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Cannon Chapel

Candler School of Theology

 

Area II - History & Interpretation

Christian Thought

CT501. Introduction to the History of Christian Thought I
Credit, four hours: Taught in Fall semesters (Faculty)
Survey of doctrinal and theological history of the Christian church in its cultural setting from its inception through the High Medieval period. Original texts in translation are used throughout.

CT502. Introduction to the History of Christian Thought II
Credit, four hours: Taught in Spring semesters (Faculty)
Survey of the doctrinal and theological history of the Christian Church in its cultural setting from the reformations of the sixteenth century to the transitions of the mid-twentieth century.

CT503. Systematic Theology
Credit, three hours. (Erskine, Lösel, McDougall, McFarland)
Survey of figures and issues in contemporary theology, including doctrines of God, Christ, Holy Spirit, revelation, humanity, salvation, and eschatology. Opportunities for students to do constructive theology.

CT679R. Colloquy Leadership
Credit, two hours. Offered each semester by invitation of the instructors of CT501 and CT502. Does not fulfill area requirements.

Church History

CH573. Evangelicals and Romantics
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
The course will explore the Evangelical and Romantic movements as a reaction and an alternative to the neo-classicism of the 18th century. The course will survey the earlier and later Evangelicals in the Church of England, and will focus on the Romantic poets, their impact on Christian thought and their influence on the Oxford Movement and the Christian Socialism of F.D. Maurice. There will be a concluding look at the relevance of these insights for a post modern world.

CH614. Reforming the Church and the People: Sixteenth-Century Models
Credit, three hours. (Strom)
An investigation of Protestant, Catholic, and radical reform movements as responses to the challenges of the sixteenth century. Special attention will be given to doctrinal issues and ecclesial developments, as well as to the implications for lay piety, the family, and social and political structures. (Historical Studies)

CH615. Women in Radical Protestantism
Credit, three hours. (Strom)
Examination of the role of women in radical Protestant movements from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Particular attention is given to writing and prophecy by women in the Anabaptist, radical Puritan, Quaker, Pietist, and Methodist movements. (Race, Ethnicity, and Gender) (Historical Studies)

CH616. Pietism: The Development of Modern Piety
Credit, three hours. (Strom)
This course will focus on religious renewal movements in the wake of the Reformation, especially continental Pietism with further attention given to cognate movements such as Puritanism, Quietism, and Methodism. (Historical Studies)

CH620. Theology in the Monastic Tradition
Credit, three hours. (Reynolds)
(Movement) (Historical Studies)

CH640. History of Clergy and Their Office
Credit, three hours. (Strom)
An overview of the theologies of clerical office from the late medieval to modern era with an emphasis on autobiographical writings. (Historical Studies) (Movement)

CH645. History of Ministry in America
Credit. three hours. (Holifield)
Reading and discussion of documents that trace changes and continuities in the work of the minister and in theological understandings of ministry in America from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first.(Historical Studies)

CH656. Eastern Christianity
Credit, three hours. (Valantasis)
This course introduces students to the theology, liturgy, and history of Eastern Christianity in its rich linguistic and theological differences. Special attention will be given to the development of Christianity in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt as it explores both Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches such as the Coptic, Ethiopian, and Armenian Churches.

CH659. Religion in America
Credit, three hours. (Holifield)
Lectures and discussion on religious movement, institutions, and traditions of piety and practice in America from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first. (Historical Studies)

CH661. The Black Church
Credit, three hours. (Erskine)
This course seeks to investigate the evolution of the Black Church in America. We will not attempt a chronological history of this church but will choose decisive moments in the life of this church for examination. There will be a sustained discussion with E. Franklin Frazier, Melville Herskovits, Albert Raboteau, Julia Foote, and Marilyn Richardson. (Race, Ethnicity, and Gender) (Historical Studies) (Movement)

CH698. Seminar: Issues in Church History

Historical Theology

HT609. Theology and the Christian Life in the Early Church
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
A study of major writings of fourth and fifth-century monasticism, including especially the desert fathers and mothers of Egypt. (Historical Studies) (Movement)

