Contemporary theology students are preparing for ministry in a religious world greatly changed from previous decades. Emerging ministry professionals are being called to serve people who are often loosely or even non-religiously affiliated, although they may show up for services, and spiritual leaders themselves are breaking out of traditional molds. Formation in spiritual care and leadership for those who reside along a spectrum of affiliation is necessary in what is being called a post-secular age.

This course offers an analysis of the contemporary religious reality, a constructive dialogue between representatives of a traditional Christian spirituality and post-secular spiritual expressions, reflective exercises, and examples of how practicing ministers have negotiated the trajectory beyond denominational structures. Exploration of the themes of evolving understandings of authority (what is important to people, and to whom they are accountable) and community (what connects people with transcendence and with others), are points of contention future spiritual leaders are likely to encounter in their work.

Ammerman, Nancy. (2013) Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life. Oxford University Press. ISBN-10: 0199917361 ISBN-13: 978-0199917365

Be sure to check Taylor Collection @ Iliff, University of Denver collections, and Prospector Union Catalog for access to this text. If you decide to purchase this item, some suggested sellers/renters are Scribd, AbeBooks, Amazon, and Google Books.

2 Credit Class Expectations: A 2 credit class signifies 4 hours outside of class and two hours in class; approximately 6 hours per week. For this online course, reading will be kept to 50 pages or less per week, and class discussions, papers and activities will take up 3-4 hours beyond that. Weekly responses to reading and discussion prompts will be due on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Course Requirements:
Reading and Participation in Online Group Conversations- (60% of grade)

Based upon: contributions to collaborative learning; timeliness of reading and small group discussions; degree of progress over the quarter; and evident effort. Your preparation for and participation in the small group online interactions is essential to the learning of your colleagues, as well as your own.

For these discussions to be meaningful conversation spaces, we all need to take responsibility for consistent and substantial participation. Discussions will be graded based on the degree to which you substantially engage in the conversation each week. For more specifics on "substantial engagement," see Guidelines for Discussion Engagement.

Portfolio- (40% of grade)
All portfolio assignments are due June 2, however you may submit the three short papers when it is convenient for you, and as your learning informs them. Try to space them out over the quarter so you are not overwhelmed at the end. A rubric is provided with each assignment. See below for full details of your portfolio options.

What is a portfolio?
Portfolios invite you to ‘do’ learning as well as read and study ideas. They assume that you are a self-motivated and exploring learner monitoring your own process and engaging class materials and issues analytically, reflectively, and constructively. They allow you to pace your own learning and production around the demands of other classes. They are a particularly useful learning form when you are entering a new practice or discipline of study.

There are many ways of using a portfolio as a representation of your work and the process of your learning. However you decide to organize the portfolio, it should be a documented collection of the development of your work over the quarter including analytic, reflective, integrative, and synthetic materials. The portfolio is also an opportunity to demonstrate your ongoing engagement with the course texts and concepts, so be sure to connect your own learning with these materials.

Portfolios allow students to carefully attend to and develop their own learning. They increase the emphasis on learning processes, noting and analyzing them and evaluating them as they evolve. They make it easier to rewrite, rethink, plan, and revise through self-generated attention and encouragement in partnership with instructors and classmates. Undertake short projects and reflections. Then be willing to go back, mull some more, polish, and push yourself in your thinking.

What should be in my portfolio?
Each portfolio will be unique to the learner who creates it. It should be an expression of the work you have done during the quarter with the subject before us. Each portfolio should contain:

One entry (3-4 pages) from the Theoretical Analysis category
One entry (3-4 pages) from the Constructive Thought and/or Practical Applications category
One entry (3-4 pages) from the Mediated Expressions and Understandings of Spirituality category

The portfolio should demonstrate in-depth conversation with multiple course readings and conversations.

How will my portfolio be evaluated?
I will provide feedback and a grade for each piece of your portfolio as it is uploaded to our Canvas site. Each category of entry has a rubric associated with it which you are able to view on Canvas.

Ammerman, Nancy. Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2013.

Armstrong, Karen. The Case for God. New York: Anchor, 2010.

Barbour, John D. Versions of Deconversion: Autobiography and the Loss of Faith. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1994.

Bass, Diana Butler. Christianity after Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. Reprint edition. HarperOne, 2012.

Bass, Dorothy, Kathleen Cahalan, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Christian Batalden Scharen, and James Nieman. Christian Practical Wisdom: What It Is, Why It Matters. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016.

Beaudoin, Tom. Witness to Dispossession: The Vocation of a Postmodern Theologian. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2008.

Bender, Courtney, Wendy Cadge, Peggy Levitt, and David Smilde. Religion on the Edge: De-Centering and Re-Centering the Sociology of Religion. 1 edition. Oxford University Press, 2012.

Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Reprint edition. New York: Anchor, 1990.

Bregman, Lucy. The Ecology of Spirituality. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014.

Cady, Linell E. Religion, Theology, and American Public Life. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Cady, Linell E., and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, eds. Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age. Reprint edition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Carrette, J., and Richard King. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Chidester, David. Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005.

Clark, Lynn Schofield. From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Cox, Harvey. The Future of Faith. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2010.

Dewey, John. A Common Faith. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.

Drescher, Elizabeth. Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s Nones. 1 edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Emerich, Monica M. The Gospel of Sustainability. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011.

Flory, Richard, and Donald E. Miller. Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

Fowler, James W. Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. Revised edition. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1995.

Fuller, Robert C. Spiritual, but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Graham, Elaine. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Public Theology in a Post-Secular Age. Norwich, UK: SCM Press, 2013.

Hauerwas, Stanley. Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2014.

