Winter Courses

Although theologians often approach “Christology” by asking how Jesus of Nazareth might be best understood in terms of certain systematic concerns or doctrinal positions—a perspective that gives rise to questions such as: How are the divine and human natures of Christ related?, What are the merits of, or alternatives to, substitutionary atonement?, and How might a virginal conception thwart the transmission of original sin?—those who are more oriented to the discipline of “biblical theology” are more likely to prioritize how the New Testament portrayal of Jesus is related to the narrative movement—or movements—of the Hebrew Bible. This leads either to a different set of questions or (just as importantly) to a different angle on the kinds of questions asked above. This course, on potential revolutions in Christological thinking, will draw on contemporary NT scholarship in order to explore this latter approach.

To what extent do the OT themes of exile and return, old age and new age, help deepen our understanding of the birth and crucifixion of the Messiah? If the NT portrays the first followers of Jesus as worshipping him (and as doing so before and not just after the Resurrection), is it implicitly or explicitly calling us to worship Jesus’s humanity as well as his divinity? Does Mary’s encounter with Gabriel, who is a named presence in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament only in the Book of Daniel, indicate that her conception of Jesus is to be read apocalyptically? Is it significant that Elizabeth initially greets Mary with words otherwise associated with Jael and Judith? These are some of the exegetical and theological questions we will consider in this engagement with issues at the edge, and at the heart, of contemporary Christology. Conversation partners will include: James Dunn (Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?), Jane Schaberg (The Illegitimacy of Jesus), and N.T. Wright (The Day the Revolution Began).

This course will make the case that religion must be understood as shaping how we experience the world and not simply as a distinct kind of experience (e.g., religious experience v. artistic experience v. ethical experience). In doing so, the course will bring together work in religious studies, phenomenology of religion, phenomenological philosophy, secularism studies, and Continental philosophy of religion to show that religion is both constituted within historical and material conditions and is partly constitutive of those conditions. In that way, what it offers is not simply a materialist account of religion, but an account of material spirituality in which religion can be located and contextualized. Please note that the course will not assume prior familiarity with phenomenology.

This seminar examines the ancient and medieval discipline of rhetoric and its practitioners’ claim that it represents a properly philosophical discourse. It does so in terms of a selection of texts drawn from the works of Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Abelard and Heloise. In the process, it explores the relationship between affectivity and discursive validity as an implication of the cultural intent of philosophy, i.e., whether historical philosophies are best thought of as a speculative sciences, arts of right living, or whether they call out to be thought of in other terms altogether.

* Approved for Area 3 of the CSTC.

This is a course for new and aspiring principals, school leadership teams, and school boards. The course provides frameworks and tools for leadership in educational governance.

This is a course for new and aspiring principals, school leadership teams, and school boards. The course provides frameworks and tools for leadership in educational governance. The course introduces participants to the work of nurturing the relationships among the school’s stakeholders, with a focus on the pivotal relationship between the board and the executive leadership team (or, in smaller schools, the principal). Different approaches to the work of the board are considered, with particular attention to the stewardship of the school’s vision, mission, and values, to the strategic formulation of policy and the monitoring of executive performance, and to accountability to the school’s parents and supporting community.

NOTE: A Team Audit option is available for school board members and executive leadership teams who wish to take this course together. Please email our Registrar directly at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu for more details.