HT618. Ethics of Aquinas
Credit, three hours. (Reynolds) (Same as ES618)
Thomas's treatment of the foundations of ethics, including topics such as human action, free will, the passions, habits, vice and virtue, and law, as explained in his Summa theologiae. Teaching involves lectures, seminars, and close reading of primary texts. (Historical Studies) (Theologian)

HT623 Theology of Augustine
Credit, three hours. (Ayres)
The development of Augustine's thought across his life and career, with attention to contemporary issues of the church and theology. (Historical Studies) (Theologian)

HT625 Theology of Thomas Aquinas
Credit, three hours. (Reynolds)
Thomas's understanding of the nature, methods, and aims of theology (sacra doctrina), as explained in his Summa theologiae. Teaching involves lectures, seminars, and close reading of primary texts. (Historical Studies) (Theologian)

HT627. Theology of Luther
Credit, three hours. (Strom)
An examination of Luther's work and theology in the context of the Protestant Reformation movement and sixteenth-century German society. (Historical Studies) (Theologian)

HT629. Mystical Theology
Credit, three hours. (Reynolds)
An examination of a wide variety of medieval mystical theologians in the light of the paradigm established by Ps.-Dionysius. Subsidiary themes include action versus contemplation and different notions of the religious life. Emphasis is on primary material in translation. Foundational authors include Plato, Plotinus, Augustine, and Ps.-Dionysius (for the paradigm and its history). Medieval authors include Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart. (Historical Studies)

HT641. Wesley and the Continental Tradition
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
(Historical Studies) (Theologian)

HT645. History of Theology in America
Credit, three hours. (Holifield)
Lectures and discussions on theology in America from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first, exploring figures, movements, and denominational traditions of Christian thought. (Historical Studies)

HT649. John Wesley's Theology and Eighteenth-Century Religious Thought
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
This course analyzes John Wesley’s understanding of the nature of reason, faith, and experience, examines the relationships among them, explores their respective functions in his religious epistemology, and considers points of continuity and discontinuity between Wesley and other major currents of eighteenth-century religious thought concerning these issues. (Historical Studies) (Theologian)

HT651. Shame, Guilt, and Reconciliation
Credit, three hours. (Same as RP651) (Faculty)
An examination of the psychology and phenomenology of shame and guilt, read in the historical and theological context of the Church's development of rites of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. (Historical Studies)

HT652. Augustine, Descartes, and Wittgenstein
Credit, three hours. (Pacini) (Historical Studies)

HT653. Reality of God
Credit, three hours. (Pacini)
A seminar that explores the question of the being of God in the context of the practices of prayer and meditation. The so-called “ontological arguments” for the existence of God that Anselm and Descartes advanced will be addressed through the context of the literary genre of “mediation” that Marcus Aurelius elaborated and the context of the spiritual observance of the Liturgy of the Hours (Breviary), together with the arguments of its principal critics, Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant, and a contemporary version in the letters of Simone Weil.

HT654. Faith and Reason
Credit, three hours. (Pacini)
A seminar exploring the differing conceptions
of “faith” and of “reason” in both classical (Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin) and modern thinkers (Kant and Schleiermacher), with emphasis upon the ways in which faith and reason are more frequently related than opposed. Readings from Jean Luc Marion and Luce Irigaray will introduce criticisms of the emphases of this tradition of thinking. (Historical Studies)

HT669. The History and Theology of Eucharistic Worship
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
A liturgical and theological study of the origins and evolution of the Eucharist and related practices. The subject is covered in terms of the major cultural, philosophical, and historical movements which formed the background of this evolution. (Historical Studies)

HT671. British Theologians
Credit, two hours. (Faculty)
British Theologians is designed to explore those lines of British theology which form the underpinnings of contemporary Anglicanism and Methodism. Starting with Richard Hooker, representative theologians of each century from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries are read and discussed in light of the theological and cultural controversies and movements of their time. (Theologian)

HT672. Contemporary Roman Catholic Theology
Credit, three hours (Losel)
One of the following topics may be offered during any given semester: modern Roman Catholicism to Vatican II; doctrine of God; Christology; ecclesiology; sacramentology; ethical questions.

