Thinking Through Contemporary Theology

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general public $100.00 a full-time student $50.00

Instructor: Alan Richard

Place: The Meek’s House, 4900 Caroline, directly across the street from Covenant Church. Get directions

Time: Tuesday, 7:00–9:00, on September 22, 24, October 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, and November 5, 10 and 12

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Course Description: This course will closely examine the interlocking questions of time, language, and divinity hidden in the phrase “contemporary theology”. Encountering ancient, modern, and contemporary texts together, we will gain a closer understanding of our common human stake in these questions, the changing historical circumstances that have obscured them and disclosed them again to us, the centrality of them to the explosion of new thought widely misunderstood under the names “postmodernism” and “deconstruction,” and the re-examination of Christianity that has accompanied this new thought. We will encounter works by Aristotle, Soren Kierkegaard, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and others, but the real content of the course will be our own lives. Over 8 weeks and 10 sessions, we will use what we learn to develop our own theological expressions guided by respect for the complexity of existence, the limits of human understanding, and the sacred poetry of the Christian tradition.

Course Instructor: Dr. Alan Jay Richard is a lay theologian, social science researcher, and consultant and evaluator for federal grantees in the areas of HIV/AIDS prevention and services, adolescent mental health and substance abuse services, and violence prevention services. Dr. Richard’s research has appeared in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, Psychological Inquiry, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and the Journal of Public Health Policy. At Syracuse University where he earned his Doctor’s Degree, he developed and taught courses on Postmodern Philosophy of Religion, Theologies of the Disenfranchised and Religion and Sexual Orientation. He is founder of Bering Academy, a lay school of theology sponsored by Bering Memorial United Methodist Church, and developed its flagship course Questioning Faith. He currently serves on the boards of the Symposium for Christian Resurgence and the Association for Family and Community Integrity. He co-facilitates a weekly home-based Christian nurturing circle in the Third Ward.

Cosmic Theology: Religion and Science in Dialogue

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general public $80.00 a full-time student $40.00

Instructor: John McGee

Place: St. Paul’s Methodist Church, 5501 South Main (parking on Fannin side), Room S-103 Get directions

Time: Tuesday, 7:00-8:30, eight weeks beginning on 15 September, ending 3 November

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Course Description: The major religions of the world emerged before the awareness of evolutionary biology and cosmology. Their expressions and sensibilities were tied to the imaginative contexts of ancient worldviews or static philosophies. As scientific knowledge of the universe has expanded over the past few centuries, religious understandings of such themes as ultimate reality, good and evil and the meaning of human existence have challenged the belief of a one-planet deity. In this course, we will explore the religious implications of deep cosmic time, the immensity of space and the history of a universe still coming into being. The following topics will be dealt with:

1. The influence of scientific discoveries such as the Big Bang, black holes, and dark matter on religious perceptions
2. The coexistence of religion with contemporary theories of chaos, randomness, novelty and indetermination
3. The meaning of God, original sin, revelation and salvation in an emerging universe
4. Religion and the possibility of life on other planets – would intelligent extraterrestrials have their own religion?
5. The possibility and ramifications of multiple universes
6. The cosmic meaning of death and resurrection
7. Can humans ignore nature or must they intervene?

Course Instructor: John McGee earned his BA degree from the University of Toronto with majors in Math, Physics and Philosophy, and his STB degree in Theology also from the University of Toronto. He has done postgraduate work in Theology at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, and the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Mr. McGee is an experienced teacher having taught courses at St. Thomas University, The Jung Center, and Rice School of Continuing Studies for ten years as well as lectures at many Houston Churches.

Creating Christianity: The Role of Sacred Experience Among Early Christians

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general public $80.00 a full-time student $40.00

Instructor: Betty Adam

Place: Bethany Christian Church, 3223 Westheimer Road Get directions

Time: Tuesday, 7:30-9:00, eight weeks beginning on 15 September, ending 3 November

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Course Description: Early Christianity was a movement in response to powerful and glorious sacred experiences. These experiences changed the lives of many people and they began the slow and varied process of creating Christianity. In this eight-week course we will explore what these experiences meant to the earliest Christians by placing them in their Judaic context of sacred experience, its nomenclature, imagery and cosmology. We will enter more deeply into the ancient and first-century Judaic-Mediterranean world through the Hebrew Scriptures, the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the worship style of a contemplative community known to us from Philo of Alexandria, the Pauline epistles, The Gospel of John and the Gospel of Mary. We will match the creation of a language about God to experiences of the sacred and explore other early theological concepts such as sanctification and deification, apocalypse and revelation, and the interesting term in recent scholarship, “internalized apocalypse.”

