Classes
Classes are instructor-led and offered online via Zoom
Classes are offered when there is enough interest, or in partnership with church-based groups
Fill out the form below to express interest and get on our email list to be notified of future Classes
Jesus and the Healing of Our Sin-Sickness
Evangelism 101 Training
Wondering how to share about Jesus and your experience of him? This is a workshop in four sessions with take-home assignments. We help you tell a part of your transformation story based off of Jesus’ retelling Israel’s story in Matthew 3:13 - 4:11. Because Jesus heals human nature of the sin-sickness, he heals the evil within human nature with our partnership, and shows us a God who is 100% good. We step you through our workbook, Jesus and the Healing of Our Sin-Sickness: Evangelism in the Restorative, Healing Atonement Paradigm.
Sessions: Four Zoom sessions of 1 hour each; workshop and discussion format
Homework: light reading, activity based
Dates: TBD based on interest; fill out the form below
Christian Restorative Justice 101
Christian Restorative Justice 101
Scripture and Theology for Practitioners of Anti-Trafficking
Scripture and Theology for Practitioners of Anti-Trafficking
God has a vision for relationship involving all things. God calls for human partnership to restore that vision. God’s justice is restorative and centered in Jesus. Our Christian Restorative Justice Study Guide has 101, 201, and 301 level materials, and this class will go in-depth into the 101 material and help you understand and participate in God’s restorative justice. The 101 level introduces you to four principles of justice (meritocratic-retributive; distributive; libertarian; restorative) and the secular inability to organize them while Christian faith does. We will examine how God’s actions and laws are expressions of divine restorative justice, including God’s taking of human life, the famous “eye for an eye” principle, God’s disciplining of Israel, and God’s presence in Israel’s sacrificial system. We will explore Jesus as the active human agent of the restorative justice of God the Father, not the passive human victim of divine retributive justice. We will introduce the early Christian understanding that even hell is the restorative love of God, experience by those who refuse and resist the restoration.
This class is periodically offered to a general audience, and periodically to practitioners in the anti-trafficking field, and is limited to the first 300 people who register
Sessions: Four Zoom sessions of 2 hours each; lecture and discussion format
Homework: light reading
Dates: TBD based on interest; fill out form below
See the Pre-Work and Video recordings for each Session here. We would be delighted to modify the material for another profession or ethical endeavor.
Abortion Policy and Christian Social Ethics
Not sure about the “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice” binary? Our Study and Action Guide for Abortion Policy is also an online class. The material is drawn from Mako Nagasawa’s 2021 book, Abortion Policy and Christian Social Ethics in the United States. Session 1 examines Scripture, the early Christian approaches to this issue, what the science of embryology tells us about fetal development, and how Christians can and should support contraceptive care. Session 2 examines the relationship between poverty and the abortion rate, comparing the Roman Catholic wholistic approach following the Great Depression to the white evangelical retributive approach from the Reagan years. Session 3 examines the issue in restorative vs. retributive justice frameworks.
Sessions: Three Zoom sessions of two hours each; combines lecture and discussion
Homework: 30 minute pre-readings for each class
Dates: TBD based on interest; fill out the form below
See the Pre-Work and Video recordings for each Session here. We would be delighted to modify the material for a different context or other audience needs.
Reconstruction
The Deep Roots of Early Christian Theology
Have you been deconstructing Christian faith and practice but wondering what we can know and invite others into? Wondering what early Christian thought and practice can teach us? You will be inspired by the early Christian record of abolition of slavery and women in leadership. You’ll learn how to share Jesus, proclaim the gospel, and understand hell as the love of God. You’ll explore why Scripture is trustworthy, and examine the issues of violence and empire in the formation of the Bible. Learn how to be a Christian in politics without being a Christian nationalist. And examine how the earliest Christians engaged issues of sex, marriage, and singleness, and thought about the formation and shaping of human desires. See the video recordings from our 2021 and 2022 Reconstruction classes if you’re interested in a preview.
Sessions: Ten Zoom sessions of two hours each; combines lecture and discussion
Homework: light reading for pre-work; optional follow-up
Dates: TBD based on interest; fill out the form below
Book Discussion: C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce
Would people in hell choose heaven if given the chance? In the popular modern show The Good Place, people can and do. In C.S. Lewis’ classic imaginary portrayal of a bus ride from hell to heaven, most people do not. While Lewis cautioned that this was an imaginary work, The Great Divorce nevertheless highlights major themes in Scripture: The human being is a human becoming. Sin is a corruption of one’s own human nature which can get deeper and deeper. God’s divine fire is not retributive but restorative — not for inflicting pain for its own sake but for purifying and cleansing. Jesus as the restorer of human nature and cure for the corruption. Join us for a lively four-week discussion.
Sessions: Four Zoom sessions of 90 minutes each; combines discussion and short presentation
Homework: readings of about 25% of the book per session
Dates: September 30th, and October 7th, 14th, and 21st — 10am US Eastern
A Long Repentance, Part 1
Exploring Christian Mistakes About Race, Politics, and Justice in the United States
Searching for faithful ways of understanding and engaging our political and racial climate? Read and discuss A Long Repentance series of blog posts where we explore how Christian (mostly Protestant) heresies started and continue to influence our modern political and racial challenges. This includes the very notion of race itself, and how our modern economics, housing, schooling, and policing systems have been shaped. Christians must take responsibility for these heresies in the framework of repentance. We have designed a study guide to accompany the blog posts. Please consider using it for personal reflection or discussion in your family, church, organization, etc.
Sessions: Eight Zoom sessions of 1 hour each; discussion format
Homework: 10 - 15 minutes of pre-reading per class
Dates: Saturdays and Tuesdays starting February 17, 2024; register using the form below
A Long Repentance, Part 2
PLANTATION CAPITALISM VS. GOD’S JUBILEE ECONOMY
Plantation capitalism is a system of production involving the exploitation of people and the planet. This series of blog posts will examine the theological, legal, and economic ramifications of the plantation capitalism system that took hold with Christian enthusiasm in the colonies and the formal United States. We compare and contrast that to Jesus’ Jubilee Economy, the honoring of people and the planet, which we see in Scripture and glimpse in church history. This Study Guide is being developed and the Class is coming in Jan 2024!