Pacific School of Religion

Summer Session 2009 is sponsored by Pacific School of Religion, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, and the Center for the Arts, Religion, and Education at the Graduate Theological Union. For more information, contact Summer Session at 510/849-8268 (toll-free: 800/999-0528, ext. 8268).

Starting July 6
Starting July 13
Starting July 20
Starting July 27
Starting August 3

Starting July 6

FT-1280: Dealing with Conflict in Congregations
Instructor: Speed Leas (sbl[at]att[dot]net)
Date and Time: July 6-10, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: This course has three congregational foci: 1) problem-solving, 2) dealing with difficult individuals, 3) identifying and changing conflict patterns. It will focus on the role of the pastor: his/her conflict styles will be examined and training directed at developing his/her skill in dealing with conflict. Student's work will be evaluated based on insight into his/her own behavior and ability to analyze what is happening in a conflict. Students taking the course for credit will write a paper assessing their ability to do self-assessment in conflict situations or analyzing a conflict and develop strategies to deal with it.
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BS-1135: Biblical Hebrew I (3 week course)
Instructor: Robert Kramish (bkramish[at]sbcglobal[dot]net)
Date and Time: July 6-24, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($990.00)
4 Continuing Education Units ($710.00)
3 semester hours (general $1,272.00; current PLTS/PSR student $1,046.00)
Description: This is the first half of a six-week intensive course in which students will work through an entire first-year Hebrew grammar book, preparing them to enter an Intermediate Hebrew class upon completion of the course. Students who plan to take the entire course should sign up for both parts. By the end of the two-part course, students will have acquired a command of the basic principles of Hebrew phonology, morphology, and syntax. Students will be able to translate the text of the Hebrew Bible with the aid of lexicons and other grammatical resources.
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BSRS-2334: Queering the Bible I: Erotic Knowing and Scripture (CSR Course)
Instructor: Timothy Koch (timothyrkoch[at]aol[dot]com)
Course School Ownership: PSR
Date and Time: July 6-10, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: This course will focus on connecting LGBT sensibilities directly to biblical texts, and constructing matrices of meaning that speak to our individual and shared concerns. A broadly interdisciplinary approach will be employed and warmly welcomed in working toward a paradigm for the use of scriptural texts that is authentically liberative for queers, whether in or out of the academy or in or out of organized religion. Students will engage in reading, thinking, and communicating through discussions and projects aimed at developing their own clarity and competence in this arena. A final project will help to demonstrate proficiency. Students will be expected to bring themselves and their own critical and creative thinking “to the table.” (Students from the GTU schools and beyond are welcome.)
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HSST- 3226: Luther and Calvin on Earthly Life and Eschatology
Instructor: Jane Strohl (jstrohl[at]plts[dot]edu)
Course School Ownership: PLTS
Date and Time: July 6-10, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
For both of these great Reformation theologians, meditation on the future life and disdain for the here and now were essential parts of Christian piety. Yet they both demanded active discipleship of believers to serve one’s neighbors and to secure the welfare of families and communities. Here are some of the questions we will explore together: How did Luther and Calvin make this work? How can one both despair of the world and struggle unceasingly to safeguard, even improve, it? The reformers lived under the pressure of an apocalyptic eschatology. The judgment of God was bearing down upon them and their world. How do we make sense of that aspect of the theological tradition, and how do we carry it into the present day? And if we do not, what effect does that have on other key teachings, like justification, sanctification, and the two reigns of God? Is there a place in our spirituality for a kind of holy melancholy?
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OT-3480: Old Testament Theology (2 week course)
Instructor: Jon L. Berquist (jberquist[at]aol[dot]com)
Date and Time: July 6-17, 2009; 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($660.00)
4 Continuing Education Units ($710.00)
3 semester hours (general $1,272.00; current PLTS/PSR student $1,046.00)
Description: Old Testament Theology attempts to locate key understandings of God and God's activity throughout a variety of Old Testament texts. The literary descriptions of God, the actions attributed to God, and the practices of God's followers and worshippers are thus prime data for this endeavor. There is also a synthetic component to Old Testament theology, which attempts to correlate the various data into coherent overviews. Furthermore, the practice of Old Testament Theology can provide the conditions for dialogue between biblical studies and constructive or systematic theology. This course will explore methods and themes for Old Testament theology, and discuss ways to appropriate theological insights for understanding biblical texts, religious discourse, and the life of faith.
