Our Programs ~ Lay Education ~ Summer Courses
Summer Courses
Summer Academic Classes at General
Students both lay and ordained come to Summers Academic Classes at General for spiritual enrichment, discernment, and continuing education for ministry. We offer one and two-week intensive courses embrace both academic and experiential elements, with reading assigned in advance and papers due in the months following. Opportunities for group prayer, meals, and other activities foster a close-knit sense of community. Courses may be taken for credit or audit.
Tuition and Applications Process for Part-time and Non-Degree Study.
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For more information you may also contact us, by e-mail at murphy@gts.edu, or by phone, 212.243.5150, ext. 461 (toll-free, 888-487-5649 ext. 461).
Course Descriptions - Summer 2008
Exploring Jesus’ Family Values with Dr. Deirdre Good, Monday May 19 to Tuesday May 20, 2008. To Enroll Explore the scriptures for insights into Jesus’ radical views on family life. What does "family values" mean today? What did it mean to Jesus and his world? We will look at Jesus' family of origin and the communities formed around Jesus in the gospels of the New Testament. We will also examine what Paul has to say about "family values." Thus, by the end of the course, we will be able to bring the New Testament and its environment into dialogue with contemporary concerns about families and values.(1-2 credits or audit) To Enroll
The Venerable Bede and Anglican Origins with the Rev. Canon J. Robert Wright, Wednesday May 28 to Thursday May 29, 2008. To Enroll Discover the vital importance of Bede in history and in the Anglican Church. Topics to be covered include foundations of spirituality, methods of evangelism, primitive enculturation, holy orders, miracles, liturgy, religious life, canon law, influence of the see of Rome, Anglican terminology, the ideals of priesthood and episcopacy, synodality and conciliarity, standards of sexuality, lives of the early saints, and the struggle between Roman and Celtic, between centralized order and freedom of the Spirit. What might Anglicanism be like today if the Synod of Whitby (664) had gone the other way? What guidance can be drawn from these early foundations for those considering the possibility of an Anglican Covenant today? (1-2 credits or audit) To Enroll
The Jesus Prayer & Eastern Christian Spiritual Practice with Dr. Elisabeth Koenig, Friday May 30 to Saturday May 31, 2008 To Enroll Experience ancient prayer practices to assist in your life of faith. This class will be a theological and praxis-oriented exploration of the mystical doctrines of early Christianity, including the prayer of the heart, deification, the traditions of light, and the significance for salvation of the Logos' embodiment in Jesus. (1-2 credits or audit) To Enroll
Suffering & the Book of Job with the Rev. Dr. Robert Owens, Monday June 2 to Wednesday June 4, 2008. (morning sessions only) To Enroll Encounter this moving text and its insights into suffering in our time. This class will explore the complicated architecture of the Book of Job, seeking to identify what it seeks to teach by means of the narrative about terrible suffering experienced by a very righteous man. What does it mean that God seems to rebuke all the standard religious explanations of suffering that are offered in the book? Key sections of the Book of Job will be given close reading in the class sessions, and major Christian and Jewish understandings of the book will be surveyed. (1-2 credits or audit) To Enroll
The Rise of Evangelicalism with Dr. R. Bruce Mullin, Monday June 2 to Wednesday June 4, 2008 (afternoon sessions only) To Enroll Learn about its history and astounding growth from the late 18th century to the present. This course will explore the eighteenth century roots of evangelicalism, look at its nineteenth century flowering, the debates of the early twentieth century, its reemergence in the second half of the twentieth century, as well as its future. Focus will be on evangelicalism both within and outside of the Anglican communion. (1-2 credits or audit) To Enroll
Soul Banquets: Meals & Mission in Congregations with the Rev. Dr. John Koenig, Friday June 6 to Saturday June 7, 2008. To Enroll Understand the centrality of meals in the Christian life from the 1st century to the present and how they can be a means to strengthen and energize congregations. This course is based on material from Prof. Koenig’s latest book (Soul Banquets: How Meals Become Mission in the Local Congregation; Morehouse, 2007) as well as writings by other contemporary biblical scholars and missiologists. Together we’ll examine the rich Judeo-Christian tradition of communal eating and drinking, particularly when it witnesses to a divine self-disclosure that calls us more deeply into the ongoing redemption of the world. Short lectures, discussions, dyad exercises, and meals together will be employed to help participants develop plans for a missional network of meals in the local situation where each one worships and/or ministers. (1-2 credits or audit) To Enroll
