Courses-Systematic Theology [ST]

Systematic Theology [ST]

ST0440 The Triune God and the World

This course provides a comprehensive, coherent presentation of the articles of faith in the Triune God, drawing upon biblical, theological, confessional and contemporary resources. Together we will cultivate theological imagination in view of communities and neighbors through current questions, challenges to faith, and awareness of diverse contexts.

Prerequisites: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly and HC0305 History of Christianity I

Full course

ST1420 Theology and Church in the Global South

What are the concerns and prominent themes among Christians in the Global South? Why should we listen? As the Christian Church shifts its demographic density to the South, new theological perspectives populate the ecumenical and confessional conversation. This course will focus upon the theological themes and methods emerging from Africa, Asia and Latin America, and how the classical doctrinal themes are approached from these contexts enriching and expanding the perspectives of the North-American churches.

Cultural Context

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Full course

ST1422 The Church’s Encounter with World Religions

This course examines the encounter of the Christian church with the practices and beliefs of the major world religions in the local, regional and global contexts. It explores the claims, beliefs, and practices of these religions and how they relate to our identity as Christians. Students will also study different contemporary paradigms that seek to understand these encounters within a Trinitarian theology of religions.

Cultural Context

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Full or half course

ST1424 Liberation Theologies and Their Reception by Lutheran Theologians

Is there such a thing as a liberationist Lutheran theology? This course is a study of the historical and contemporary writings and trends of Liberation Theology (Latin American, African-American, Feminist, Dalit, Minjung, Queer) and its creative, critical and constructive reception within the grammar of Lutheran and Protestant theology. The course will focus upon the origins of Liberation Theology, its methodology and main theological and ethical themes (praxis, option for the poor, liberation, Kingdom of God, spirituality, cross, and Christology); and the reception and constructive critique by a selected number of Lutheran and protestant theologians as they seek to integrate the methodological and theological/ethical challenge of liberation theology by re-interpreting classical themes such as justification, faith and works, two kingdoms, cross, church and vocation.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Half course

ST1426 God and Economy: Faith and Consumerism in the Age of Capital

“You shall have no other gods,” what does it mean in our present consumerist age? This course is a study of the biblical, patristic and reformation understandings of faith in relation to the economy, particularly as a “holy order” through which God ministers to us and we minister one another. It seeks to provide an analysis of the historical and structural emergence of capital, the market system and consumerism and analyze it through the theological lens provided by the First Commandment and the doctrine of the two kingdoms. It will explore theological and ethical criteria for Christian vocation and provide tools for moral deliberation in ministry and congregational settings around economic issues.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Full course

ST1434 Thinking Theologically in an Evolutionary Situation

This course will focus upon contemporary scientific developments and their importance for Christian theological thinking, preaching and ministry. Talk about God as creator and redeemer requires an engagement with the contemporary evolutionary descriptions of the universe and life permeating the worldview of Western societies, media, popular culture, and churches. By offering a selection of key topics which constitute the backbone of the contemporary scientific account, the role of science as a critical heuristic tool for enriching Christian symbols about God and creation will be explored and tested, as well as its homiletical and ethical implications. Conversely, the course explores the incidence of religious beliefs in general, and Christian claims in particular, for the evolutionary process.

Prerequisite: ST0440 The Triune God and the World or equivalent

Full course

ST1436 Justification and Justice: Faith and Politics in Contemporary Theology

How does the chief article of Christian doctrine about justification by faith relate to questions and challenges pertaining to social justice? What is the call of the Christian concerning political matters? Are faith and power compatible? The course will outline different theological paradigms in the contemporary context as well as different models of justice as represented by Western and non-Western philosophers and traditions. Historical and contemporary case-studies will serve as references to illustrate these paradigms and practical engagements.

Prerequisite: SG 0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Half course

ST1438 The Bible and Truth: Interpreting the Scriptures in Ministry

What do we mean when we say the Bible is true? And what are the ways of interpreting and using Scriptures in ministry that respect and make good on those truth claims? These questions with attention to diversity of audience focus upon the use of Scripture in ministry.

Full course

ST1448 Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Healing

This course explores how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing to people wherever there is sin, conflict, and suffering. Integrating biblical and theological resources with current interdisciplinary research on forgiveness, the course helps students develop a theological framework and practices for bringing to the fore the importance of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing in their leadership of Christian communities called to witness to salvation through Jesus Christ and to serve in God’s world.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Full course

ST1450 Sophia Cries Out in the Street: Wisdom in the Bible, Theology, and Life

This course explores the figure of Wisdom in the Old and New Testaments, in the history of Christianity, and in contemporary Christian theology and practice. Focusing on deepening one's understanding of Christ and the Triune God, and one's self and others - including those who are of a different race, class, gender, and ethnicity - the course also attends to practices related to biblical interpretation, discipleship and spiritual formation, ethics and pastoral care, mission and apologetics, and dialogue with science and other faith traditions.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Full course

