Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice

Course Offerings

The Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice offers a wide variety of course options that are designed to cultivate depth of thought, imagination and critical skills in a world challenged by violence, social inequity and environmental instability.

Core Course Offerings

Our four main courses are offered at least every two years.

Ethics in a Time of Planetary Crisis

In a world marked by crisis and division, what is our reason for hope? In a time of such widespread apathy and despair, what sustains our faith? Surrounded by so much sin and suffering, what can love accomplish? This course will rely on the four sources of Christian ethics (Scripture, Tradition, reason, and human experience) as resources for wisdom, courage, compassion, and a bold imagination of what can be possible for living ethically today. We will consult views and voices from around the globe to inform our reflection, discernment, study, and conversation designed to clearly identify, critically analyze, and creatively apply ethical norms to build agreement and accountability for promoting the conditions -- personal, social, and systemic -- that can foster peace, justice, and solidarity in our lives, both locally and globally.

Theological Imagination

Theology is both a process and a product. This course will focus on the former without neglecting the latter. The course is an introduction to theology seen as a creative process of constructing new interpretations of religious tradition in critical engagement with the contemporary situation, aiming at renewing the tradition. Students will read diverse works of constructive theology and analyze them in terms of the foundational theological and hermeneutical categories pertaining to the notion of “imagination.”

Liberating Bible

How can the Sacred Scriptures of the Jewish and Christian traditions help us engage a new conversation about justice, solidarity and planetary survival? Develop a critical fundamental competency in reading and interpreting scripture while exploring how the Bible can help us acquire a new prophetic imagination.

Christian History: Turning Points

This course explores some of the key turning points in Christian History from the death of Jesus to modern times. While discussing select historical moments, the course also illustrates how all religious history might be approached. The course moreover challenges participants to consider their theology and their place amidst the issues raised in the past.

Concentration Course Offerings

Our electives are offered less frequently based on graduate student interest, need, and faculty availability.

Ignatian Spirituality

This course provides an understanding of the context out of which Ignatian Spirituality developed and some of the major ways that it has expressed itself as a movement that fosters a faith that does justice at the service of education, peacemaking and the remediation of injustice in the world around us. Topics addressed include: (1) the context of Ignatius’s own life and the theological and spiritual questions at the heart of the Catholic reformation of the 1520s; (2) the development of the Spiritual Exercises; (3) the Jesuit approach to education and mission; and (4) key figures of the 20th Century.

Spiritual Exercises for the 21st Century

This course provides a contextual overview of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, grounding them in the narrative of Ignatius’ life and the context of the integration of theology and spirituality in the Reformation period. It further serves as a critical introduction to Ignatian spirituality, the resources of the Ignatian tradition for personal and social reflection, and provides a methodology for social analysis. Students are introduced to the structure of the Exercises as well as the movements and intentions of each of the four weeks. They are asked to engage the Exercises reflectively and synthesize their observations throughout the process.

Franciscan Spirituality

Born into a world of socio-economic turbulence, conflict over property, and social discrimination, Francis and Clare of Assisi chose to forge a new way for themselves and their contemporaries. The "Franciscan Revolution" of the thirteenth-century has a great deal to teach us today. As Pope Francis invites us toward a "revolution of tenderness," we too can discover the power of encounter and the presence of God at the margins, just as Francis and Clare did. This course creates a fruitful dialogue between past and present with global implications for today.

Women and Gender in the Hebrew Bible

This class will engage a wide selection of scholarship on women and gender in the Hebrew Bible through in-depth study of selected biblical texts concerning female figures. We will consider these biblical women through a prism of approaches, each one yielding a unique vantage point on the text. While engaging multiple approaches to the study of women and gender, students will develop their own analytical skills as readers of biblical texts.

Women and Gender in Early Christianity

Women and gender played a critical and formative role in early Christianity which has often been overlooked or suppressed. This class brings participants into contact with cutting edge scholarship that has helped to recover women’s vital participation in early Christianity, and to analyze gender within early Christian communities and scripture. The course considers not only the historical importance of women and gender in the early church, but the implications of this research for modern issues in the world today.

Recovery and Growth after Trauma

This course explores the intersection of trauma and theology. The effects of trauma on people, society, and our daily lives is of increasing concern in an ever more connected world. This course will help students to think deeply about theological questions of the human person, God, evil, suffering, salvation, and the possibility of hope and healing. Specifically, this course begins with the exploration of the theoretical and clinical studies of trauma. Then the course moves through trauma’s illumination of the human condition. Third, this course investigates the nature of God as understood through the experience of trauma and post-trauma. This course finishes with focusing on the role of communities, salvation, and hope as aspects of post-trauma healing.

Contemporary Christologies

This seminar involves theological reflection on the person and work of Jesus Christ especially through the lens of contemporary social and cultural realities, i.e., the “signs of the times.” In light of this, we will 1) explore the challenges posed to Christology by contemporary realities, such as historical consciousness, social injustice and religious pluralism, and 2) offer the opportunity to examine our own christologies in light of the Church’s tradition and contemporary theological speculation within particular cultural contexts.

Comparative Ecclesiology

This course explores the origin, nature, and mission of the church in light of its evolution from the preaching and mission of Jesus and his disciples, through its developments in history, to its current self-understanding in varieties of Christian denominations. Large portion of the course content will be dedicated to understanding how different Christian denominations understand what it means to be a church and how this relates to their understanding of the church’s mission in the world.

Theo-Ethics of Ministry

This course explores the foundational sources and methods for a theological and ethical analysis of pastoral ministry. It examines the power that pastoral ministers wield, the gifts and risks of the deep bonds of trust forged between ministers and faith community members, and how to discern prudent boundaries in the face of finite time and resources.