Course Instructor: The Reverend Dr. Betty C. Adam was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in 1992, is currently resident Canon Theologian at Christ Church Cathedral, Spiritual Director of Brigid’s Place, and facilitator of the Magdalene Community, an interfaith community that meets each Sunday at 10:00 a.m. at the Rothko Chapel. Formerly an adjunct lecturer and assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of St. Thomas, she studied under a Merrill Fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School in 1995, and in 2006 she published The Magdalene Mystique, a study of the Gospel of Mary.

Opening Darwin’s Gift: Paths Toward a Theology of Evolution

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general public $80.00 a full-time student $40.00

Instructor: Bruce Yaeger

Place: Covenant Church, 4949 Caroline. Get directions

Time: Wednesday, 7:00–8:30, eight weeks beginning on 16 September and ending on 4 November

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Course Description: There seems to be no end to the battles over teaching evolution in public schools. However, the theory of evolution could be the greatest gift that any scientist ever gave to religion—but only if we understand how to open that gift! Although it is often overlooked, evolution raises theological issues that can be of concern even to progressive theology. Issues such as:

• What it means for life to have a purpose
• How God is present in the world
• The credibility of classic ideas about God

These classes will provide guidance on how to interrelate scientific and religious statements properly, and will also present the central ideas of those contemporary theologians who address the implications of evolution in their theologies. The classes will guide us through our contemporary Intelligent Design battles toward a more profound picture of God—a God of evolution!

Course Instructor: Bruce Yaeger specializes in teaching topics that relate the Bible, theology and spirituality to nature and ecology. He has been teaching adults for over twenty years in churches and other organizations in Houston. He earned his BA degree in Religion and English from Trinity University in San Antonio, and went on to do postgraduate work at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School and at Rice University’s School for Continuing Studies.

Application of the New Christian Paradigm to the Worship Service

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general public $90.00 a full-time student $45.00

Instructor: Clyde Mayo

Place: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 3816 Bellaire Blvd. Get directions

Time: Monday, 7:00-9:00, nine weeks beginning on Monday, 14 September, ending on 9 November

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Course Description: This nine-session course will be a hands-on, do-it-yourself reconstruction of the Protestant Worship Service. Many church goers today “mouth” various segments of the typical worship service without a sense of conviction, a sense of relationship with God, and perhaps without a sense of credulity. This course will cover the philosophy of the worship service and how prayers, sermons, creeds, hymns, songs, scripture readings, communication exercises, benedictions, and even sacraments can be done in such a manner as to be consistent with the new Christian paradigm. Students will actually construct three or four complete worship services that could be used in their “back home” churches.

Course Instructor: Dr. Clyde C. Mayo has considerable experience as a college and religious course teacher. He is an organizational psychologist with a special interest in religion and its affect on personality development. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Contemporary Theology. He routinely performs leadership training for governmental, industrial and religious groups. This course that he is offering will utilize interactive and participatory techniques as well as occasional lecture. Reading and homework assignments will be made so that students will be better prepared to actually construct the services.

Interactive Methods for Teaching Contemporary Theology to Youth and Adults

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general public $80.00 a full-time student $40.00

Instructor: Donald Maple

Place: St. Paul’s Methodist Church, 5501 South Main (parking on Fannin side), Room S-103 Get directions

Time: Wednesday, 7:00-8:30, eight weeks beginning 16 September, ending 4 November

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Course Description: The instructor of this course will utilize a wide variety of teaching methodologies. Ear and eye oriented methods and hands-on experiences will demonstrate techniques that could be used by those involved in church school teaching and curriculum development. Contemporary theological concepts will knit together Biblical transitional events with personal transitions that we experience in life. The course objective will be to enrich our understanding of the real presence of the Scriptural spirit in our own life-journey and communicate this contemporary reality effectively.

Course Instructor: The Reverend Dr. Donald Maple earned his Doctorate from The Houston Graduate School of Theology in conjunction with work previously done at the Presbyterian School of Theology in Austin, Texas. His Master’s degree was the result of work done at both Eden United Church of Christ Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and Garrett United Methodist Evangelical School of Theology in Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Maple’s career has spread across forty-six years of service to local churches in Iowa, The Republic of Panama, and the Texas United Methodist Conference. Although retired, he has continued to serve five churches in the Houston area, and was elected “Retired Part-time Pastor of the Year” for 1996. Dr. Maple has taught well over three thousand adults and youth during his ministry and has written numerous articles on church curriculum plus a manual used in youth confirmation classes.