Chapter 10: 2026-2027 JST-SCU Faculty Course Offerings

Below is a sample of courses offered by Jesuit School of Theology faculty this year.

CE-2016: Family Ethics

The course will engage Christian thinking on sex, gender, marriage, family, and children, with an emphasis on Catholic theological ethics. By taking family as its primary frame, the course carves out a space at the intersection of sexual ethics and social ethics. Questions include: Why (and how much) do Christians care about marriage and family? What is marriage? What is sex for and how does its telos shape Christian sexual ethics? What is gender and how much does it matter? What is the place of singleness in Christian life? What place does family hold in Catholic social thought? What does Catholic social thought contribute to the question of work-life balance?  What does Christianity offer to families experiencing divorce, migration, incarceration, and poverty? What can Christians learn about family from those on the margins? Course material can be applied in a variety of pastoral settings.

CE-2056: Fundamental Moral Theology

This Course explores the relevant sources, traditions, categories, dynamics, and methods of Catholic theological ethics. Subjects include love, fundamental option, and goodness; freedom, conscience, and sin; moral agency, reason, and experience; moral acts, moral truth, and moral rightness; law, natural law, and virtue; Scripture, moral discernment, and decision-making; and the magisterial teaching authority in moral matters; and principles. The Course a) presents the sources and traditions of theo-ethical reflection, b) reviews developments in the Catholic tradition and the contexts out of which grew the need for revision and nuance; and c) examines contemporary cases to identify, apply, and assess the methods of moral reasoning.

CE-4701: Theology and the Body

Pope St. John Paull II’s Theology of the Body enjoys great popularity among some Catholics and is heavily criticized by others. This course begins with a study of the pope’s famous homilies, and then considers the potential of Christian ethical thinking about the body with a broader framework. Using cases such as gender identity, sex, torture, racism, artificial reproductive technologies, migration, and abortion, the work of theologians from Augustine and Aquinas to Sarah Coakley, James Alison, and M. Shawn Copeland will be considered as “theologies of the body.” Prerequisite: introductory course in Christian ethics. Requirements: three short synthesis papers, discussion, and a final oral presentation.

CEFT-2107: Confessional Celebrational Rites And Practice

This course will examine the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation from its historical, theological, moral, pastoral, liturgical and canonical perspectives. It is designed for those who will preside at the Sacrament of Reconciliation as presbyters.  The emphasis will be an ongoing practicum on reconciliation rites and practices, utilizing role-playing of a variety of confessional cases and issues. The course will also involve an in-depth discussion of moral, liturgical and pastoral theology as it is related to the Sacrament. Attention will be paid to pastoral care in a variety of different contexts of sacramental confession, as well as related pastoral, moral and canonical issues which often surface in the celebration of the Rite of Reconciliation.

CEPR-4125: Suffering, Human Flourishing, And Ethics

This course is an introduction to the meaning and role of suffering in relation to the question of human flourishing and the work of ethics. It is especially designed for STL and STD students seeking intersectional reflection in pastoral theology and theological ethics. It will consider (a) various theological approaches to the question of human suffering in dialogue with questions of human agency, flourishing or happiness, sin and redemption, and pursuit of the good; (b) social suffering, oppression, and liberation; (c) suffering in relation to health, animal ethics, and ecological ethics.

HS-2498: History of Church: Ancient to Medieval

This lecture/discussion course is an historical survey of Christianity from the 1st century CE to the 15th and the eve of Modernity. As surveys go, it's meant to lend an impression that lingers-one that informs broadly but also relies on occasionally closer scrutiny of select topics. The course is studiously multi-disciplinary, approaching major developments in the Christian churches from a variety of historical perspectives and original sources. Requirements include two short essays (5-7 pages): an analysis of one of our assigned original sources and a non-textual analysis--some work of art or architecture from the historical periods covered. Each student will present for discussion one of the original sources in the syllabus. Finally, students will participate in small group 'Pastoral Application Projects' which entail communicating historical material in particular pastoral settings.

LSSP-3100 Leadership of Prayer in a Synodal Church

This course explores various modes of leadership that serve the liturgy and prayer of diverse Christian communities in a synodal church. It examines understandings of synodality that have emerged in recent synodal gatherings and scholarly and pastoral writing: specifically, the claim that Baptism is the foundation of Christian life and ministry; that women have an essential role in the life and leadership of the church; and that liturgical prayer has a deep connection to the mission of the whole People of God. This course fosters modalities of leadership of prayer and liturgy that are resonant with the cultural frameworks of those who participate, that empower lay participation, that lead to mission informed by Catholic social teaching, and that are attuned to a community's deep connection with the whole of Creation. It encourages students to engage creatively in a variety of leadership roles throughout the semester as source of class reflection and pastoral implementation.

