Fall 2018

ECO-Theologies

As theologians rooted in Judeo-Christian religious traditions have responded to the complex nexus of the injustices of ecological crises and social inequities, a variety of critical and constructive theologies have emerged. This course explores how ecotheologies, including ecofeminist, ecowomanist, queer ecotheologies, and Native American theologies of creation, have engaged the major issues in ecotheology, and in what ways these theologies address contemporary environmental/ecological issues. Each student will research one current ecological issue as a conversation partner for the theologies we will study. We will also be asking questions about the implications of these theological projects for liturgical practices, congregational mission, and the students’ own constructive theological work where applicable.

Weekly reading and regular online participation in Moodle’s discussion board, weekly group work via synchronistic online tools, two synthesis papers, and a final project are required. Prior coursework in theology helpful but not required.

Intended for M.Div., MASC, MA, and certificate students.

The course relates to SKSM’s Thresholds 1, 2, 6 and MFC Compentencies 3, 4, 7. The online course is asyncrhonous with synchronous small group work.

Foundations of Religious Freedom in the United States

For SKSM students only. A blended learning course on the origins and development of religious liberty in the US from the colonial and founding periods to the mid-twentieth century. It offers a thorough understanding of the historical and legal foundations that currently govern the relationship of religion and government, define protection for the free exercise of religion, and provide the civic framework for living among people of all religions and none. Students must contact the instructor via e-email prior to enrolling in order to receive permission to register. Registration is contingent upon faculty approval.

Conducted in cooperation with the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum, http://www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/admissions/areas-of-study/religious-civic-leaders/. Online during the Fall 2018 Semester (September-December) plus three day immersion at the RFC in Washington, DC. Travel expenses are the responsibility of the students. Separate application must be made to the RFC. Instruction provided by Eleesha Tucker, supervised by Christopher Schelin (http://www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/contact/directory/?entry=57)..

Relates to SKSM Threshold 1 and 2 and MFC Comp 4, 5, and 7.

Global Religious Traditions

This course will examine the major global religions from a cross-cultural, multi-religious perspective. Taking into consideration that a course that explores many religions cannot be comprehensive, we will consider the religions from a thematic perspective by analyzing fundamental beliefs and practices in the various religious traditions. In addition, we will also examine assumptions underlying the discipline of religious studies. Students will engage through weekly readings and forum discussion, as well as other interactive learning activities, as part of the online learning community.

Students of all faiths and backgrounds are invited and encouraged to enroll. Priority given to low residency SKSM students. MDiv, MA/MTS, DMin.

Relates to SKSM Threshold 3 & 4 and MFC Comps: 1 & 3.

Illness, Health, & Healing

This course invites students to listen for the voices of the ill, even when those voices are full of pain or have been long ignored. Students will develop spiritual care skills and practices to promote health and healing that will enhance their ministries and their lives. The course will draw from narrative medicine as well as scriptures and healing stories from a variety of religious traditions. Format: Class Discussion. Method of Evaluation: weekly reflections, spiritual practice exercises, and projects. Intended audience: M.Div., MASC, MA.

This online course is asynchronous. Low residency.

Relates to Threshold #: 5; 7; and 8
Relates to MFC Competencies #: 2; 3; and 6

Intro to Pastoral Counseling

This online course introduces students to culturally responsive counseling practices and multicultural awareness. Students examine societal and institutional structures of power and privilege, and become more aware of biases, prejudices, and microaggressions detrimental to the growth of the human spirit. Students study major counseling theories and practice basic helping skills centered on Person-Centered (Rogerian) counseling and Bowen Family Systems Theory. Pastoral elements will include individual, family, and congregational contexts. Asynchronous course with written lectures, videos, and links to online resources. Weekly personal reflections and skill-practice exercises, with some academic writing. Possible synchronous skills-practice opportunities.

Intermediate/advanced course intended for MDiv students, and with doctoral upgrade possible.

