Course descriptions and scheduling are subject to change by administrative decision. See course offerings booklet for current offerings. Some courses will be offered on a two- or three-year rotation.
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Many seminary courses examine theological perspectives of various realities. This course takes a unique vantage point on spiritual and religious realities by examining them from a psychological perspective. Topics considered include spiritual and religious experience in childhood and adulthood, death, conversion, mysticism, and prayer as well as social and political dimensions of faith experience. A central dimension of the course is the sharing of faith vignettes by members of the class. Opportunity is also given to explore the cultural dimensions of religious experience.
CM 572
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Intercultural Integration Seminar (1 SH)
This seminar is designed for mature students who have had a significant amount of cross-cultural intercultural ministry experience prior to enrollment in the seminary. It provides a setting where they can think reflectively and critically on the strength and struggles of those past experiences for the purpose of achieving important insights and personal growth. The seminar meets the cross-cultural Intercultural requirement in the MDiv program for those with significant prior experience.
CM 613
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Intercultural Experience (3 SH)
This seminar involves at least three weeks of immersion in a cultural setting distinctly different from one’s past experience. This includes interaction with religious, social, cultural, political, economic and commercial groups and their leaders. The basic goals of the seminar include becoming a learner at the feet of the people of this community, acknowledging that they alone know what their world is like. Approaches to learning in this seminar emphasize the methodology of “participant observation ” with careful attention to personal reactions and responses to one’s experiences through journaling and group reflection. Special attention is given to how the Christian gospel is communicated and expressed in that setting and how it engages the realities of that world. The particular characteristics and requirements of a given seminar vary depending on the particular setting and who is leading the seminar. The seminar does not assume other-than-English language capability, but learning the basics of another language is sometimes a part of what we learn through participant observation. Descriptions of specific cross-cultural intercultural seminars offered are circulated each year.
CM 614 Cross-Cultural: Places, People and Prayers
The study tour, “Places, People, and Prayers,” offers you a rich and multi-faceted introduction to the land, which has been home—and holy—to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike for thousands of years. Day by day we will visit important biblical sites: Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Hebron, Beersheba, Masada, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee, and more. And we will relive the story of Jesus as we walk the land that Jesus walked. But there is much more to the Holy Land than ancient stones. We will engage in regular People to People Conversations, putting us in touch with the many and varied voices of the Holy Land: Christians, Jews, and Muslims; Israelis and Palestinians. Through it all we will join our voices in prayer. Regular times of reflection, a daily service of Evening Prayers, a Shabbat service in a synagogue, and Sunday worship with Palestinian Christians will nourish our spirits along the way. Our tour will end with a retreat in Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
CM 621 Evangelism: Living to Tell (3 SH)
Learning to survive, thrive and make a contribution in a cross-cultural intercultural context and exploring how the Christian gospel is faithfully communicated and expressed in varying cultural contexts are the twin objectives of this course. The biblical concept of incarnation is taken as a biblical model for understanding the nature, scope and limits of contextualizing the Christian faith in various cultural settings, applying the perspectives and tools of cultural anthropology. Students learn to apply the research discipline of participant observation to learning about another cultural community, giving special attention to how the gospel is communicated and expressed there.
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This course focuses on the work of faith-based social movements and explores strategies for faith-based social transformation. Beginning with the history of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, this course will study organizing, capacity building, strategic planning, and religious practices that religious movements use to engage social issues. We will explore questions like: What roles did religious movements have in transforming societies? What kind of spiritual practices sustained movements for justice? What can we learn from religious movements that successfully address the pressing concerns of their day? Are there any contemporary issues on which faith-based organizations might partner to address?
CM 640 Topics (1-3 SH)
This course allows an in-depth engagement with a particular setting within the broad field of ministry settings.
CM 643 Missio Dei in Cultural Context (3 SH)
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Racial healing has been a focus of Christian communities since the Civil Rights Movement, but the Christian response has largely focused on the affects effects of race on people of color and subsequent interpersonal efforts at reconciliation. This seminar will use literary and autobiographical texts to illumine the affects effects of racial whiteness on collective and individual identities in US American life. In the U.S. racial hierarchy, the white race is assumed to be the default racial identity category and those persons who identify with it often consider race to be the possession of people of color rather than themselves. In this way, racial whiteness has functioned largely as an invisible, yet powerful, social and political discourse that has implications for white people and people of color. Recently, white invisibility has stabilized the power and privilege of white hegemony. In other epochs whiteness has functioned more visibly as the apogee of racial identity and has operated for most of its existence as the normative category of identity, so that today, even in its invisibility, whiteness is assumed as the normative racial designation for American identity.
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CM 663 Mennonite Faith and Polity (2 SH)
This course covers 1)the history of MCUSA polity formation from the time the denomination was formed from two previous Mennonite denominations (2002), 2) the contents of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective and the Membership Guidelines, the roles of the Executive Board, the Constituency Leaders Council, and the area conferences, and the current conversations about membership in the area conferences; and 3) processes of credentialing of leaders within MCUSA.
United Methodist Studies
The seminary has developed a partnership arrangement with Wesley Seminary in Washington D.C. to cooperatively offer courses in United Methodist studies. At minimum the following two courses will be offered between the two seminaries.
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