SPI 530. Liturgical Writing as Spiritual, Theological, and Prophetic Act. (1-3 h)

Divinity students are often called upon to write or speak extemporaneously various elements for worship, such as prayers, litanies, confessions, invocations, and intercessions. This course provides students with diverse resources for worship leadership. The course encourages students to locate their own prayer styles, theologies and rhythms within the shared narratives and prayer experiences of historic and contemporary worshiping communities. The course also challenges students to explore and name what theologies they are embodying through their choices of language, images, styles, and forms in public prayers. The course is part worship literature review and reflection and part workshop. Students will learn about elements of worship and explore historic and contemporary examples. Students will also share each week in a writers’ workshop format their own liturgical writing samples. A primary aim of the course is to invite students to explore relationships between their own unique voices and theologies and their roles as public prophets, theologians, and spiritual leaders.

SPI 571. Introduction to Christian Spiritualities and the Religious Leader's Spiritual Life. (3 h)

What is "spirituality"? In this course, we will listen in on two thousand years of responses to this question, examine a diversity of mediums through which Christians have sought to encounter God, and consider the wide variety of spiritual practices Christians have embodied in their quests to experience and respond to God's presence. Students will be invited to reflect on their own responses to the question "what is spirituality?" by writing spiritual autobiographies and sharing portions of them with others in the course. Students will also explore contemporary spiritual and contemplative practices.

SPI 623. Music and the Church. (3 h)

This course is offered by the Music Department for Music and Divinity School Students. The course looks at the history of church music and practices of the use of church music in the contemporary church.

SPI 669. Modern Spiritual Writing. (3 h)

When St. Augustine penned his Confessions, he began a genre of Christian writing that has continued to this day. Part literature course, part writer’s workshop, this course will introduce students to examples of literary nonfiction whose subject is faith. We will study narrative structure, voice, character development, scene, and dialogue—all tools of the writer’s craft—and discuss how those tools can be employed to create compelling stories of religious experience. Students will workshop their own essays, and will also be introduced to a variety of writers (Christian and otherwise) whose modern spiritual narratives form part of our current cultural dialogue.

SPI 671. Spiritual Writers. (3 h)

A study of the principles of the spiritual life as presented in the works of selected spiritual writers.

SPI 678. Christian Mysticism. (3 h)

The theologian Karl Rahner said, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.” Mysticism has been an underground stream for Christianity. This course will explore the readings of key figures from the 16th to the 21st Century and seek to connect their experience with our current context. The paradox of our time is that even as fewer people attend church in the USA, more people have claimed to have had a direct mystical experience. The mystics covered are Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths, Evelyn Underhill, Dorothee Soelle, Howard Thurman, Richard Rohr, Simone Weil, and Cynthia Bourgeault. Each class will begin with a short lecture followed by discussion and, when assigned, student presentations. Our focus is “What do these mystics have to teach our world and our Church?”.

SPI 773. Worship as Spiritual Practice. (3 h)

A study of how worship shapes spirituality. Students explore spirituality, broadly defined, along with how congregational worship is a form of spiritual practice.

SPI 790. Topics Courses. (1-3 h)

Examples of one hour topic courses include: Spiritual Development in Contemplative Prayer; Pentecostal Spirituality for the Whole Church; Quaker Spirituality; African American Spirituality: Representative Motifs.

SPI 790A. Topics in Spirituality. (1-3 h)

Courses in Spirituality and the Arts can be developed and offed on a one-time basis using this designation.

SPI 790B. Topics in Spirituality. (1-3 h)

SPI 790C. Topics in Spirituality. (1-3 h)

SPI 790D. Topics in Spirituality. (1-3 h)

SPI 790E. Topics in Spirituality. (1-3 h)

SPI 790F. Topics in Spirituality. (1-3 h)