ST1454 St. Paul as Exegete, Philosopher and Apostle for the Twenty-First Century

This course seeks to use Paul as a resource for developing a theological framework and practices for apostolic ministry in the twentieth-century. It does so by bringing together three different conversation partners: biblical scholars who are reinterpreting Paul’s theology in light of his Jewish and Hellenistic influences; philosophers who are interested in Paul’s relevance to postmodern thought; and theologians who have appropriated Paul in developing missional ecclesiologies.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Full course

ST1456 “One Died For All:” On Being a Trinitarian Theologian of the Cross

Why did Jesus die? What is the relationship between his death and the sin and the suffering we find within us and within the world around us? What difference does Jesus’ death and resurrection make for our lives and for our understanding of who God is? This course brings together two important themes in twentieth-century theology—Trinitarian theology and a theology of the cross. Drawing on the Bible, patristic theologians, and Martin Luther, this course thinks with and beyond the work of two modern theologians—Jürgen Moltmann (a Protestant) and Hans Urs Von Balthasar (a Roman Catholic)—in order to help students develop a theological framework and practices for apostolic ministry in our time.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Full or half course

ST1458 The Holy Spirit’s Presence and Power in Our Personal Lives and Public Ministry

Who is the Holy Spirit and how is the Holy Spirit at work in our lives, the church, and in the world around us? Drawing primarily on Scripture, this course helps students explore what it means to have received the Holy Spirit in our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection and what difference this makes for our apostolic ministry within Christian communities called to witness to salvation through Jesus Christ and to serve in God’s world.

Half course

ST1462 Global Feminist Theology: Feminist, Womanist, African, and Asian Theology

This course explores and analyzes contemporary feminist theologies within global Christianity, such as white feminist, womanist, African, and Asian theologies. It retrieves historical voices of women in Christian thought and discerns how best to interpret and confess the gospel of Jesus Christ to women and men in different cultural contexts. It asks, ‘what does the female face of God look like today?’

Cultural Context

Full course

ST1464 Ethics of the Body, Gender, and Sex

This course will explore the way that contemporary society constructs gender and deals with human sexuality. It will draw upon contemporary theologies of the body in order to explore a Christian vocation of one’s body, gender, and sexuality, taking into account the spiritual and ethical dimensions of the practices of hospitality, nurture, and love within different-sex and same-sex relationships.

Full course

ST1466 Ecotheology and Ethics

This course investigates our current ecological crisis in the light of a biblically informed Christian ethic. It is equally a study in a Christian ethical interpretation of Scripture in the light of our current ecological crisis. A case study approach helps to ground a short introduction to ecology as well as a study of various models for a Christian ethics of creation care. The focus is on a critical theological reflection on praxis in a pluralistic world of many faiths and none at all, but in which we all share a common, growing crisis.

Full course

ST1478 Philosophers and Theologians

The interaction of classical philosophers and theologians like Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Kant, Hamann, and Hegel, emphasizing the post-moderns and their current theological counterparts. The use and limits of apologetics and testimony in relation to proclamation will be examined.

Full course

ST1480 Denominational Church Polity and Doctrine

Covers the special doctrine, confession, and institutional nature of a particular denomination, including issues such as ordination, ministry and leadership in the church organization, legislation, theological contributions and ecumenical relationships.

Full course

ST1487 The Theology of Karl Barth and Its 21st Century Trajectories

This course will explore the theology Karl Barth, perhaps the most important theologian of the twentieth century. It will examine his cultural context, his contributions to contemporary doctrines of revelation, election, and Trinity. It will also explore how his Christology has implications for theological anthropology today.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly or ST 0440 The Triune God and the World or equivalent

Full course

ST1490 Living Christian Ethics: Disability Theology

This investigation of various models and theories in Christian ethics (moral theology) is grounded in the theology, ethics and praxis surrounding disability and ableism. Meets core elective in Ethics requirement for MDiv students.

Full course

ST2450 The Theology and Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This course is a study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology, spirituality and ethics in view of the major challenges posited to the Christian church by the rise of secularism, totalitarianism, persecution, racism, war and injustice. Special attention will be given to Bonhoeffer’s creative re-reading of the Lutheran tradition, the use of Scripture and the confessions, the outlines of his political theology, his re-introduction of the notion of status confessions in the face of the “Jewish Question,” his consideration of natural law and the State, Christian responsibility, mandates, vocation, peace and love, and the meaning of faith in a religion less world. His ethical paradigm will be analyzed in relation to the Roman Catholic understanding of natural law and the Reformed use of the third use of the law.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly

Full course

ST2462 The Theology of Martin Luther

The methodology, structure and intention of Luther’s theology. This includes the background in the Middle Ages, Luther’s own development, and current interpretations. Emphasis is on the use of this theology for proclamation.

Full course

ST2464 Theology of Confession and Forgiveness

The office of the keys in doctrine and practice. Historical teaching and modern debates are considered, with the emphasis on current use of repentance and absolution in church and world.