It relates to Thresholds #2 and #5. MFC Competences #2 and #4.

Students must contact the instructor via e-email prior to enrolling in order to receive permission to register. Registration is contingent upon faculty approval.

Intro to Quaranic Studies

This introductory course in Quranic Studies focuses on the shorter hymnic suras (chapters) of the Quran. In addition, students are exposed to passages related to themes of religious freedom and pluralism. Students learn traditional Islamic and contemporary western academic skills for reading the Quran, including structural and literary analyses and they write essays on selected suras and passages applying the methods that they learn in class. The course provides a safe learning environment in which diversity of perspectives is encouraged and differences of opinion respected.

Students must contact the instructor via e-email prior to enrolling in order to receive permission to register. Registration is contingent upon faculty approval. Students may take the course for 1.5 or 3.0 credits for partial or full completion of course assignments as instructed. Doctoral students may take the course for an added assignment of a 5000 word research essay.

Relates to SKSM Threshold 3 and MFC Comp 3.

Organizational Management for Spiritual Leaders

Merging the practical and pastoral, this foundational, introductory course helps equip students for effective organizational management and leadership – whether serving congregations, leading other religious institutions, or bringing spiritual leadership to secular settings. Topics include non-profit administration, governance, finance, strategic planning, human resources, change management, and organizational culture – and how these relate to ministry. This interactive, multi-faceted course blends readings and written assignments with group discussion, coaching, independent research, and a praxis (action/reflection) component. With the support of the instructor, students will customize their course experience to build on their unique learning goals, aptitudes, and areas for improvement as organizational leaders.

Relates to SKSM Threshold #2: Life in Religious Community and Interfaith Engagement threshold
Relates to MFC competency for Administration.

Note: This course fulfills the leadership intensive requirement for SKSM students pursuing vocational paths other than Unitarian Universalist ministry.

Queering Ecclesiology & Rites

Across Asia and Latin America we are witnessing the emergence of queer faith-based communities in very different contexts and histories. Exploring the way that these communities address issues of ecclesiology and rites would benefit students to explore the ways that our global village is moving in terms of the intersections among religion, gender, and sexuality. The course investigates what are the struggles and mechanisms that these communities have to cope in their context with ingrained homophobia. At the same time, it will examine how those communities enact interreligious and multireligious dialogue and rituals and how faith and activism are coupled to counter oppressive discourses and colonial performativities in their own situations. The course also features guest ministers and activists from different context to whom we can turn to learn from their experiences and who will be “present” every class through recorded videos.

Intended Audience: MDiv, MA, and MASC; PhD With extra coursework.

Evaluation Method: 2 reflection papers, weekly class participation, final project.

Relates to SKSM Thresholds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and MFC Comps 1, 2, 3, 6, 7.

Religion and News Media

For SKSM students only. This course is a blended learning course will offer the following for religious leaders and introduce a diverse group of graduate students to the challenges that the media present in communicating and engaging with belief within the context of the First Amendment and freedom of religion or belief.

In order to be an effective and authoritative religious leader in a diverse democracy, lay and ordained leaders must cultivate multiple competencies and literacies. This course will help students expand religious, media and digital literacies. These competencies will be measured via multimedia engagement, key readings, videoconferences, Socratic seminars, analysis (case studies), and media production. Students must contact the instructor via e-email prior to enrolling in order to receive permission to register. Registration is contingent upon faculty approval.

Relates to SKSM Threshold 1 and 2 and MFC Comp 4, 5, and 7.

Conducted in cooperation with the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum,
http://www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/program/religious-civic-leaders/. Online during the Fall 2018 Semester (September-December) plus three day immersion at the RFC in Washington, DC. Travel expenses are the responsibility of the students. Separate application must be made to the RFC. Instruction provided by Janet Saidi of the RFC, supervised by Christopher Schelin (http://www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/contact/directory/?entry=59).