Heelas, Paul. Spiritualities of Life: New Age Romanticism and Consumptive Capitalism. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

———. The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

Heelas, Paul, Linda Woodhead, Benjamin Seel, Bronislaw Szerszynski, and Karin Tusting. The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

Hense, Elisabeth, Frans Jespers, and Peter Nissen, eds. Present-Day Spiritualities: Contrasts and Overlaps. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2013.

Hervieu-Leger, Daniele. Religion as a Chain of Memory. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Hoover, Stewart M., and Monica Emerich, eds. Media, Spiritualities and Social Change. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012.

Hume, Lynne, and Kathleen McPhillips, eds. Popular Spiritualities: The Politics of Contemporary Enchantment. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.

Johnson, Mark. Saving God: Religion after Idolatry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.

King, Richard. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. London, UK: Routledge, 2004.

Kinnard, Jacob N. Places in Motion: The Fluid Identities of Temples, Images, and Pilgrims. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Kripal, Jeffrey J. Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2008.

Lane, George. Christian Spirituality: A Historical Sketch. Chicago: Loyola Press, 2004.

Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Locklin, Reid Blackmer. Spiritual but Not Religious?: An Oar Stroke Closer to the Farther Shore. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005.

Lofton, Kathryn. Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.

Lynch, Gordon. The New Spirituality: An Introduction to Progressive Belief in the Twenty-First Century. London, UK: I.B.Tauris, 2007.

Marmion, Declan. A Spirituality of Everyday Faith. Leuven: Peeters, 1998.

Mercadante, Linda A. Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but Not Religious. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Moore, Thomas. A Religion of One’s Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World. New York: Gotham Books, 2014.

Morgan, David, ed. Key Words in Religion, Media and Culture. 1 edition. New York ; London: Routledge, 2008.

Ness, Peter H. Van, ed. Spirituality and the Secular Quest. London: Alban Books, 1996.

Prothero, Stephen. Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--and Doesn’t. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2008.

Putnam, Robert D., and David E. Campbell. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.

Rahner, Karl. Faith in a Wintry Season. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1990.

———. Karl Rahner: Spiritual Writings. Edited by Philip Endean. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004.

Ratti, Manav. The Postsecular Imagination: Postcolonialism, Religion, and Literature. New York: Routledge, 2012.

Roy, Olivier. Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways. Reprint edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Sacchi, Tina. My Spirit Is Not Religious: A Guide to Living Your Authentic Life. New York: Morgan James Publishing, 2013.

Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.

Seligman, Adam B. Modernity’s Wager: Authority, the Self and Transcendence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Sheldrake, Philip. Spirituality: A Brief History. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Streib, Heinz, and Ralph W. Hood. Deconversion: Qualitative and Quantitative Results from Cross-Cultural Research in Germany and the United States of America. Vol. 5. Research in Contemporary Religion. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2009.

Sutcliffe, Steven J., and Ingvild Saelid Gilhus. New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion. London, UK: Routledge, 2014.

Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Turpin, Katherine. Branded: Adolescents Converting from Consumer Faith. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

Tweed, Thomas A. Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Ward, Keith. Religion & Community. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

Warner, Michael, Jonathan Vanantwerpen, and Craig Calhoun, eds. Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.

White, James Emery. The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2014.

Wuthnow, Robert. After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s. New Ed edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Zuckerman, Phil. Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion. Cambridge, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011.

———. Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions. London, UK: Penguin Press, 2014.

Extend the conversation – creatively and critically push the conversation forward, do not just regurgitate what has already been said. If other students have already responded to the questions for the reading, add something new to the conversation. Extend the conversation by adding an additional or different insight from the readings, by asking a new question that stems from one of the posts already offered, by offering a related and contextualized example of the issue being discussed from your own experience, or by creatively integrating your own perspective with what has already been posted.

Ask contextualized questions – situate your questions within the discussion by reference course materials and other parts of the conversation thread that inform your inquiry. Give us a little background as to why this question matters to you and how it relates to the course.

Engage others in the course – thoughtful engagement with other students and with the instructor.

Engage the course materials – thoughtful engagement with readings and other materials related to the course. Referencing and citing course materials in your posts where appropriate is encouraged.

Each post need not do all of these things, but your overall participation in each conversation should demonstrate all of these components. You might have several short posts and a handful of longer posts in a week or you might have only a few strategic substantial posts. Either way, your overall participation in each conversation will be evaluated for substantial engagement. The goal of this discussion design is to encourage and reward interchange, so post often and engage each other with meaningful questions that open to other questions.

Degree Learning Goals: Please take some time to look over the Professional Degree Learning Goals (MDiv, MASC, MAPSC) and the Academic Degree Learning Goals (MTS, MA).

Incompletes: If incompletes are allowed in this course, see the Master's Student Handbook for Policies and Procedures.

Pass/Fail: Masters students wishing to take the class pass/fail should discuss this with the instructor by the second class session.

Academic Integrity and Community Covenant: All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statement on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook, or the Joint PhD Statement on Academic Honesty, as published in the Joint PhD Student Handbook, as appropriate. All participants in this class are expected to be familiar with Iliff’s Community Covenant.

Core Values: As a community, Iliff strives to live by this set of Core Values.

Accommodations: Iliff engages in a collaborative effort with students with disabilities to reasonably accommodate student needs. Students are encouraged to contact their assigned advisor to initiate the process of requesting accommodations. The advising center can be contacted at advising@iliff.edu or by phone at 303-765-1146.

Writing Lab: Grammar and organization are important for all written assignments. Additional help is available from the Iliff Writing Lab, which is available for students of any level who need help beginning an assignment, organizing thoughts, or reviewing a final draft.

Inclusive Language: It is expected that all course participants will use inclusive language in speaking and writing, and will use terms that do not create barriers to classroom community.

Evolv.Spiritual Ldrshp/Post-Sec.Age