NT-3513: Paul In Context

This foundation course (a combination of lecture and seminar discussion) provides a historical and theological introduction to Pauline literature. The course locates Paul and Pauline literature in their ancient historical, cultural, and political contexts—within Second Temple Judaism, within the emerging Christian movement, and within the broader Roman Mediterranean—and attends to the development of Pauline texts and thought over time. Beyond ancient contexts, we engage long histories of Pauline reception and explore varied critical and theological approaches to reading Paul today. Students will study primary texts and practice a wide range of interpretive methods. They will also read selected Pauline scholarship.

NT-5001: New Testament Research Methods: Luke

In this doctoral seminar, students will develop advanced competence in New Testament research methods. We will engage central questions in the study of the Gospels and other early Christian literature through a historical and contextual investigation of the Gospel according to Luke, focusing on key theological and sociocultural themes (economics, ethnicity, empire, discipleship) that resonate from the Roman Mediterranean to the present. Students will  practice a wide range of critical methods to study the Greek text. Throughout the semester, students will hone their skills in persuasive academic writing. The major assessed project of the seminar will be a substantive, article-length seminar paper.

Prerequisites: This course requires intermediate (or higher) knowledge of ancient Greek and a foundation in New Testament studies. The course is designed primarily for ThM, STL, STD, and PhD students. Other students who meet the prerequisites are warmly welcome.

OT-2095: Methods: Pentateuch & Histories

A socio-historical and literary survey of the Pentateuch and Histories with attention to the effects of culture upon both the composition and reception of these writings in faith communities. The course provides a foundation in critical methodologies and in the theory and practice of exegesis. In addition, we will wrestle with pastoral dimensions of our study - i.e. what is the relationship of these biblical criticisms to the kinds of interpretations made of the Bible in pastoral places outside the academy; what kinds of ethical, social, and ideological impact does the Bible and its interpretation have in our world?

RS-2092: Culture, Context And Lived Religion

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the much-discussed (but less often understood) concept of culture and its implications for theological study and pastoral ministry today.  After attending to more theoretical concerns, we will investigate the manner in which a nuanced construal of culture is essential for better understanding such things as secularization, religious change, and the salience of religiosity in shaping people’s perceptions, identities and strategies of action.  By attending to these (and other) topics, students should acquire the theoretical and methodological tools necessary for becoming more sophisticated observers of religion as it is actually lived out as well as for deepening their studies in theology and ministry.

SPHS-2100: Ignatius Of Loyola: From Pilgrim To Companion

This course will trace the life of Ignatius from a solitary pilgrim to companion with others in mission in an apostolic body. After reading a selection of early biographies about him, we will study the ongoing expression of his spirituality in his letters and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. The course aims to be mystagogical in nature, introducing the students into the spiritual dynamics present in the texts, challenging us to make a similar journey from pilgrim to companion and collaborator with others in a synodal Church.

SPPR-2500: Contemplative Ecology

There is a rich tradition in the United States of writing on nature that functions by inviting one into a deeper, contemplative stance of experiencing and relating to the natural world of which we are a part. While some of these authors (Thomas Merton, Denise Levertov) are explicitly and self-professedly Christian, others are not (Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson). Yet even in some of the latter cases, there often is evidence that, minimally, a “biblical imagination” inspires their writing—just as great Christian mystics through the ages had a profoundly biblical imagination, which shaped how they prayed and how they taught. There is, thus, a rich opportunity in the United States for a “contemplative ecology” that is ecumenical, even reaching out to agnostics or the “spiritual but not religious,” while also carrying themes and rhetorical tropes with roots going back to the desert monasticism of late antiquity, and beyond that to the Bible itself. This course is intended as an initial exploration of this terrain. It aims to be integrative in nature, covering works in theology and Christian spirituality, but also from the genres of nature-writing, poetry and film. Besides the authors mentioned above, we will also consider indigenous wisdom, using Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. The course concludes with a close reading of sections of Laudato si’ and Querida Amazonia, enriched by the consideration of resources unearthed earlier in the course, in order to explore a distinctively American, but also Christian, way of receiving and implementing Pope Francis’s vision.

SPST-2550: Spirituality Of The Earth

This course explores a spirituality that asks: What can we learn from the Earth? How can we pray with the Earth? And how can we take co-responsibility with the earth for all her inhabitants? The course assumes that the Earth is a source of spiritual and theological reflection; that the natural world, her biodiversity and ecosystemic interdependence, are sources of learning how to live a holistic spirituality in light of the world and the Gospel. The course will explore issues of water, food, and climate, and will integrate eco-feminist and eco-womanist perspectives. Through critical readings, class discussion, film and first-hand exploration and experimentation, students will be able to articulate and practice an Earth-honoring faith that is ecologically truthful, sacramentally expansive, and ethically responsible.