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Tuesday Mark 13:33-37
Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Watch therefore--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning-- lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Watch." |
During the Advent season, we watch and wait in anticipation for the coming messiah. In both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, Biblical writers beseech followers to "keep their lamps trimmed and burning" and prepare for the coming (or return) of Christ. Often, the focus of these scriptures is to encourage readers to clean up their moral and spiritual acts and get their affairs in order. How do you prepare for Christmas? What family traditions do you have to celebrate the season? Are there any spiritual or ethical practices you employ specifically during this season? How do you maintain those throughout the rest of the year? |
- Contemporary Moral Issues
This course is required for all students pursuing the MDiv Degree.
In this course we will review the different approaches in Christian ethics to contemporary moral issues in the areas of politics, sexuality, medicine, economics, and ecology. We will begin by reviewing the distinctive forms (virtue theory, natural law, divine command, and liberation) and sources (reliance on Scripture, tradition, and reason) of Christian ethics, as well as those favored by central figures in Anglicanism. We then will consider contributions by important writers on particular issues, such as the just-war tradition, same-sex marriage, genetic manipulation, and globalization. Throughout, the emphasis will be on the ethical implications of the church's apostolic mission. - Introduction to Moral Theology
This course is required for all students pursuing the MDiv Degree.
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to questions about what it means to be a moral person in our contemporary world. In particular, we will examine what it means to be a Christian moral person—that is, what Christian faith and tradition contribute to our understanding of a moral universe. We will begin with an examination of moral formation in community. We will then discuss ethical principles as they have emerged throughout the Christian tradition. Through readings on “modernity” and “post-modernity,” we will explore how such resources can be used to assist in discerning Christian moral life today.
- Environmental Ethics
The environmental challenges facing the world today are urgent and complex. A variety of approaches have been enacted or proposed to address these problems, ranging from practical efforts to organize for justice to conceptual attempts to shift how we view our world. All of these approaches have particular strengths and weaknesses, and all raise important questions. The purpose of this introductory seminar is to survey ethical to environmental problems and to examine the central moral questions such problems raise. We will cover traditional, “mainstream” environmental ethical responses as well as more recent alternatives to and criticisms of those responses. Discussion will include concrete case studies as well as theoretical foundations, and the final essay will seek to place the theories in the context of concrete environmental problems. - Climate Ethics
This seminar will examine the unprecedented ethical challenges raised by climate change. Readings will incorporate religious and non-religious ethical approaches and a variety of disciplinary lenses, including natural sciences, social sciences, and economic and policy perspectives. Students will engage these arguments through readings, discussions in class and online, and a final synthetic essay, in order to address questions of why and in what ways climate change matters morally, and how moral agents might respond. - Christian Social Ethics
Christian Social Ethics is a tradition of inquiry into how Christians ought to relate to the larger society and respond to social problems. This course will trace the development of this inquiry through the twentieth century, including texts from Walter Rauschenbusch, the Niebuhr brothers, and Roman Catholic Social Thought, and assess contemporary versions, including liberation theologies, feminist/womanist/mujerista ethics, and global ethics. Critics of this tradition, such as Stanley Hauerwas, will also be considered, and the question of a distinctively Anglican social ethic will be raised. - Sustainability as an Ethical Problem
The concept of sustainability necessarily entails the question, “What ought to be sustained?” In other words, sustainability is the site of a debate over the proper relationship of humankind to the nonhuman world. This course will examine sustainability from this perspective. It will begin by surveying the various and sometimes conflicting ways the term is used in political, ethical, environmental, and institutional contexts. Criticisms of and alternatives to dominant views of sustainability will be considered, including agrarian, environmental justice, and political ecological perspectives.