Women's Spirituality and Contemporary Religion with Dr. Katherine Kurs, June 9-13 To Enroll This course explores women's spirituality within mainstream and alternative religious traditions in contemporary America, including Judaism, various branches of Christianity, Islam, Wicca/neo-Paganism, and Buddhism. Using essays and texts by Euro-American women and women of color, traditionalists as well as radicals, the course considers the role of hierarchy and authority; the individual in relation to her religio-spiritual community; inclusivity and the boundaries of normative religious practice; tradition, invention, and continuity; the role of ritual practice; concepts of God/dess and the sacred; issues of race and power; and the relationship of spirituality to social justice. (2-3 credits or audit) To Enroll
Summers at General: June 16-27, 2008
Imagination of the Modern Church, Spirituality in the Secular Era: Art, Poetry and Spirituality 1500 – Present with the Rev. Dr. Clair McPherson, June 17 – 27, 2008 (mornings) To Enroll This course in modern Spirituality and Art, (part 3 of a sequence) includes the Renaissance masters; the spirituality of the Reformers and Counter-reformers; classic Anglican poetry; the Enlightenment literature of Dryden, Pope, Sterne, and Swift; the Religion of the Romantics; the spirituality of the great 20th-century theologians such as Bonhoeffer, and Von Balthasar; and the enigmatic modern artists who renounce the faith yet produce works of deep spirituality, such as Paul Gauguin, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, and Simone Weil. (2-3 credits or audit) To Enroll (AT149)
Introduction to Christian Ethics with the Rev.Dr. William Danaher, June 17 – 27, 2008 (mornings) (Foundation Course) To Enroll This course surveys representative approaches to Christian Ethics, with special attention to how these interact and resonate with the Anglican tradition. The course reviews the grammar and concepts that moral arguments employ (Divine Command, Natural Law, Teleology, Consequentialism, Deontology, and Virtue Theory); the sources of authority that moral arguments engage (Scripture, Tradition, and Reasoned Reflection); fundamental approaches to the normative content of love (agape, eros, philia); the role of doctrines (Trinity, Christology, Ecclesiology, justification, and Original Sin); and the formative communities and locations in which moral action and reflection takes place (Church, State, Society). Finally, we review recent work in Christian Ethics by theologians who have influenced current discussions of love, violence, and reconciliation. Students will interact with primary sources and voices in the Christian tradition, both classic and cotemporary. (Available as a Core Course for MA’s only -3 Credits Only or audit) To Enroll (ET 10)
Praying with Christian Spiritual Classics with the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Linman, June 16 – 26, 2008 (afternoons) To Enroll This seminar focuses on selected writings of many of the most significant figures of Christian spiritual traditions in the Patristic, Medieval, Reformation and Modern eras. Time together in class will focus on intensive discussion of the texts alongside prayerful engagement with the authors and their writings. To Enroll (2-3 credits or audit) (AT104/504)
The Art of Contemplative Prayer with the Rev. Dr. David Keller, June 16 – 26, 2008 (afternoons) To Enroll
In response of Jesus’ call for personal transformation, contemplative prayer is a grace-filled attentiveness to God that initiates and sustains a change of consciousness, leading to deepening love of God and neighbor. This course sets contemplative prayer in the context of the Bible and the experience of the Christian community. It explores the necessity of intentional daily experience of God as a fundamental source of spiritual discernment, vision, and energy for our lives. Emphasis is given to personal experience of a variety of forms of contemplative prayer in class, at home, and in parish settings. Participants reflect on the influence of contemplative prayer in their own lives during the course and develop a design for sharing contemplative prayer in a parish or other institutional setting. This class is being co-sponsored by the Contemplative Ministry Project. (2-3 credits or audit) To Enroll
Church Growth Strategies That Are Working. with the Rev. Dr. Roy Cole, Monday June 30 to Tuesday July 1. To Enroll Explore the latest growth strategies being successfully used to grow churches across the US from missional to emergent, to the practicing congregation, learn what’s working and in what context. (1-2 credits or audit) To Enroll