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STFT-2250: Ministry with Latino Neighbors
Instructor: Alicia Vargas (dravargas[at]aol[dot]com)
Date and Time: July 6-10, 2009; 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
Course School Ownership: PLTS
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: Areas of focus will include: Latino theologies, such as mujerista theology; cultural aspects tightly intertwined with Latino/Hispanic spirituality; issues relevant to pastoral care for individuals and communities; and strategies for outreach among the diversity of Latino/Hispanic communities in their diverse sociological contexts in the U.S. The class will make use of theological and ethnographic studies, as well as film and short stories. The students will also have the option of making a site visit during the week, as well as picking up or dusting off some basic Spanish for ministry.
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Starting July 13

FTSP-2410: Leading from Within: Creating Circles of Trust
Instructors: David Hagstrom (dh[at]davidhagstrom[dot]com) and Caryl Casbon (ccasbon[at]bendbroadband[dot]com)
Date and Time: July 13-17, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm, 1:00 pm-5:00pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($660.00)
4 Continuing Education Units ($710.00)
3 semester hours (general $1,272.00; current PLTS/PSR student $1,046.00)
Description: Based on the pioneering work of Dr. Parker Palmer, and drawn from Quaker practices, this course emphasizes the connection between identity and integrity, and aligning soul and role. Integrating theory and practice, we will explore how to develop communities of trust that support us in the midst of the demands of social action and our ministries. Students will practice disciplines that support the rigors of the inner journey, as they also enrich their capacity to listen deeply in community, and maintain nonviolent practices in the face of complexity. There will be opportunities for writing, reflection, small-group interaction, and inclusion of poetry and stories from various wisdom traditions; we also offer an opportunity to practice the countercultural process of the Clearness Committee. Finally, there will be consideration of how these practices may be integrated to enrich the life and vitality of the congregation.
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BSRS-2335: Queering the Bible II: Tools for Justice Making (CSR Course)
Instructor: Timothy Koch (timothyrkoch[at]aol[dot]com)
Date and Time: July 13-17, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; Current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: This course will build on Audre Lorde’s concept of “erotic knowledge” as a queer base from which to use biblical texts (which is central to QUB, part 1), and go beyond methodological questions to the appropriation and application of biblical texts in the pursuit of queer justice-making. A broadly interdisciplinary approach will be employed and warmly welcomed, in deriving, developing, and adapting tools and capabilities, suggested or even modeled in scriptural texts, for liberation. Students will engage in reading, thinking, and communicating through discussions and projects aimed at developing their own clarity and competence in this arena. A final project involve real-life application of what is learned, helping to further develop and demonstrate proficiency. Student will be expected to bring themselves and their own critical and creative thinking “to the table.” Students from the GTU schools and beyond are welcome.
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PS-4721: Pastoral Care of Dying and Grieving
Instructor: Herbert Anderson (handerson[at]plts[dot]edu)
Date and Time: July 13-17, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PLTS
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general--$636.00; current PLTS/PSR student--$523.00)
Description: "The human animal is characterized by two great fears that other animals are protected from: the fear of life and the fear of death." (Ernest Becker) The aim of this course is to enhance our understanding of the process of dying and grieving and to increase our ability to care for those who are dying and grieving. In order to achieve that aim, the course will focus on all the losses of life and the uniquely human fear of death. Special attention will be given to situations of ambiguous loss such as Alzheimer’s or divorce, violent or traumatic death, and the grief that is experienced in job loss or the downturn in the economy.
