Christianity and Culture. Ethics and Society
ES501. Christian Ethics
Fall and Spring.Credit, three hours. (Bounds, Jackson, Marshall)
The nature and foundations of Christian ethics and the meaning of Christian responsibility as related to concrete social issues.
ES560. Principles and Practices of Moral Leadership
Credit, three hours. (Franklin) (Same as LA560.)
This course is intended to be a foundational class for the Laney Legacy Program in Moral Leadership and open to students throughout the university and offered annually. Through lectures, seminar discussions, guest presentations and student presentations, we will attempt to understand how some people are able through their modes of being and acting to elevate and transform others and produce desired outcomes.
ES585. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Rights
Credit, three hours. (Evans, Davis, Queen)
This graduate seminar examines the theory and practice of global human rights from an interdisciplinary perspective. In addition to issues of the history, origins and legitimacy of universal human rights, the seminar will discuss standards, institutions and processes of implementation. The seminar will also examine human rights across a variety of substantive issues areas, including; conflict, development, globalization, social welfare, religion, race and ethnicity, medicine, public health, and rights of women and other vulnerable groups. Evaluation will be based on seminar participation, discussion leadership, an analytical essay, a survey paper and major research paper. Students will also make brief presentations of their final papers.
ES605. Social Philosophy and Christian Thought
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
Introduction to social and ethical thought of major philosophers in the Western tradition, with emphasis on the historical and critical relationship of these philosophers to Christian thought.
ES609. Theology of Social Ministry
Credit, three hours. (Bounds) (Same as M619.)
The purpose of this course is to critically and faithfully engage the social witness of the church as an integral form of the mission of the church in the world. Students will analyze theological foundations for social witness, develop strategies for identifying and articulating that witness in the local church, and reflect upon a personal theology of social ministry.
ES610. Religion, Ethics, and Public Intellectuals
Credit, three hours. (Franklin)
This course will examine the moral rhetoric and impact of leaders and intellectuals who have addressed the human condition from religious and ethical perspectives in the public sphere. Readings, lectures, and discussion will be organized around critical periods of American life, when public leaders and intellectuals utilized religious and ethical resources and discourse to shape national debates, direction, and policy. Designed as a core course in the Laney Legacy Program in Moral Leadership.
ES615. John Wesley’s Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
A critical exposition of John Wesley’s theological, social, and personal ethics in relation to Wesley’s historical context and the history of social and moral philosophy, including Christian social thought.
ES618. Ethics of Aquinas
Credit, three hours. (P. Reynolds) (Same as HC618.)
Thomas’s treatment of the foundations of ethics, including topics such as human action, free will, the passions, habits, vice and virtue, and law, as explained in his Summa theologiae. Teaching involves lectures, seminars, and close reading of primary texts.
ES620. Black Theology and Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Erskine) (Same as ST620.)
The contributions of some of the leading theologians will be considered placing their work in conversation with more recent contributors, in particular womanist theologians. In light of discussion of theological themes in black and womanist theologies, we will identify critical and ethical issues that come to the fore.
ES621. Christian Sexual Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
A study of Christian reflection on sexual ethics. Attention will be given to the embodied nature of the human person, the notions of sin and grace, sexual difference, and topics such as the AIDS epidemic and sexual violence.
ES624. Feminist and Womanist Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
A study of those contemporary voices in Christian ethics making critical claims on the behalf of the well-being of women. Topics may include: the challenge of difference (racial, economic, sexual), violence against women, family roles, reproductive technologies, women and children in poverty, ecofeminism. (Race, Ethnicity, and Gender)
ES625. Sexuality in the Black Church
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
This course explores the intersecting themes of African American spirituality, sexuality, love, and life. Specific attention is given to the dynamic and intricate relationships that obtain between gender, sex, and sexuality and the institutional black church as a principal custodian of constructive and repressive cultural values in African America. (Race, Ethnicity, and Gender)
ES628. Religion, Ethics, and Civil Rights
Credit, three hours. (Franklin)
The modern civil rights movement was initiated by church women, ministers, and students in strategic partnership with national organizations (NAACP and labor), interfaith coalitions, and political elites. The course investigates the role of religion (ritual, myth, song, and other practices) and ethics (moral argument, leadership, analysis, and vision) as they became forces for social transformation. Special attention will be given to how religious agents (congregations, leaders, and laity) interacted with the media to frame their movement as a moral drama that became a model for other rights-based social movements.