HT698. Seminar: Issues in Historical Theology

Systematic Theology

ST601 Revelation, Evil, and the Trinity
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
This course examines presence and absence of God, subjectivity and objectivity, role of imagination, suffering as test of theology, and centrality of the Trinity. Buber, Kierkegaard, Moltmann, and others. (Doctrine)

ST607. Doctrine of God - Women's Voices Past and Present
Credit, three hours. (McDougall)
A biblical and theological study of the relationship of gender to the doctrine of God. Particular attention to the historical retrieval of women's theological traditions as well as to contemporary women's formulations of language about God, the nature of divine power and the God-world relation, and Trinitarian versus non-Trinitarian approaches to the doctrine of God. (Doctrine) (Race, Ethnicity, and Gender)

ST611. Theological Method: Thinking Biblically
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
Seminar on major figures and issues regarding the nature and indeed the very possibility of biblical theology. Figures treated include Wellhausen, Barth, Von Rad, Bultmann, Ricoeur, Trible. Particular attention to themes of creation, election, exodus and law in light of current Jewish-Christian conversation. "Interpretation to the Old Testament" or equivalent required.

ST616. Theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher
Credit, three hours. (Pacini)
(Theologian)

ST620. Black Theology and Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Erskine) (Same as ES620)
The contributions of some of the leading theologians will be considered placing their work in conversation with more recent contributors, in particular Womanist theologians. In light of discussion of theological themes in Black and Womanist theologies, we will identify critical and ethical issues that come to the fore. (Race, Ethnicity, and Gender)

ST621. Teaching with Authority: Scripture, the Church, and Congregational Self-understanding
Credit, three hours. (McFarland)
This course is a Contextual Education elective in the area of systematic theology. It focuses on the ways in which authority is understood and enacted in the congregation, with special focus on the doctrines of Scripture and the church. It is designed for second-year MDiv students enrolled in Contextual Education II who either have completed or are concurrently enrolled in CT553, though limited enrollment is available for third-year MDiv students who have completed CT503 and are actively involved in a local congregation. (Contextual Education elective)

ST626. The Preacher as Theologian
Credit, three hours. (Long, McDougall) (Same as P626)
This course helps students with the act of theological reflection and emphasizes the crafting of sermons that express in accessible ways careful thinking about theological issues.

ST627. Theology of the Church and Sacraments
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
Biblical and theological understandings of the church, baptism, and the Lord's Supper are discussed. Attention is also given to other traditional sacraments and to ecumenism. (Movement)

ST631. Christian Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, and Renewal
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
Historical, theological, and pastoral study of baptism, confirmation, and renewal. This course pays special attention to twentieth-century reforms in theology and practice. (Movement)

ST634. Foundations of Christian Spirituality: Theology and Prayer
Credit, three hours. (Valantasis)
A study of selected figures and prayer traditions, focusing on the formative and expressive relationships between prayer and theological reflection. (Movement)

ST636. Contemporary African Christian Theology
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
(Race, Ethnicity, and Gender) (Movement)

ST639. Third World Theologies
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
(Race, Ethnicity, and Gender) (Movement)

ST641. Christology and Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Erskine) (Same as ES641)
This course investigates the relationship between Jesus Christ and the moral life. Two foci will be preeminent: (a) to isolate and clarify the fundamental principles of the Christian life and (b) to discern and interpret how the Christian community needs to make moral judgments in the light of its faith claims and religious convictions. (Doctrine)

ST642. Religious Affections
Credit, three hours.
Philosophical and theological study of relations among emotion, feeling, and belief in Christian life and thought. This course emphasizes concepts such as gratitude, guilt, repentance, joy, and hope. This course also advances proposals concerning a Christian anthropology. (Doctrine)

ST647. Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Credit, three hours. (Erskine)
This course seeks to understand Bonhoeffer on his own terms as clearly and as fully as possible. We will investigate whether there is an "epistemological shift" between the "early Bonhoeffer" and the Bonhoeffer of Letters and Papers from Prison. The doctrines of ecclesiology, Christology, God and reality (the world come of age) will come up for theological attention. (Theologian)

