Previous Years' Course Catalogues

Curriculum is the selection and organisation of experience for pedagogical purposes. The criteria that determine what is selected and how it is organised articulate fundamental values about the nature of the world and our calling in it. This course will encourage critical evaluation of the criteria that are commonly employed and of how the curriculum can be shaped to better reflect a Christian worldview. Curriculum is conceived not as a static collection of materials, but as a dynamic plan that directs the learning process and governs the organically developing relationship between teachers and learners. The course employs an extensive Study Guide, two books plus book chapters and journal articles, with an online discussion forum and Skype/ telephone conferencing.

Taking into account recent paradigm shifts in the theology of mission, this course invites participants to consider the relationship of mission to biblical sources, culture and context, unity and diversity in the church, post-colonism and intercultural engagement, and especially religious pluralism. The goal is to foster critical theological reflection on how the church might best understand and embody its mission in a multifaceted and globalizing world situation today. Methodology: lectures/discussions. Evaluations are based upon a mid-term paper, final research paper, and class participation. Prerequisite: Completion of first credit group or Level II.

Taking into account recent paradigm shifts in the theology of mission, this course invites participants to consider the relationship of mission to biblical sources, culture and context, unity and diversity in the church, post-colonism and intercultural engagement, and especially religious pluralism. The goal is to foster critical theological reflection on how the church might best understand and embody its mission in a multifaceted and globalizing world situation today. Methodology: lectures/discussions. Evaluations are based upon a mid-term paper, final research paper, and class participation. Prerequisite: Completion of first credit group or Level II.

Taking into account recent paradigm shifts in the theology of mission, this course invites participants to consider the relationship of mission to biblical sources, culture and context, unity and diversity in the church, post-colonism and intercultural engagement, and especially religious pluralism. The goal is to foster critical theological reflection on how the church might best understand and embody its mission in a multifaceted and globalizing world situation today. Methodology: lectures/discussions. Evaluations are based upon a mid-term paper, final research paper, and class participation. Prerequisite: Completion of first credit group or Level II.

Taking into account recent paradigm shifts in the theology of mission, this course invites participants to consider the relationship of mission to biblical sources, culture and context, unity and diversity in the church, post-colonism and intercultural engagement, and especially religious pluralism. The goal is to foster critical theological reflection on how the church might best understand and embody its mission in a multifaceted and globalizing world situation today. Methodology: lectures/discussions. Evaluations are based upon a mid-term paper, final research paper, and class participation. Prerequisite: Completion of first credit group or Level II.

Feminist biblical interpretation and Feminist theology are rather broad terms, encompassing a variety of different approaches, strategies, and goals. For the purpose of this course, we will primarily utilize three basic approaches (although other informed approaches are certainly welcome during our class discussions): 1) Identifying and d iscussing the characterization and role(s) of authoritative women in both testaments who are widely regarded as such in a positive light, 2) Locating additional positive depictions of aspects of the feminine and female figures who have been either under-discussed or irresponsibly interpreted in a negative manner, and 3) Developing and utilizing reading strategies and methodological approaches for negotiating ?tough texts.?1 These strategies and methodologies will be responsible (in that they resist distorting, white-washing, or treating dismissively the texts themselves,), reflective (in that they resist knee-jerk judgements), and attuned to the nuances of the socio-historical location of the composition and transmission of the texts of the Bible (this will inform our understanding of them as well as ensure that we cannot and do not make the texts read ?anything we want?). These combined approaches seek to reconcile the two ?F-words? that have often been rather uneasy bedfellows: Faith and Feminism.

This course explores the history and Interpretation of the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, and the Presanctified Gifts. Contemporary concerns regarding the significance and possible reform of these Liturgies will be discussed as well, as disputed Issues of Eucharistic doctrine and practice. Thus, the purpose of this course Is to 1. become familiar with the historical development of the texts, rites, environment, and Interpretation of these Eucharistic services. 2. Investigate and analyze the theologies of assembly, eschatological movement, proclamation, sacrificial offering, thanksgiving, remembrance, pneumatic Invocation, cosmic transformation, communion, and ministry-as these are manifested In the Byzantine Eucharist. 3. illustrate and evaluate how liturgy and theology Interact to provide answers to fundamental questions of human existence as well as a context for the elaboration of such questions.

This course explores the history and Interpretation of the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, and the Presanctified Gifts. Contemporary concerns regarding the significance and possible reform of these Liturgies will be discussed as well, as disputed Issues of Eucharistic doctrine and practice. Thus, the purpose of this course Is to 1. become familiar with the historical development of the texts, rites, environment, and Interpretation of these Eucharistic services. 2. Investigate and analyze the theologies of assembly, eschatological movement, proclamation, sacrificial offering, thanksgiving, remembrance, pneumatic Invocation, cosmic transformation, communion, and ministry-as these are manifested In the Byzantine Eucharist. 3. illustrate and evaluate how liturgy and theology Interact to provide answers to fundamental questions of human existence as well as a context for the elaboration of such questions.

In the summer of 2022, Pope Francis named the Catholic sponsorship and administration of residential schools in Canada as an evil. This course will investigate the historical, educational, and theological roots of the residential schools, particularly those sponsored by the Catholic Church; it will pay particular attention to the voices of those who survived them. It will explore the ways that the Church and its contemporary Catholic schools must being to atone for this evil. Throughout the course, critical, decolonial, and Indigenous pedagogies will be reflectively practiced as a way of confronting and deconstructing the settler colonialism and oppressive pedagogies that created the residential schools.

This Old Testament course evaluates the possibility of interaction or dialogue between Orthodox theoria-reading, which understands the Old Testament eschatologically in reference to the New, and modern Western critical approaches to reading the Old Testament text which emphasise historical theology. Students will be introduced to selected texts of the Old Testament, of intertestamental Judaism, and to the early Christian reception and understanding of such texts, together with the critical tools and methodological ideas which make an exegesis possible. Readings of contemporary Orthodox critique and struggle with these tools and ideas will be engaged along with post-critical Western scholarship with a view to forming a responsible Orthodox hermeneutic and exegetical approach to reading and understanding the Old Testament, one that is relevant to the faith and practice of the church today.

This Old Testament course evaluates the possibility of interaction or dialogue between Orthodox theoria-reading, which understands the Old Testament eschatologically in reference to the New, and modern Western critical approaches to reading the Old Testament text which emphasise historical theology. Students will be introduced to selected texts of the Old Testament, of intertestamental Judaism, and to the early Christian reception and understanding of such texts, together with the critical tools and methodological ideas which make an exegesis possible. Readings of contemporary Orthodox critique and struggle with these tools and ideas will be engaged along with post-critical Western scholarship with a view to forming a responsible Orthodox hermeneutic and exegetical approach to reading and understanding the Old Testament, one that is relevant to the faith and practice of the church today.

This course explores the history and identity of what currently goes by many names-spiritual care, pastoral counseling, chaplaincy, congregational care. The first half of the course explores a series of "snapshots" of the historical foundations and classic texts from the Christian tradition, including Biblical warrants and early church practices, self-reflexivity, the rise of religious institutions of care, Roman Catholic sacramental vs Protestant life-support approaches, social gospel vs . clinical trajectories, clerical vs. lay participation, and correlation of mandates from faith traditions with those of human sciences. The second half of the course explores contemporary issues in the Canadian context, including challenges from postmodern, postcolonial, ecumenical, interfaith, and institutional perspectives. We will conclude with identity transformation issues as they currently inform debates surrounding the care of souls in hospitals, prisons, the military, nursing homes and congregations.