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HM-4030: Preaching in Our Contemporary Culture
Instructor: Richard Jensen (rajensen[at]frontiernet[dot]net)
Date and Time: July 13-17, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PLTS
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: Preaching can make good use of the films, novels, songs, and other expressions of contemporary culture to effectively reach our parishioners with the biblical message. In this course we will first review the "theologies of culture" of three giants of 20th-century theology: Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, and Paul Tillich. Secondly, we will analyze the "narrative structure" of the Gospel of Mark. Finally, class participants will preach a narrative sermon linking a cultural story to a gospel text appointed for the Markan year.
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SP-1410: Cognition and Prayer
Instructor: Therese DesCamp (descamp@heartsrest.com)
Date and Time: July 13-17, 2009; 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: This course will bring popular texts on brain research and religion into dialogue with the classics of spiritual discipline. It will also bring experience into dialogue with intellectual exploration, as a range of prayer practices will be taught in conjunction with academic concepts. Students will learn basic information about brain configuration and change; why prayer and meditation are central to the pursuit of justice; the difference between materialistic and dualist views of brain and mind, and why this matters; and what may be happening inside our brains during specific prayer practices.
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RS-2514: Where Have All the Coffins Gone?
Instructor: Donna Schaper
Date and Time: July 13-17, 2009; 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: A 21st century overview and training for public ministry. While this course will not clone new Coffins or Moodys or Parks or Kings, it will summarize the skills of public ministry. It will show how the issues of the 21st century (immigration, interfaith necessities, terrorism, and the rise of the religious right) teach new duties. Community organization and public ministry need to "over-communicate" and "spin" strategies; revise street rituals, demonstrations and liturgies; reframe preaching; offer transformed notions of power--and do all of these with a deeper spirituality, one much less "secular" in its approach to both city and globe. "Global" strategies for public ministry will be taught based on and beyond the strategies of the 1960s.
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HR-1640: American Buddhisms: An Experiential Introduction (2 week course)
Instructor: Wakoh Shannon Hickey (sah3[at]duke[dot]edu)
Date and Time: July 13-24 2009; 5:30 pm-9:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($660.00)
4 Continuing Education Units ($710.00)
3 semester hours (general $1,272.00; current PLTS/PSR student $1,046.00)
Description: The United States is home to a tremendous variety of Buddhist traditions. This two-week course will introduce basic Buddhist doctrines and practices, provide a brief historical overview of Buddhism in the U.S., and include visits to Buddhist groups in the Berkeley area. Race dynamics will be an important theme of the course. Students will be asked to make a minimum of five site visits to Buddhist communities during the course--Pure Land, Ch'an, Theravada, Nichiren, Tibetan, and/or Zen--and to write brief reflection papers on them. A final exam will occur in class on the last evening. This course satisfies the PSR MDiv requirement for a course in a faith tradition other than Christianity.
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Starting July 20  

FT-1100: Using New Media Technologies and Web-Based Resources in Worship (Classroom Component)
Instructor: Michael G. Bausch (mgb103[at]hotmail[dot]com)
Date and Time: July 20-24, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: This course will teach worship leaders how to capture attention and present effective worship combining new media devices such as iPods, projectors, digital cameras, and computers, with Internet resources including YouTube, iTunes, and various art, film clip, and preaching resource websites. Participants will learn about using worship-appropriate and inexpensive new media delivery systems; how to build support for the use of screens and visual arts in all varieties of congregations; how to develop team-based worship planning and leadership; where to find music, art, photography, and film resources on the Internet and elsewhere; and ways to theologically reflect about the impact and use of new media in church and global society.
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SP-2988: Writing as Healing Ministry
Instructor: Sharon Bray (sharon[at]wellspringwriters[dot]org)
Date and Time: July 20-24, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: Writing is an art form that belongs to every one of us. It is also a powerful tool for healing. In recent years, a growing body of research shows that the simple act of writing down thoughts and feelings can help people with chronic or serious illness improve their health. But the healing power of writing extends well beyond physical illness. When we suffer pain or loss, writing can help to relieve our burdens, establish perspective, and cope more effectively. Writing helps integrate our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. It can be a kind of prayer—one in which you don't ask for anything, except to know your own experience and to make meaning of it. “Writing as a Healing Ministry” is designed to provide an overview of the field of therapeutic writing and skills training for lay ministers, clergy, and those in healthcare or helping professionals. In this intensive week-long course, we will explore the research on writing and healing and experience different writing methodologies used to help individuals, cancer survivors, veterans, bereavement, low-income women, at-risk youth, senior citizens, and others--heal from pain, suffering, and trauma.