ES630. Kierkegaard as Religious Ethicist
Credit, three hours. (Jackson)
An examination of a broad spectrum of Kierkegaard’s aesthetic, ethical, and religious writings with a focus on the relationship between his theological convictions and his moral teachings. Reading will include both pseudonymous texts and works published under Kierkegaard’s own name. (letter grade only)
ES632. Pastoral Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Burkholder)
Prepares students for the ethical challenges they will face as pastors and leaders in congregations, communities, and denominations. The course is designed to address the complex reality of the minister as one who is looked to for public moral leadership and private moral guidance; and then as one who regularly faces a wide array of moral dilemmas of one’s own. (ES632CEE when offered as a Contextual Education elective)
ES635. Contemporary Christian Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
This course explores current topics and contemporary scholars in the field of Christian ethics. ES501 or equivalent is required.
ES637. Problems in Aid and Development
Credit, three hours. (Bounds)
This course engages ethical challenges surrounding global aid and development assistance. We will consider both Christian participation through local, regional, and global organizations and Christian theoethical perspectives on practices/politics of aid and development. Depending on student interest, topical foci may include economic development, HIV/AIDs, health care, human rights, conflict, gender status, racial/ethnic division, and engagement with non-Christian religions. Particular attention will be paid to differing “north/south” perspectives on the politics of aid.
ES641. Christology and Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Erskine) (Same as ST641.)
This course investigates the relationship between Jesus Christ and the moral life. Two foci will be preeminent: (a) to isolate and clarify the fundamental principles of the Christian life and (b) to discern and interpret how the Christian community needs to make moral judgments in the light of its faith claims and religious convictions. (ES/ ST641CEE when offered as a Contextual Education elective)
ES649. Psychology of Moral Development and Education
Credit, three hours. (Snarey) (Same as RP649, RE649, EDU771v.)
A fundamental dimension of being human is the inevitable necessity of making moral judgments. Promoting the ability to make mature moral judgments is a core component of pastoral leadership and religious education. This course considers moral development as evidenced in the formulation and resolution of ethical dilemmas during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The course also places moral psychology in relation to gender, race, ethnic, and cultural differences. A major segment of the course will focus on the practice of moral education through a variety of pedagogical methods.
ES651. Biomedical Ethics
Credit, three hours. (Jackson)
A critical evaluation of some of the ethical problems and assumptions in medicine and biomedical research. Specific topics include artificial contraception and reproduction, abortion, euthanasia, informed consent, paternalism, confidentiality, allocation of scarce resources, limits on research protocols, and conflict of interest. In addition, the medical, nursing, and chaplaincy professions are used as lenses through which to look at the value of life and the meaning—if any—of suffering and death, the nature of personal integrity, and the place of authority in a lib158 eral society. (letter grade only) (ES651CEE when offered as a Contextual Education elective)
ES652. Health Care Ethics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Credit, three hours. (Jackson)
An interdisciplinary approach to health care ethics, open to students from various Emory schools. The course explores virtues and values internal to the professions of nursing, medicine, and ministry. Specific topics covered include: contraception and reproduction, abortion, euthanasia, informed consent, and conflict of interest.
ES654. Health as Social Justice
Credit, two hours. (Kiser)
This course will examine the multiplicity of social justice factors that affect health as well as community systems and social change approaches that may favorably alter them.
ES656. Religion, Science, and Morality
Credit, three hours. (Jackson)
This course examines how three revolutionary empirical theories (Darwinian evolution, quantum mechanics, and Big Bang cosmology) bear on three traditional theological virtues (faith, hope, and love). Part I addresses the general relation between religion and science; Part II evolutionary biology and the key issue of altruism; Part III quantum uncertainty and its relation to freedom of action; and Part IV the latest developments in astrophysics and how these touch on the metaphysics of faith and morals. (letter grade only)
ES658. Christianity and the Holocaust
Credit, three hours. (Jackson)
This course engages students in a critical analysis of the Nazi Holocaust and the role of Christians and Christianity within it. After a brief examination of the historical background, we will focus on a range of theological and ethical issues surrounding Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and the execution of “the Final Solution.” Readings are from Jewish, Christian, and nonreligious sources. (There is no prerequisite, but ES501 is recommended.) (letter grade only)
ES660. Moral Perspectives in the Black Church
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
This course focuses on evolution and contemporary contours of African American culture and black churches of the United States, particularly the plurality of African American Christian experience. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the course explores why and how black culture and religion have come to assume their present character and where the black church and community should go from here. (Race, Ethnicity, and Gender) (letter grade only)
ES661. Christianity and Politics
Credit, three hours. (Bounds, Franklin)
This course considers how and in what ways Christian social ethics has supported or distanced itself from democratic practices, with attention to whether the practices of Christian institutions can be related to the textual claims.
