Courses
Considering Power, Relationship and the Art of Becoming As Adults Mutually Influence One Another
This four-session course proposes that constructive work grounded in process theology can provide support during the adventure of the launching young adults. Together we will explore an understanding of God that can aid those who are navigating this challenging time.
Rethinking Process Theology and Religious Pluralism Through the Lens of Divine Omnipresence
In this hybrid five-session course, we will explore the question of religious pluralism and consider what difference a process understanding of divine omnipresence and the centrality of compassion in all major religions can make to how one develops a Christian theology.
Exploring the Cosmic Collaborations and Creative Transformations
Through a process lens, Keller’s On the Mystery tracks paths of open-ended interactivity—creaturely and divine. Together we’ll unpack the interactive and public theology enlivening Keller’s work.
Thinking About How We Think About Economics
This course provides an overview of modern economic theory and a process-relational critique of that theory. Topics will include the assumed need for economic expansion (“growthism”), globalization, localism, development without growth, and individuals-in-community.
Introducing World Religions through a Process-Relational Lens
Over the course of six sessions, students will be introduced to several world religions (or ways of thinking and living) through a lens of process-relational thought. Each week will be devoted to a different tradition with several visiting teachers bringing their own expertise to the discussion.
Exploring Core Christian Doctrines and Themes from a Process Perspective
This course provides a basic introduction to key ideas in process thought, specifically as they are applicable to Christian theological categories. Topics will include major doctrines and encourage students’ own participation in the ongoing process of reconstructing major doctrines, ideas, and issues through the lens of process theology, with practical applications to ministry.
Diving Deeper Into Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism
While “process philosophy” is wider than the work of Alfred North Whitehead, the depth and dynamism of his thought principally inspire its modern expression. This five-part course introduces students and life-long learners to the central themes, contours, and ideas of Whitehead’s “philosophy of organism.”
Entering the Horizon of Process Ways of Understanding and Living
This four-session course introduces students to key ideas in process thought such as process, interconnectedness, the intrinsic value of life, novelty, creativity, relational power, the primacy of particularity, the realm of pure potentiality, divine relativity, and trust in the availability of fresh possibilities.
A Six-Week Exploration of Christianity & Process Theology
In this six-week course, John Cobb will elucidate six of the themes in Christianity and process theology that he considers vital to his faith. Each session will include a mini-lecture by John, a conversation between John and Tripp, and responses to questions submitted by class participants.
How can poetry vivify and deepen our understanding of Whitehead’s Process and Reality?
This is the third in series of three four-week courses taught by Christina Hutchins. The “vivid suggestiveness of the poets” can deepen our engagement with process concepts that have been well-developed yet also limited by conventional theological or philosophical thought. In this class, we will use poetry to animate felt understandings of several of Whitehead’s key ideas.
Explore the Act of Creation Through Creating in Vivid Language
This is the second in series of three four-week courses taught by Christina Hutchins. Writing a poem, for the first or thousandth time, is an adventure into new constellations of feelings, thoughts, and experience, and writing a poem also opens fresh insights into the creative process itself. With gentle guidance and process insights, participants in this class, will do both.
Explore Reading and the Transformative Power of Poetry
This is the first in a series of three four-week courses taught by award-winning poet Christina Hutchins. Participants will carefully consider the following question: How can the process of a poem not only facilitate the widening of our existence but also enact an experience while simultaneously reflecting on it?
Connecting the Insights of Transcendentalism and Process Thought
In this four-week course, Dr. Terry Goddard will facilitate a reading and discussion of four of Loren Eiseley’s essays, focusing especially on his view of process thought as it relates to nature.
Considering the Possibility of Dreams as Natural and Healing Mystical Encounters with the Divine
In this six-session course, Dr. Sheri D. Kling will draw from the ideas of psychologist Carl Gustav Jung and mathematician-philosopher Alfred North Whitehead as well as recent brain science to guide participants through an exploration into the dreaming body-mind and religious experience.
Six Sessions Exploring Whitehead, Jung, and Why We Need Them Now
In this six-session course, Dr. Sheri D. Kling will guide students through the deep resonances between the philosophy of organism of Alfred North Whitehead and analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung to show what these two great thinkers have in common and why we need them now more than ever.
Examining Process Theology Through the Eyes of Beauty
In this four-session course, Patricia Adams Farmer will elucidate a Whiteheadian-inspired theology of beauty with a view to deepening understanding, enriching spirituality, encouraging an ecological vision, and nurturing hope.
Four Sessions Exploring a Variety of Ways In Which “God is Being Reborn”
In this four-week course, the Reverend Al Gephart invites participants to respond to the ways that John Philip Newell perceives concepts of God in the Christian community undergoing a seismic shift, reorientation, and rebirth.
Three Sessions Exploring the Impulse to Find Meaning in Suffering and Seeking Healthy Alternatives
In this three-week mini-course Dr. Bob Mesle will examine the human impulse to find meaning in suffering, explore the ways in which people with good intentions often offer comforts which can lead to an unhealthy denial of life’s problems, and consider more healthy alternatives.
Six Sessions Covering the Core Concepts in Whitehead's Magnum Opus
In this six-week course Jay McDaniel will guide students through important passages in Process and Reality, and, along with way, give everyone a basic understanding of sixteen key ideas. Each week he will invite participants to turn to particular passages and offer his understanding of their meaning, followed by open discussion.
A Six-Session Course Introducing
Alfred North Whitehead’s PROCESS AND REALITY
In these lectures John Cobb will provide an introduction to one of the most compelling and challenging philosophical texts of the Twentieth Century. Process and Reality is a notoriously difficult text, but the goal of this course is to enable students to not only skim the surface but probe its deeper dimensions in a way that's accessible to anyone.
Healthy Future or Planetary Catastrophe? Might Process Philosophy Help?
In this course Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr. presents a series of ten lectures that critically examine our current condition and constructively propose an alternative for the future, informed primarily by the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Students will have the opportunity to interact with and learn from one of the world's foremost experts in process thought, and together think through some of humanity's greatest challenges.