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LS-3140: Queering Liturgy and Music (CSR Course)
Instructors: Jim Mitulski and Bob Crocker (crockermusic[at]aol[dot]com)
Date and Time: July 20-24, 2009; 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: The past forty years has seen the creation of liturgical and musical materials created specifically for LGBT settings, or adapted by LGBT churches, which examine the implication of LGBT identity when it comes to worship, ritual, and secular and religious music used in these settings. This course is an interdisciplinary approach (liberation theologies, history, queer studies, pastoral care, ritual studies, music history and performance to name a few and will consider a wide variety of texts and resources for use in designing worship and sacramental rites (communion, baptism, weddings, funerals, naming ceremonies, healing services, coming-out rites) for LGBT congregations, LBGT gatherings, and settings in which LGBT people or issues are included in a larger group. Students will read critical texts, visit exemplary settings, and design sermons and liturgies for LGBT specific and LGBT-inclusive settings. We will be meeting for five consecutive days. The week will include voluntary field visits to City of Refuge UCC, First UU of Kensington, MCC San Francisco, First Congregational Church of Berkeley, New Spirit Community Church in Berkeley, Congregation Beth El and Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, Glide Memorial Church, Saint Gregory Episcopal Church, the Dignity Mass in San Francisco, and other sites to be chosen.
Mitulski bio / Crocker bio
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Starting July 27 
 

FT-8100: Preaching with Film Clips and Visual Imagery (ONLINE)
Instructor: Michael G. Bausch (mgb103[at]hotmail[dot]com)
Date and Time: July 27-August 22, 2009; Online
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general $636.00; current PLTS/PSR student $523.00)
Description: Preachers and worship leaders are trained in the art of public speaking using written and spoken words to present their message. This course will help worship leaders learn to “show” their message with art, photography, and film/video clips, as well as how to seamlessly integrate these materials into the structure of their presentation. Through online resources, online class discussion, and group presentations, participants will learn how to locate scenes in cinema and Internet video-sharing sites and incorporate them into sermons and liturgies; practice how to skillfully match visual imagery of amateur photography, professional artwork, classical religious art, and computer-generated graphics with the verbal content of sermons and liturgical material. Time will be spent constructing evaluative frameworks that faithfully embrace aesthetics, ethics, justice, and multicultural diversity.
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RA-3700: Creative Writing Workshop
Registration for this course has been closed as the 12-student registration limit has been reached. If you wish to take this course but have not received a confirmation from either Summer Session or Acteva regarding your registration, please e-mail summer@psr.edu to be placed on a waiting list. The waiting list does not guarantee your admission to the course; however, if any of the current registered students either drop the course or lose their registration for other reasons, you will be contacted in order your request was received. In addition, please note that Pat Schneider will be offering her workshop again during January Intersession 2010. (Tuition rates may be different during Intersession, and the limit will also be kept at 12 students in January 2010.)
Instructor: Pat Schneider (pat[at]amherstwriters[dot]com)
Date and Time: July 27-31, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: 1.5 semester hours (general--$636.00; current PLTS/PSR student--$523.00)
Description: The purpose of this workshop is twofold: (1) to enable the artist in each person to become more free, more able to write, and (2) to model a methodology for using writing to create a healing community. There will be an additional, optional session on Wednesday evening, open to the public, for the showing of the 23-minute international award-winning documentary film Tell Me Something I Can't Forget, and a discussion on how to use this workshop method to empower low-income persons and others who are under-served. There are no required readings or papers for this workshop, but prompt attendance at all sessions will be considered a serious responsibility. Pat offers an optional private conference to each workshop participant, including, if desired, response to 7 pages of double-spaced unpublished prose or three poems. Manuscripts should be given to her at the first meeting of the workshop. Pat Schneider, author of nine books, including Writing Alone and With Others (Oxford University Press) and Wake Up Laughing: A Spiritual Autobiography, has pioneered a writing method that has gained international attention, both for its effectiveness in deepening the artistry of the individual writer, and as a way of empowerment for low-income and other under-served populations. www.patschneider.com. Limited to 12 students.