Full course

ST2465 Theological Hermeneutics

The development of contemporary theological hermeneutics, hermeneutics that takes the movement of God as the chief agent of the reading and use of Scriptures in church and world, is explored. A wide spectrum of experience, practices, and theological reflection is central to this exploration.

Full course

ST2472 Church, Discipleship and the Ethics of Jesus

In this course we work together to investigate the character and meaning of the ethics of Jesus for a Church life today. Foundational to our learning will the Gospel texts, read in the context of the faith community in mission today as the place in which vital individual discipleship is lived out. Christian moral theology, philosophical ethics, and various ethical approaches to interpreting Scripture all provide elements that provoke our questioning and dialog.

Full course

ST2476 The Demonic: Theology and Ministry

This course inquires into the concept of the devil and the demonic in Scripture, Christian theology and history. We explore concepts of the demonic in contemporary theology and culture, as well as exploring socio-political, psychological, and ministry implications.

Full course

ST2478 Theology, Conspiracy and Christian Nationalism: The Case of QAnon

This course explores the relationship between Christianity and American conspiracy theories, both historically, and in particular, the current popular conspiracy theory of QAnon, and its religious worldview. To that end, it will examine the rise of American Evangelicalism and how its theological commitments function in U.S. politics. Using Lutheran teachings on sin, grace, eschatology, and Christology, the course helps students discern how Christian theology interacts with particular political and social views in America.

Full course

ST2480 Ways of Knowing and Experiencing God

Atheist and fundamentalist caricatures tend to dominate our public discourse about God. Focusing on the deep connection between knowing God and knowing oneself and others, this course explores how a range of classic Christian theologians— including Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther—provide deeper and much more expansive ways of knowing and experiencing the reality of God. Situating these classic ways of knowing God in relation to contemporary debates, the course attends to the role of the biblical interpretation and spiritual practice in theology even as it relates discourse about God to reason and science, on the one hand, and ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, on the other.

Full course

ST2482 Race and Protestantism in America

This course explores the ways that American Protestantism and race intersect. It will specifically focus on Protestant attitudes towards African slaves and their conversion to Christianity. It will investigate how Western Christian theology has supported the construction of "whiteness" and "blackness", and look at how Protestant theologians interacted with the Civil Rights movement. It introduces students to Black theology and the spiritual resources that Black Americans utilize in order to deal with and resist unjust social structures.

Full course

ST2484 Justice and Reconciliation

This course focuses on the triune God’s creating, sustaining, and reforming work of justice and reconciliation in the world today. Students will explore a range of biblical, theological, and ecumenical perspectives in dialogue with philosophical and sociological approaches to theories of justice, to the interconnections of different situations and systems of injustice, and to various theories and practices of reconciliation.

Cultural Context

Full course

ST4430 Theology of John Wesley

An investigation of the theology of Wesley, with particular attention to original sources such as sermons, tracts and letters. Wesley is interpreted as a pastoral or practical theologian, against the background of his life and ministry in the evangelical revival. Attention is given to key Wesleyan doctrines, such as the (so-called) Wesleyan quadrilateral, soteriology, pneumatology and Christian perfection.

Half course

ST4497 Guided Reading and Research in Systematic Theology

An independent study for qualified students under the personal supervision of a member of the division. Consult faculty within division.

ST6421 Theology and Church in the Global South

Prerequisite: ST0440 The Triune God and the World or equivalent

Full course

ST6422 The Church’s Encounter with World Religions

Full course

ST6424 Liberation Theologies and Their Reception by Lutheran Theologians

Half course

ST6427 God and Economy-Faith and Consumerism in the Age of Capital

Full course

ST6454 St. Paul as Exegete, Philosopher and Apostle for the Twenty-First Century

This course seeks to use Paul as a resource for developing a theological framework and practices for apostolic ministry in the twentieth century. It does so by bringing together three different conversation partners: biblical scholars who are reinterpreting Paul’s theology in light of his Jewish and Hellenistic influences; philosophers who are interested in Paul’s relevance to postmodern thought; and theologians who have appropriated Paul in developing missional ecclesiologies.

Full course

ST6458 The Holy Spirit’s Presence and Power in Our Personal Lives and Public Ministry

Half course

ST6461 Theological Hermeneutics

Full course

ST6462 The Theology of Martin Luther

Full course

ST6484 Race and Protestantism in America

Full course

ST6487 The Theology of Karl Barth and its 21st Century Trajectories

This course will explore the theology Karl Barth, perhaps the most important theologian of the twentieth century. It will examine his Cultural Context, his contributions to contemporary doctrines of revelation, election, and Trinity. It will also explore how his Christology has implications for theological anthropology today.

Prerequisite: SG0401 Thinking Theologically and Confessing Publicly or ST0440 The Triune God and the World or equivalent

Full course

ST6498/8499 Guided Reading and Research in Systematic Theology

An independent study for students in Advanced Theological Education. Consult faculty within division and the Advanced Theological Education Office.