ST651. Theologies of Hope and Liberation
Credit, three hours. (Erskine)
This course looks at eschatology and apocalypse in contemporary theology. Particular attention will be given to the thought of Jürgen Moltmann, Leonardo Boff, Dorotee Soelle, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and James Cone. The central question which focuses our discussion is: how may we be faithful to Jesus Christ in our time and in our own historical circumstances? (Movement)

ST653. Christology in Feminist, Womanist, and Mujerista Theologies
Credit, three hours (McDougall)
An ecumenical and multicultural study of contemporary women's formulations of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Special attention to the intersection of Christology with issues of gender, race, and ethnicity, and ecclesial identity. (Race, Ethnicity, and Gender) (Doctrine, Movement)

ST656. Theology of Jürgen Moltmann
Credit, three hours. (McDougall)
An in-depth study of Moltmann's theology in dialogue with challenges confronting the contemporary church in society. Particular attention to his contributions in eschatology, political theology, and to the doctrines of the Trinity, creation, and pneumatology. (Theologian)

ST659. Theology of Martin Luther King Jr.
Credit, three hours (Erskine)
This course seeks to examine the life, thought, and actions of Martin Luther King Jr. The class will engage in theological exposition and analysis of his primary ideas, sermons, and conceptual frames of reference. A conversation with Malcolm X, Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebur, and the Black Church will ensue. (Theologian)

ST660. Black Religion and Culture
Credit, three hours. (Erskine)
This course establishes a framework for understanding and critically evaluating black religion and culture. Particular attention will be given to the work of John Mbiti, Albert Raboteau, E. Franklin Frazier, Melville Herskovite, and W.E.B. Dubois.(Race, Ethnicity, and Gender) (Movement)

ST661. Philosophical Theology
Credit, three hours (Faculty)
Examination of a major movement, such as phenomenology or process thought. (Movement)

ST672. Trinitarian Praxis: The Trinity, The Human Person and the Christian Life
Credit, three hours. (McDougall)
An advanced seminar on classical and contemporary approaches to the doctrine of the Trinity and its implications for theological anthropology and the shape of the life of faith. Particular attention will be paid to contemporary proposals relating the doctrine to social and ethical issues that are challenging churches today. (Doctrine)

Natural Theology and the Doctrine of Creation
Credit, three hours. Prerequisite: CT503 or permission of the instructor (McFarland)
This course is designed to provide an introduction to the Christian doctrine of creation, with particular focus on the relationship between Christian claims about the origin, character, and goal of the universe in relation to contemporary scientific theory (especially the areas of cosmology and biological evolution). Attention will also be given to general questions of the logical relationship between theological language and the claims of the natural sciences.

ST678. Contemporary Roman Catholic Theology
Credit, three hours. (Lösel)
One of the following topics may be offered during any semester: modern Roman Catholicism to Vatican II; doctrine of God; Christology; ecclesiology; sacramentology; ethical questions.

ST681. Sex, Sin and Salvation: The Christian Doctrine of the Human Person Doctrine of Creation
Credit, three hours. Prerequisite: CT503 or permission of the instructor (McFarland)
This course examines of some key themes in the topic of theological anthropology, with special emphasis on the diversity of ways in which Christians through the centuries have answered the question, “What does it mean to be human?” The material surveyed will pay particular attention to issues of gender identity, human sexuality, and original sin, since these topics have proven particularly important for the development of Christian reflection on human being in the Western Christian churches; but attention is also given to the ways in which questions of race, ethnic identity, disability, and class have affected Christian understandings of personhood.

ST691. Comparative Theology and Literature
Credit, three hours. (Pacini)

ST698. Issues in Systematic Theology

ST698G. Contemporary Systematic Theology
Credit, three hours. (McDougall)
An advanced seminar on the reconstruction of Christian doctrines in light of contemporary philosophical, historical, and ethical challenges. Special emphasis on current debates in theological method an on integrating the historical, systematic, and constructive tasks of theology. (Movement)

--Last updated 09.13.2008