ES663. Religion, Violence and Peacebuilding
Credit, three hours. (Marshall)
This course will focus on the paradoxical ways religions can promote exclusion, hostility, and violence as well as tolerance, understanding, and peace. (ES663CEE when offered as a Contextual Education elective)
ES669. Theology of Ethics and Reconciliation
Credit, three hours. (Bounds)
A study of current Christian writing and involvement in reconciliation forgiveness and conflict transformation.
ES671. Skills in Conflict Transformation I
Credit, one hour. (Faculty)
Introduces basic concepts and practices including understanding violence, nonviolent communication, listening, paraphrasing, and basic facilitation.
ES672. Skills in Conflict Transformation II
Credit, two hours. Prerequisite: ES671. (Faculty)
Continued work in concepts and practices of conflict transformation.
ES673. Voices of Nonviolence
Credit, three hours. (Marshall)
An introduction to the theory and practice of nonviolence by studying the life and work of individuals who purposefully employ(ed) nonviolent approaches to social change. A range of individuals are studied in a variety of historical and cultural contexts, including Leo Tolstoy, Dorothy Day, and Thich Nhat Hanh.
ES674. Approaches to Criminal Justice Ministry
Credit, three hours. (Faculty) (Same as PT674.)
This course examines the historical, social, psychological, and theological implications of crime, punishment, and incarceration in America. Through discussion of the readings, lectures, field-based experiences, and guest speakers, students will explore the multifarious dimensions of the prison industrial complex as well as their own attitudes and biases toward incarcerated persons. Throughout the course learners investigate both the strengths and limitations of current approaches to incarceration, while also acquiring knowledge and skills to employ change in their own context. Students are encouraged to reflect on how they might use the learning from the class to impact and enact restorative care in communities, congregations, policies, families, and other diverse contexts affected by the criminal justice system.
ES675. Restorative Justice
Credit, three hours. (Bounds)
This course serves as an introduction to restorative justice (RJ), a concept and set of practices that has become more visible in the past decades. After exploring the roots of violence, this course engages Christian understandings of RJ, and also attends to contemporary work in indigenous religions. Attention will be given to examples of RJ in practice: in criminal justice, in US Christian ministries, in relation to violence and incarceration, and in political engagement of global Christian-based groups and institutions.
ES678. The Morality of Peace and War
Credit, three hours. (Jackson)
This course investigates some of the moral, political, economic, and theological issues surrounding conflict and conflict resolution in a nuclear age. Topics include the nature of war and peace, their theory and practice, the just war tradition and pacifism, deterrence theory, technology and modern warfare, and the relation of women to peace and war. Readings are both religious and secular. (letter grade only)
ES679R. Colloquy Leadership
Credit, two hours.
Offered each semester by invitation of the instructors of ES501. Does not fulfill area requirements.
ES680. Law and Religion: Theories, Methods, and Approaches
Credit, three hours. (Faculty) (Concurrently listed from Emory Law)
In this course, students will survey the interdisciplinary field of law and religion. The course will begin by discussing the nature of the field known as law and religion. The course will then cover different substantive areas and methodological approaches by reading, analyzing, and critiquing examples of law and religion scholarship from leading scholars. Students will be asked to think about the choices that scholars make: What is the relationship of law and religion? What does the scholar draw on as evidence for her argument? How does the scholar construct his argument? How does the scholar think about law and about religion?
ES682. Jewish Law
Credit, three hours. (Faculty)
(Same as WR682. Usually concurrently listed from Emory Law.)
This course will survey the principles Jewish (or Talmudic) law uses to address difficult legal issues and will compare these principles to those that guide legal discussion in America. In particular, this course will focus on issues raised by advances in medical technology such as surrogate motherhood, artificial insemination, and organ transplant. Through discussion of these difficult topics many areas of Jewish law will be surveyed.
