Master of Arts in Christianity & Culture Degree Plan

Program Overview

In the MAC&C degree program, you will be part of a cohort of students that will progress through the program together, allowing you to form meaningful relationships with your online classmates. Each course is just eight weeks, allowing you to focus on the subject material for just one class at a time. As you finish one course, the next will begin. All twelve courses will be completed in two years.

Courses for the Master of Arts in Christianity and Culture (MAC&C) degree fall under two categories: Foundations and Electives. Foundational courses are taken by all students as they progress through the degree program, while electives are chosen to fit your particular interests. The MAC&C degree consists of nine foundational courses and three electives.

I. FOUNDATIONS (27 credit hours)

• Intro to Biblical and Theological Research
• History of the Bible and Its Interpretation
• Reading the Bible: Assumptions, Traditions, and Methods
• Intro to Old Testament Theologies
• Intro to New Testament Theologies
• Cultural Anthropology
• Secularization and Christianity
• Contemporary Theology
• Capstone

II. ELECTIVES (9 credit hours)

• Bible and Classical Literature
• Christianity and the Arts
• Sacred Places and Spaces
• Reading the Bible After the Shoah (Holocaust)
• Science, Culture, and Christianity
• Christian Evidences for Ministry
• The Cultures of Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity
• Roman Caesars vs. Christian Lord
• Kingdom of God: Core Values of Jesus and the Early Church

Course Descriptions

Foundation Classes (9 classes -- 27 credit hours)

• Intro to Biblical and Theological Research
  This course is designed to prepare learners for graduate-level biblical and theological studies by developing them as critical thinkers, careful readers, effective researchers, skillful writers and compelling presenters. It also provides the student with an opportunity to become acquainted with the content of the biblical text and to demonstrate knowledge of the text through examination.
  
  
• History of the Bible and Its Interpretation
  This course introduces students to the composition of the Bible and its various uses throughout history. Key questions to be addressed include: What do we know of the authors of the biblical books and their backgrounds? How were certain books selected for inclusion in the Bible, while others were excluded? How were the texts of scripture preserved and transmitted over the centuries? What do different people mean when they talk about the Bible in terms such as “Word of God,” “inspired,” “authoritative”? How far back do such treatments of biblical texts go, and what other meaningful lenses are there through which to approach these texts?
  
  
• Reading the Bible: Assumptions, Traditions, and Methods
  A study of the various interpretive strategies that are employed to interpret the Bible. The course is designed to lead the student into a better understanding of the assumptions that they bring to reading Scripture and seeking meaning/significance from it.
  
  
• Intro to Old Testament Theologies
  Through the interplay of narratives, poetry, prophecy, wisdom, parables and proverbs, the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible comprises a rich conversation that explores the dynamic tensions inherent in the covenantal human-divine relationship. This course explores the nature of God, the nature of humanity and the dynamics of the human-divine relationship with the end of examining the timeless message of God's presence and how God desires that we be in the world. This course explores the foundations of what it means to be faithful in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: an active response to a life of trust in God and service to others in this present life.
  
  
• Intro to New Testament Theologies
  This course introduces students to the history and practice of New Testament Theology, its methodological strengths and weakness, and its relationship to other theological disciplines (especially grammatical-historical approach, Dogmatic Theology, Systematic Theology and Homiletics). Students will learn how 1st century A.D. Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures shaped and gave expression to the theologies discernible in the New Testament and be lead to critically evaluate how contemporary culture attempts to interact constructively with the theology of the New Testament.
  
  
• Cultural Anthropology
  This course is designed to enhance students’ Cultural Intelligence, their capacity to interact effectively with people from cultural backgrounds different from their own. It will do this by examining several basic cross-cultural variables from an anthropological perspective.

• Secularization and Christianity
  Secularization and Christianity will introduce students to the history and theories of secularization: the sociological process whereby societies break the connections between many of the social institutions that religion helped shape, and the religion that shaped them. Students will engage with some of the key secularizing and anti-secularization writings, especially from the time of the Reformation and Enlightenment through today. Students will engage with modern Christian responses to secularization.

• Contemporary Theology
  This course acquaints students with secular and religious thought that impacts contemporary life. The course gives attention to such areas as secular humanism, liberation theology, authoritarian religions, Eastern religions, cults, fundamentalism and liberalism. Issues will be studied in light of biblical teachings.
  
  
• Capstone

Elective Classes (Choose 3 classes -- 9 credit hours)

• Bible and Classical Literature
  A study of major texts taken from the Bible and from the literature of other ancient civilizations (Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman). Students study the similarities of theme and genre found among these texts, and analyze the variety of responses they offer to our human condition and needs.

• Christianity and the Arts
  Appreciating that which is beautiful in the world moves us closer to seeing the magnificence of God as “creator,” as “artist.” Art is transcendent and lifts our eyes over the horizon of the ordinary and the mundane and points us to what is possible, enduring and eternal. The artist as creator brings something of his or her unique being and perspective to the world, time and place in which they live. This course explores the engagement of art in any form as a means to perceive the nature of God and God's work in the world, and responses to the human condition. The course explores how biblically or theologically themed art has shaped theological thinking and biblical interpretations and conversely how we may learn to evaluate the messages of art theologically.
  
  
• Reading the Bible After the Shoah (Holocaust)
  Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah explores the question: “What difference does it make to read the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in the wake of the Shoah.” Reading after the Shoah faces history and faces the capabilities of human beings to act with intolerance and violence towards one another in genocides in the modern world: The Stalin Purges, The Rwandan Genocide, the Cultural Revolution in China, the Armenian Genocide, Protestant/Catholic conflicts, American Slavery as well as contemporary systems that foster bigotry, hatred and disregard for basic human rights. Reading after the Shoah explores how biblical texts speak to the human dignity of each person made in the image of God and how as the people of God we are called to bear witness to the suffering of others and serve them as it is within our influence and ability.

• Science, Culture, and Christianity
  This course will introduce students to the history and theories of the relationship between modern science and Christian faith. Students will engage with some key writings about the nature of science and the nature of scripture. Students will become familiar with some important ways of understanding the relationship between science and Christianity.

• Christian Evidences for Ministry
  In Christian Evidences for Ministry students will master several of the key arguments for the existence of God and the Christian faith. They will also work through some of the key objections to faith, and some effective ways to respond to those objections.
  
  
• The Cultures of Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity
  This course will examine the various cultures that are operating during the period often called Second Temple Judaism (586 B.C.- 70 A.D.) and how knowledge of this cultural background helps to shape interpretation of the teachings of Jesus and the writings of the New Testament. Special attention will be given to the major themes of the Jewish attempts to reconstruct a religious, cultural identity in the context of Hellenistic and Roman cultures and how Jesus and New Testament authors expressed their faith alongside the diversity of first-century Judaism and Greco-Roman cultures.
  
• Kingdom of God: Core Values of Jesus and the Early Church A study of the socio-cultural values, both assumed and explicitly espoused, of the first-century Greco-Roman world, of Jesus, and of the early church.