CURRENT COURSES

Fall, 2025 (09/02/2025-12/12/2025)

• SWEDENBORG SEMINAR (HSST-4370)
  Tuesdays, 9:40–12:30 am Pacific Time
  Instructors: Devin Zuber and Rebecca Esterson

  Course Description: This seminar is a collaborative workshop exploring the life, work, and influence of the eighteenth-century scientist-turned-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Co-led by Drs. Rebecca Esterson and Devin Zuber, the class explores various strands of Swedenborgian thought and contextualizes them within a broad range of contemporary concerns, including (but not limited to): religious pluralism; animal rights and vegetarianism; queer theology and LGBTQ rights; disability studies; ecotheologies and the environmental crisis; and mystical experiences and altered states of consciousness. Students will actively co-create the seminar, with each taking responsibility for two (or more) weeks of our sessions, planning out a series of readings and presentations in consultation with the instructors. Several guest speakers—scholars of Swedenborg from around the world–will further enrich the conversations. This course fulfills a course requirement for the Certificate in Swedenborgian Studies. A final research paper or ministry project is due at the end of the semester. Class is held in a hybrid format—welcoming both online and in-person participants.

• AUTOTHEORY, AUTOTHEOLOGY (HRRA-5050)
  Time to be determined
  Instructor: Devin Zuber

Designed as a collaborative writing workshop, this advanced seminar explores the recent emergence of so-called “autotheory,” a fuzzy concept that encapsulates a broad variety of texts which combine critical theory and philosophy with various forms of autobiography. Our forays in this hybrid field will provide a foundation for our own creative experimentations with theology and writing about ourselves, God, and others. Core readings are drawn from Michel Foucault (Technologies of the Self) and Pierre Hadot (Philosophy as a Way of Life), and a broad swath of contemporary authors, including Maggie Nelson, Saidiya Hartman, Gloria Anzaldua, Geoffrey Mak, and Trisha Low. Lots of writing throughout the semester; final portfolio project.

• SPECIAL READING COURSE: QUEER THEOLOGY THROUGH A SWEDENBORGIAN LENS
  Instructor: Devin Zuber

This independent study will meet at a time convenient for participants. Those interested should contact Professor Zuber directly.

• THE GLORIFICATION AS THE LIVED EXERIENCE OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS
  Instructor: Gardiner Perry

For Licensed Pastors and ordained clergy who are fulfilling a continuing education requirement. Others permitted with approval from the instructor.

This course aims to bring Swedenborg’s treatment of the glorification within reach of our understanding. There are four topic areas: 1) Swedenborg’s own summary of the process; 2) a problem statement and solution; 3) a biography of the historical Jesus within 1st Century Palestine; and 4) the inner life of the historical Jesus as a template for one’s regeneration. Swedenborg’s summary of the glorification will sound familiar, though things get difficult within the step-by-step process in the Arcana (aka, Secrets of Heaven). Large words like celestial, spiritual, and natural have multiple levels of meaning in various contexts. George Dole’s meta translation method of interpretation is employed to discover what those terms sound like as the plausible lived experience of the historical Jesus. Participant will use a Study Guide linked to Required Reading to prompt independent study between sessions and to facilitate discussion during class.

January Term

• THE SWEDENBORGIAN CHURCH OF NORTH AMERICA:
  CHURCH POLITY AND PRACTICE
  January 20-23, 2026
  Berkeley, CA
  Instructors: TBA

This four-day intensive course is intended for those on the path to consecrated leadership in the Swedenborgian Church of North America. It covers the basic history and structure of the denomination, ethical guidelines for ministers, local church governance including working with a board, financial resources within the denomination, building networks, and future directions of church and ministry.

Spring 2026 (02/02/2026-05/22/2026)

• CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY THROUGH A SWEDENBORGIAN LENS
  Instructor: James Lawrence
  Thursday afternoons

The field of Spirituality Studies explores the actual lived experience of a committed faith practice. Swedenborgian spirituality envisions a fundamental transformation in spiritual life centered upon communion with God that unfolds as a growth process experienced as an inward reality but which is expressed especially in community. We will first consider spirituality as an interdisciplinary field before exploring spiritual growth and formation in the Christian movement known as Swedenborgianism. Drawing upon primarily Swedenborgian resources, the tools of theology, psychology, scripture, historical studies, and spiritual practice will be used in an interdisciplinary fashion. Throughout, a focus on understanding spiritual growth and development in the practice of ministry will be maintained.

• GREENING SWEDENBORG (HSRA-3783)
  Mondays 9:40-11:00
  Instructor: Devin Zuber

This course examines Swedenborg’s writings from an environmental perspective, looking for ways that his visionary theology might speak to pressing ecological concerns. We will start with surveying Swedenborg’s theology, while glancing towards some of the earlier science to understand how Swedenborg took parts in 18th conversations around natural theology, Divine beauty, and the (organic) order of nature. Swedenborg’s work will be approached thru various avenues of eco-theology (Rosemary Radford Ruether, Catherine Keller), ecological literary criticism (Timothy Morton), and the “vibrant materialism” of Jane Bennett. We conclude with considering the ways that Swedenborgian theology was read and received by environmental writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sarah Orne Jewett, and his contribution to the emergence of a modern environmental imaginary at the end of the 19th century. Audience: MDiv, MA/MTS