ES683. History of Church-State Relations in the West
Credit, three hours. (Witte) (Concurrently listed from Emory Law.)
An exploration of the interaction between religious and political authorities and laws in the Roman Empire, in High Medieval and Reformation Europe, and in colonial and early republican America, concluding with analysis of the formation of the First Amendment and state constitutional guarantees of religious freedom.
ES684. First Amendment: Religious Liberty
Credit, three hours. (Witte) (Concurrently listed from Emory Law.)
This course will explore questions arising under the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment as well as religion clauses in representative state constitutions and their colonial antecedents. Consideration will be given to cases concerning religious speech, worship and symbolism in the public square, the public school, and the workplace; government support for, and protection of religious education in public and private schools; tax exemption of religious institutions and properties; treatment of religious claims of Native Americans and various religious minorities; exercise of and limitations on religious law and discipline, control and disposition of religious property; and other issues.
ES685. History of Canon Law
Credit, three hours. (P. Reynolds) (Same as HT685. Concurrently listed from Emory Law.)
An historical introduction to canon law, its sources, its methodology, its juridical procedures, and its influence, with special emphasis on the development of canon law from Gratian (died ca. 1140) to the promulgation of the comprehensive collection of canon law under Pope Gregory XIII in 1580. Topics include: episcopal jurisdiction and its evolution; church councils as sources of law; the early-medieval canonical collections; the emergence of the scientific study of canon law during the central Middle Ages; the development of the legal profession; records of actual cases from episcopal courts; Gratian and the decretists; decretals, decretal collections, and the jurisprudential use of decretals; the evolution of the ius commune; and the lasting influence of canonical ideas and procedures, many of which have survived in modern law (including concepts of justice and equity, rights, due process, natural law, the common good, and so forth, as well as evidential practices.
ES687. Jurisprudence
Credit, three hours. (Terrell) (Concurrently listed from Emory Law.)
This lecture/discussion course will explore some of the major historical tendencies in ethical and political philosophy. We will then trace these ideas as they have been worked out in Anglo American jurisprudence and contemporary continental thought. The aim of the course is to provide the theoretical foundations necessary for conducting concrete critical, ethical and political analysis of law and institutions.
ES691. History of Law, Religion, and Family in the West
Credit, three hours. (Witte) (Concurrently listed from Emory Law.)
An exploration of the law and theology of marriage in classical, biblical, and patristic sources, in High Medieval and Reformation Europe, and during and after the Western Enlightenment movements in Europe and America.
ES692. Law and Morality
Credit, three hours. (Perry) (Concurrently listed from Emory Law.)
A study of several topics at the intersection of law, morality, and religion, including these: What is the morality of human rights—and what is its relationship to the law of human rights? Is religion a legitimate basis of lawmaking in a liberal democratic society? Should capital punishment be abolished? Should abortion be banned? Should samesex marriage be recognized?
ES695. Religion, Culture, Law in Comparative Practice
Credit hours, three. (Ludsin) (Concurrently listed from Emory Law)
Debates rage worldwide over what role religion & culture should play in law & governance & whether granting them a role conflicts with democratic principles. This course will explore the issues that arise in the debates about the appropriate role for religion and culture in democratic governance. It will examine different models for incorporating religion & culture into law as well as at models that wholly reject this incorporation using case studies from the US, Europe, Asia, & Africa.
ES697. Moral Leadership in Context: Travel Seminar
Credit, three hours. (Franklin)
Through required prereading, lectures, field visits with local moral leaders, seminar discussions and guest presentations participants in this international travel seminar will attempt to understand how some people are able through their modes of being and acting to elevate and transform others and produce desired outcomes. We begin with the proposition that moral leaders are women and men who act with imagination and integrity for the common good. This includes clergy and many other vocations and leadership roles. We will explore how leaders with integrity, imagination, courage and virtue come into being in the context to which travel, what moral leaders there do habitually and skillfully, and the outcomes they intend, enable and achieve. We will also investigate what leaders in the travel seminar context can teach and model for Western leaders and communities.
ES698. Special Topics in Ethics and Society
Credit, variable. (Faculty)
Special topic or one-time offering courses led by Candler regular and visiting faculty. Prerequisites may be required and are noted on the course schedule when applicable.
