free online material from the Dulwich Centre in Australia and class meetings during the regular semester, it explores the role of the therapist and the practice of therapy in utilizing narrative therapy techniques to address not only individual and family distress but also community and political structures of oppression. Narrative therapy explores with clients and communities how the structures of oppression can be used for healing, and works with communities to empower them in their own healing.

This course explores the fundamental theory, assumptions and practices of narrative therapy, a form of therapy developed in New Zealand and Australia in connection with indigenous people. Using a combination of free online material from the Dulwich Centre in Australia and class meetings during the regular semester, it explores the role of the therapist and the practice of therapy in utilizing narrative therapy techniques to address not only individual and family distress but also community and political structures of oppression. Narrative therapy explores with clients and communities how the structures of oppression can be used for healing, and works with communities to empower them in their own healing.

This course explores the fundamental theory, assumptions and practices of narrative therapy, a form of therapy developed in New Zealand and Australia in connection with indigenous people. Using a combination of free online material from the Dulwich Centre in Australia and class meetings during the regular semester, it explores the role of the therapist and the practice of therapy in utilizing narrative therapy techniques to address not only individual and family distress but also community and political structures of oppression. Narrative therapy explores with clients and communities how the structures of oppression can be used for healing, and works with communities to empower them in their own healing.

This course explores the fundamental theory, assumptions and practices of narrative therapy, a form of therapy developed in New Zealand and Australia in connection with indigenous people. Using a combination of free online material from the Dulwich Centre in Australia and class meetings during the regular semester, it explores the role of the therapist and the practice of therapy in utilizing narrative therapy techniques to address not only individual and family distress but also community and political structures of oppression. Narrative therapy explores with clients and communities how the structures of oppression can be used for healing, and works with communities to empower them in their own healing.

This course explores the fundamental theory, assumptions and practices of narrative therapy, a form of therapy developed in New Zealand and Australia in connection with indigenous people. Using a combination of free online material from the Dulwich Centre in Australia and class meetings during the regular semester, it explores the role of the therapist and the practice of therapy in utilizing narrative therapy techniques to address not only individual and family distress but also community and political structures of oppression. Narrative therapy explores with clients and communities how the structures of oppression can be used for healing, and works with communities to empower them in their own healing.

This course explores the fundamental theory, assumptions and practices of narrative therapy, a form of therapy developed in New Zealand and Australia in connection with indigenous people. Using a combination of free online material from the Dulwich Centre in Australia and class meetings during the regular semester, it explores the role of the therapist and the practice of therapy in utilizing narrative therapy techniques to address not only individual and family distress but also community and political structures of oppression. Narrative therapy explores with clients and communities how the structures of oppression can be used for healing, and works with communities to empower them in their own healing.

This course considers the Darwinian theory of evolution as both source and challenge for the development of a Christian ecotheology. That is, if the Christian God is creator of all things but is also revealed in Christ to be costly love, then how can divine agency in creation be understood in light of scientific discoveries revealing that biological warfare undergirds the creative process of natural selection? The implications are significant for understanding Christian discipleship and ethics if indeed the human is made in God’s image with the capacity for creative or destructive “dominion” over earthly life (Gen. 1:26). Of particular concern, can biological evolutionary processes revealed by scientific methodologies offer Christians material for constructive human action in light of environmental concerns, and if so, how?

The course will therefore consider such issues as human origins and the place of humanity in creation; divine immanence, agency, and goodness in light of creaturely processes and ecosystems; the consequent demand for ecological literacy; the argument from design; theodicy; kenosis; and the relation of science to theology, or, more specifically, the means by which observed data and experience are interpreted as evidence to infer conclusions. The reading will draw upon the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Sallie McFague, Philip Hefner, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Jay McDaniel, Arthur Peacocke, Holmes Rolston III, Monica A. Coleman, and Charles Darwin, amongst others.

This course considers the Darwinian theory of evolution as both source and challenge for the development of a Christian ecotheology. That is, if the Christian God is creator of all things but is also revealed in Christ to be costly love, then how can divine agency in creation be understood in light of scientific discoveries revealing that biological warfare undergirds the creative process of natural selection? The implications are significant for understanding Christian discipleship and ethics if indeed the human is made in God's image with the capacity for creative or destructive dominion over earthly life (Gen. 1:26). Of particular concern, can biological evolutionary processes revealed by scientific methodologies offer Christians material for constructive human action in light of environmental concerns, and if so, how?

The course will therefore consider such issues as human origins and the place of humanity in creation; divine immanence, agency, and goodness in light of creaturely processes and ecosystems; the consequent demand for ecological literacy; the argument from design; theodicy; kenosis; and the relation of science to theology, or, more specifically, the means by which observed data and experience are interpreted as evidence to infer conclusions. The reading will draw upon the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Sallie McFague, Philip Hefner, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Jay McDaniel, Arthur Peacocke, Holmes Rolston III, Monica A. Coleman, and Charles Darwin, amongst others.

In this course, students will examine the writings of Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), an eleventh-century Italian thinker who became a monk, prior, archbishop and ultimately a leading theologian of his day. Scholars often treat Anselm as the first scholastic theologian, which to some degree is true. In this course, however, we will seek to understand Anselm the theologian as a constituent of the eleventh century, and of eleventh-century Anglo-Norman monasticism in particular.The focus of the seminars will be mainly on a close reading of theCur Deus homo, a text that Anselm completed by 1098, after he had become archbishop in 1093. We will therefore explore two major contexts: (1) the world of eleventh-century monasticism of Normandy and (2) the world of the archiepiscopacy of Canterbury at the end of this same century. We will seek the read this text in light of the broad tradition of pre-modern treatments of Soteriology andthe Incarnation, but also within the two more immediate contexts.