Religious Liberty and Contemporary American Public Life

For SKSM students only. A blended course on the evolution of the First Amendment religious Freedom principles from the 1940s, through the civil rights era, to today. Participants will address contemporary issues that concern the constitutional relationship of religion and government along with current debates over the meaning of free exercise of religion.

Students must contact the instructor via e-email prior to enrolling in order to receive permission to register. Registration is contingent upon faculty approval.

Relates to SKSM Threshold 1 and 2 and MFC Comp 4, 5, and 7.

Conducted in cooperation with the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum, http://www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/program/religious-civic-leaders/. Online during the Fall 2018 Semester (September-December) plus three day immersion at the RFC in Washington, DC. Travel expenses are the responsibility of the students. Separate application must be made to the RFC. Designed and administered by Lauren W. Herman of the RFC, supervised by Christopher Schelin (http://www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/contact/directory/?entry=23).

Sex & Sin in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity

This course will introduce ways in which sex was used as a proposed boundary marker for religious identity in Second Temple Jewish and Early Christian texts. Contextualizing these boundary markers in the cultural, religious, and political landscape of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean destabilizes the meta-narrative concerning the picture of ‘proper’ sexual ethics and gender identity by exposing the permeability of those boundaries. We will explore how Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphal and apocryphal texts from the third century BCE to the third century CE can offer alternative access points into Jewish and Christian tradition that offer a diverse set of voices that can be used to subvert oppressive interpretations that have had lasting and painful repercussions in lived gender experience because of the conflation of sex and sexuality with sin. Topics such as religious leadership, ritual participation (initiations, foundation narratives & practice), sin, violence & rape, the afterlife, fertility & abortion, and sexuality in the Greco-Roman world will be surveyed and discussed in light of current debates on women’s ordination, reproductive rights, and LGBTQI identity to track how ancient debates are alive today and consider how silenced voices from this period may be used as counter-oppressive lenses for Biblical and extra-Biblical interpretation.

This course is online synchronous with Zoom. The format is lecture/discussion. Lectures will be pre-recorded and Zoom sessions will be primarily for group discussion of the lecture and the readings concluding with supplemental lecture based on the direction of questions.

I will be present for some SKSM Thresholds: 3) Sacred Text and Interpretation and 4)History of Dissenting Traditions and Thea/ological Quest

The Human Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief

For SKSM students only. The course introduces students to the human right of freedom of religion or belief, based on a review of the conceptual and operational tools, as well as illustrative empirical evidence, necessary for advanced study of the issue. The course is designed so that students of religious studies and/or theology, as well as religious leaders, can develop an understanding of how this right has come to be defined, protected, interrogated, and addressed, in a global order that remains organized according to the (evolving and problematic) political entity known as the state.

Students must contact the instructor via e-email prior to enrolling in order to receive permission to register. Registration is contingent upon faculty approval.

Relates to SKSM Threshold 1 and 2 and MFC Comp 4, 5, and 7.

Conducted in cooperation with the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum, http://www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/programs/religious-civic-leaders/. Online during the Fall 2018 Semester (September-December) plus three day immersion at the RFC in Washington, DC. Travel expenses are the responsibility of the students. Separate application must be made to the Religious Freedom Center. Designed and administered by Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou of the RFC, supervised by Christopher Schelin (http://www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/contact/directory/?entry=25).

UU History

This course begins with an examination of the (alleged) antecedents to Unitarianism and Universalism in pre-Reformation Europe. We begin with development of Unitarianism in Poland, Transylvania, and England, then on to that of North American Unitarianism through its classical age, the Transcendentalist development, and the various crises of identity and purpose that develop into and through the late 19th and 20th centuries. Then we turn our attention to Universalist ascendency, decline, and then consolidation with Unitarianism. Careful attention will be paid throughout to the Unitarian/Universalist social location in relationship to class, race, and gender identities, and how these sometimes enabled and sometimes impaired social justice advances.

This course relates to MFC Competencies #6 and #7 and SKSM Thresholds #4.