Culture Courses

Intersectional and dimensional. Because life.

  • Religion is no longer limited...

    …to what goes on within the confines of religious spaces and institutions. It pervades all of society and culture, as new approaches to religion emerge that challenge the very notion of how religion is expressed and experienced.

  • Culture is the new medium...

    ...of the sacred. Traditional notions of religion have been, and continue to be, displaced by the expression of religious and spiritual concerns through art, literature, social media, fashion, virtually anywhere and everywhere.

  • The heart of theological work...

    ...must have a theory of culture at its core. This must be at the center of any and all religious and theological work we do. Examining various aspects of our cultural lives allow us to offer more effective theological responses.

  • Whether it's a personal or communal quest...

    ...we don't just explore culture in order to offer prescriptive responses or critiques. But to mine it for clues about where and how religion is hiding and manifesting in contemporary culture.

Faith in dialog

Below are examples of several of the many culture courses we have done over the last few years. We now run culture courses on a request basis. If you want to know more head to our contact form and send us a message. We would love to hear from you

The Dance of Death

Death is on offer via dead philosophers, music, fashion, literature, poetry, theology, and more. We are talking death in ways you’ve probably not talked about death before. This six-session series is devoted to meditations on death as we have all come face to face with uncertainty, finitude, and mortality in quite confrontative ways. Socrates said that to “philosophize is to learn how to die.” We are jumping into philosophy, theology, and the arts to think about death and find some life in the face of it.

Advent of the Impossible

A three-session course on Advent, both the liturgical season and the essence of Christianity itself. The course explores major themes through the writings and work of three provocative and challenging thinkers. Each of these thinkers will help us grapple with the radical promise of Advent, exposing us to the theological revolution hidden in the folds of familiar stories and nostalgic seasonal observances.

Faith Beyond Illusions

In his landmark book, Civilisaion and Its Disconents, Sigmund Freud said that human life is often hard and difficult to bear and, that in order to survive, we create what he called the ‘palliative measures’ to help us. He had hard critique for religion, declaring it to be illusory and simple wish-fulfillment. This course explores Freud’s palliatives, and his critiques of religion belief and then outlines a different kind of religious belief; one which rejects the comforting illusions that so often define religious belief and instead, faces the reality of existence in all its pain and possibility.

Digital Disruptions

The shift to digitality has so dramatically reframed our world. The emergence of what is often called ‘network culture’ has created a world of complexity and multiple threads of ideas coverage, and religions rests within them all. We must rethink the way religion manifests and recognize that it is inseparable from philosophy and the arts, consumerism, capitalism, and technology itself.

Deconstruction

Deconstruction seems to be the name of the game for many Christians who are transitioning out of traditional Christianity. There are positives and negatives to this modern conversation that pulls back the curtain on dismantling faith paradigms. It tends to be focused on the past, but what do these conversations mean for the future?

A Brief History of Radical Theology:

The call to Radical Theology is a journey into the depth of God, into the dark recesses of the corners of religion and belief. A living God, Thomas Altizer says, offers vitality and direction. A dead god brings weight, disorientation and sometimes even immobilization. How we transform that immobility into new action and move beyond the fragmentation of faith into living practices is the gambit of Radical Theology.

Shame-full

A four-session course that will undertake a unique exploration of sex and sexuality, examining the various elements that contribute to our theological understanding of sex and offers novel ways to think about it. We dig down into the classic challenges surrounding sex and sexuality in Christian theology and culture.

Solitude

A four-session course in isolation, loneliness, and solitude that explores the ways in which a richer understanding of solitude as a way of life can help you and your community interact more deeply in what it means to be human and how to engage solitude after a return from chaos.