Jesuits, Sacraments & Justice

This course explores the intrinsic connections between Ignatian spirituality, the view of creation as sacramental – as a world in which we can encounter the Divine through material realities, signs, and experiential interactions – and the distinctly Jesuit approach to the pursuit of justice locally and globally. The best-known contemporary Jesuit, Pope Francis, describes sacraments as a “privileged way in which nature is taken up by God to become a means of mediating supernatural life” (Laudato Si). In this course, we will examine the sacramental foundations of the Ignatian imaginary of seeking and finding God in and through all things and will interlace this foundational imaginary with Jesuit perspectives on the sacraments as pathways to transform racial, gender, ecological, and socio-economic injustices. We will study theological texts by past and present Jesuit theologians; we will reflect on the intersections of sacramental-liturgical practices and some of the key socio-cultural injustices in our society; we will discern pathways for the “promotion of justice” through intentional sacramental practices in the contexts of students’ own life, ministries, and a variety of professional paths.

Buddhist Christian Exploration

This course is an introduction to the comparative study of Buddhism and Christianity. It aims 1) to introduce the essential teachings and practices of the Buddhist and Christian traditions; and 2) to explore how comparing their particular theological and ethical perspectives (on the ultimate nature of ourselves, other people, and the cosmos, and how best to live our lives and act in the world) inform our own views. In the process, we will compare texts on Buddhist meditation and Christian contemplation, and modern Buddhist and Christian perspectives on contemporary issues, such as interreligious learning, the ecological crisis, and systemic oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, and class.

Faith and Justice

This graduate seminar explores the dynamic relationship between religious faith and social justice through the lens of Ignatian spirituality and the prophetic traditions of Christianity. We engage the theological visions of Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Howard Thurman, situating their insights within broader struggles for justice and human dignity. Through readings, live dialogue, contemplative practice, and case analysis, students cultivate an informed, critical, and imaginative approach to questions of faith, justice, and social transformation in both personal and institutional contexts.

Contemporary Ethical Issues

In this course we will first consider a method for making moral decisions in light of Christian faith. Then we will study some current issues in the areas of medical, sexual, and social ethics.

Bioethics

This course begins with reflection on moral methodology, then moves to specific questions such as reproductive technology, genetics, physician-patient relationship, end-of-life issues, and the many justice questions related to health care systems.

Health Care Ethics

Critical examination of health care theory and praxis in light of Christian social thought and moral theology.

Pastoral Care and Counseling

This course surveys the theories of pastoral counseling that resulted from dialogues between psychology and theology in the 20th and 21st centuries to provide students a spectrum of options in pastoral care giving situations. Students will have opportunities to develop their pastoral care and counseling skills through role plays and case studies utilizing the theories they study. This combination of theory survey and skill practice aims to generate theological reflections that empower students’ theological anthropology, theory of change and pastoral identity needed as a pastoral caregiver and counselor.

Black Theology

The purpose of this course is to examine the historical background and origins of Black Theology and analyze the relationship between Black Theology, the Black church and Black liberation movements. We will also explore the major issues and topics that define black theology such as: its claim that liberation is the content of Christian theology, the proclamation of the Black Christ, a black approach to Christian Scripture, and an examination of the role or gender and sexuality within black communities. Finally, this course will help to clearly articulate one's own theological stance and perspective.

Black Catholic Experience

What does it mean to be Black and Catholic? How has a religion premised on neighborly love been so ineffective in light of the color line? Can the history, traditions and culture of Blacks be regarded as gifts to the faith? The history and spirituality of Black Catholics is a powerful lens through which to examine complex issues of race, religion and justice in the United States. This course introduces students to African Church Fathers and Mothers, Popes and the decisive role Africa played in the formation of the early church, the impact of Roman Catholic Church on the black experience, the emergence of Black Catholicism, black biblical interpretations and the struggle for racial justice in the Catholic Church.

World Religions and the Environment

Students in this course will explore the contributions of several world religious traditions towards constructing an environmental theology that can address our current global environmental crisis. The class will engage the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as well as Hinduism, Buddhism and Native American religions. Together, we will examine critical religious texts and/or beliefs in each tradition as we work towards an environmental theology and ethics that may serve as a foundation for environmental action and sustainability.

Global Refugee Crisis and the Gospel

Today over 65 million people are displaced worldwide. Often forced from their homes because of persecution, war, conflict, poverty, and climate change, our world is facing a refugee crisis. Amidst the unprecedented number of people on the move, Christian theology is looking for new avenues of understanding and relating to this global and local reality in dialogue with Abrahamic religious traditions. In this course, we will explore theologically and ethically grounded ways to respond to the challenges of migration with charity, erudition, and justice.

Holocaust Studies for Educators

Designed for educators who already possess an undergraduate degree, Holocaust Studies for Educators participants will learn to personalize and humanize the Holocaust, making it relevant for students in their classrooms. At the workshop, participants will learn about the Holocaust by exposure to the stories of individuals with real names, faces, and experiences. They will hear first-hand testimony from survivors, refugees, and liberators whose homes are in the Cincinnati and Ohio area. Personalizing the Holocaust’s survivors, victims, liberators and rescuers is an effective way for teachers to engage and challenge the youth of today. This workshop is offered in collaboration with the Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education.

Picture of Sarah "The faculty have a wide array of interests and expertise, from scriptural studies, church history, and ethics, to contemporary social justice issues. The small class sizes allow for ample opportunity to interact directly with faculty, as well as fellow graduate students." - Sarah Pritts, graduate student (Graduate Profiles)