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BS-1136: Biblical Hebrew II (3 week course)
Instructor: Robert Kramish (bkramish[at]sbcglobal[dot]net)
Date and Time: July 27-August 14, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($660.00)
4 Continuing Education Units ($710.00)
3 semester hours (general $1,272.00; current PLTS/PSR student $1,046.00)
Description: This is the second half of a six-week intensive course in which students will work through an entire first-year Hebrew grammar book, preparing them to enter an Intermediate Hebrew class upon completion of the course. Students who plan to take the entire course should sign up for both parts. Students who register for Biblical Hebrew II are expected to have completed Biblical Hebrew I. By the end of the two-part course, students will have acquired a command of the basic principles of Hebrew phonology, morphology, and syntax. Students will be able to translate the text of the Hebrew Bible with the aid of lexicons and other grammatical resources.
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Death, Humility, and Radical Trust: Ernest Becker Revisited
Instructors: Sam Keen and Herbert Anderson (sam@samkeen.com; handerson[at]plts[dot]edu)
Date and Time: July 27-31, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PLTS
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
Description: Ernest Becker may be the most important philosopher of our time for those who are concerned to discover a religious faith that is neither literalistic, naively mythological, or politically fanatical. His analysis of the many ways in which we avoid and deny our mortality and create immortality projects that increase evil is a necessary perspective for the healing of current religion and culture. Becker calls us back to the perennial wisdom that the awareness of death leads to humility, an appreciation of finite, sensual humanness, and radical trust in Divine goodness. Ernest Becker was a "post liberal" thinker who, as a non-practicing Jew, was influenced by Soren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich. This class is particularly for individuals who wish to develop a sturdy faith for tough times.
Keen bio / Anderson bio
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Starting August 3

RSRA-2000: Pop Goes Religion (CSR Course)
Instructor: Richard Lindsay (rlindsay[at]ses[dot]gtu[dot]edu)
Date and Time: August 3-7, 2009; 8:30 am-12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (General--$636.00; current PLTS/PSR student--$523.00)
Description: Popular culture is a constantly evolving organism, and it's impossible to dissect a fixed and definitive body of pop culture. This course will attempt to transcend the limitations of specific and dated examples of religion in popular culture and focus instead on recurring genres, themes, and types that students will be able to use to understand the culture of everyday life. Themes and genres may include: Internet, video games, comics/graphic novels, hip-hop, manga/anime, rock 'n' roll messiahs, apocalypse, cybertheology, New Age talk-show religion (systematic Oprahlogy), kitsch, camp, and queer. (Introductory theology and biblical exegesis will be helpful.)
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Catalyzing Creative Leadership for the Emerging Church
Instructor: Gerardo Marti, PhD
Date and Time: August 3-7, 2009; 8:30 am -12:30 pm
Course School Ownership: PSR
Units: Audit ($330.00)
2 Continuing Education Units ($355.00)
1.5 semester hours (general--$636.00; current PLTS/PSR student--$523.00)
Description: This course explores the relationships between culture and the emerging church and the implications of these relationships for effective spiritual leadership. In addition to references to church history and biblical scriptures, the course continually connects societal arrangements with contemporary innovation and experimentation in congregational beliefs and practices. By incorporating scholarship rooted in a sociological perspective, the course also looks more generally to the ongoing changes and negotiations that the Christian Church always makes in relation to the broader world.
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We reserve the right to change course descriptions, instructors, dates and hours of instruction, meeting places, and prices. In the event of a conflict between printed material and information on this Web site, the information on this Web site takes precedence. Courses that have been cancelled due to low enrollment may be absent from this list. Please contact the Summer Session Office for any questions regarding cancelled courses.