Biblical Foundations: Narrative, Wisdom, and the Art of Interpretation

How can we read and experience the Scriptures as the Word of Life in the midst of an Academy that believes the biblical witness will restrict human freedom and thwart our maturity? How may we pursue biblical wisdom as we “re-think the world” when our Christian traditions seem convinced that biblical truth may be disconnected from—or simply applied to—the most pressing and perplexing issues of our time?

This course will explore the Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—as the ongoing story of and for God and all God’s creatures, paying special attention to the way in which humanity’s attempt to find its way is interwoven with the story of the Divine presence and with the wisdom and promise of creation-new creation. In asking whether and how the biblical story may find its future in our ongoing narratives, we will attempt to identify which hermeneutical methods and sensitivities might help us discern its significance for present day life, including the academic enterprise.

If Jesus is the Living Word at the heart of Scripture, does that change our understanding of where biblical truth is coming from and where it is going? Does the Bible have an implicit, sapiential pedagogy that we have misconstrued? Can the familiar Reformed themes of creation and covenant, election and eschaton speak to us in new, reformational ways? These are some of the questions we shall explore together as we reintroduce ourselves to the biblical writings.

Dr. Nik Ansell
ICS 1108AC / 2108AC F22
ICB2010HF L0101*
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Schedule TBD

(MWS, MA, MA-EL, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 16, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Attention TST students: you have to contact the ICS Registrar to complete your registration.

**NOTE: Approved for Area 1 of the CSTC

Grace as an Aesthetic Concept

Course Description TBD

Dr. Rebekah Smick

ICS 120103 / 220103 F22

ICH3758HS L0101 / ICH6758HS L0101*
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Schedule TBD

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 16, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Attention TST students: you have to contact the ICS Registrar to complete your registration.

Imagining the World with Ricoeur: Narrative, Action, and the Sacred in Ricoeur's Hermeneutic Phenomenology

This course will focus primarily on two essay collections by Paul Ricoeur: From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II, as well as Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination. These collections cover (roughly) a period from the early 1970’s to the early 1990’s. Together, they form an excellent introduction to Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology, which he developed as an alternative to those theoretical options, such as psychoanalysis and semiotics, with which he struggled throughout the 1960’s.  

In addition to exploring Ricoeur’s evolving thoughts on such topics as textual interpretation, action, imagination, revelation, and a religious imaginary, these essays will also serve seminar participants as an effective springboard into Ricoeur’s larger thematic works, such as Rule of Metaphor, Time and Narrative (Vols. I-III), Oneself as Another, or Memory, History, Forgetting. Beginning with From Text to Action, the seminar will explore the general shape of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology, including such themes as text, action, explanation, understanding, ideology, and utopia. 

With this basic grasp of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology in hand, we will go on to explore his understanding of the disclosive force of religious texts and uses of language in the anthology Figuring the Sacred. Among other things, Ricoeur there ponders how Christian communities might best face the task of appropriating a textual heritage from which time has distanced them, and concerning which they have lost a certain original naivety. This seminar will explore Ricoeur’s recommendation that Christians risk assuming a “second naivety” as they take up the responsibility of receiving and interpreting their religious tradition for a new generation. Imagining the world with Ricoeur, we will discuss how his recommendations on this score might help or hinder our effort to find meaning and inspiration amidst the crises and fragmentations that run through contemporary life.

Dr. Ron Kuipers
ICS 120504 / 220504 F22

ICT3732HS / ICT6732HS L0101*
Remote (Online Synchronous)
Schedule TBD

(MWS, MA, PhD)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 16, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Attention TST students: you have to contact the ICS Registrar to complete your registration.

Meaning/Being/Knowing: The Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Implications of a Christian Ontology

“Meaning is the being of all that has been created and the nature even of our selfhood.” With these enigmatic words, which form part of the introduction to his magisterial New Critique of Theoretical Thought, the neo-Calvinist philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd signals his intention to de-centre the central concern of Ontology by relativizing (which is to say thoroughly relating) the philosophical notion of Being to Meaning, even to the point of (re-)defining creation’s being as meaning—all in the conviction that this will enable us to engage in (rather than circumvent or supersede) the work of Ontology (and thus Epistemology) in a truly systematic, integrally Christian, way. Although it might seem as though Dooyeweerd is merely substituting one metaphysical idea for another, his reference to the nature of our selfhood here indicates that, for all its theoretical import for Philosophical Anthropology, this highly suggestive proposal also has profound implications for how we might both appreciate and pull upon our deepest (religious) self-knowledge, which takes shape before the face of God as we face the world. To do the work of Ontology well—to gain genuine insight into the “nature of things” and to identify the contours and coherence of the world’s general structures without undermining investigation or denaturing experience—will require that we also draw upon a pre-theoretical form of Knowing, and a spiritual grounding and hope, that will always precede and exceed our understanding. 

Implicit in Dooyeweerd’s vision of and for Ontology, we might say, is the provocative claim that creation does not “have” meaning but “is” meaning (a paraphrase that, tellingly, uses the language of Being to relativize Being). But what does Dooyeweerd mean by “meaning”? And what difference might this systematically relational, spiritually open, with-reference-to-self-and-beyond re-centering make (a) to the detailed, nitty-gritty work that needs to be done in any given academic field, and (b) to the theoretical integration that requires both intra- and inter-disciplinary reflection? After an opening discussion about the phenomenon of “post-truth,” to which we shall return at the end of the course, we shall explore the inter-play between Meaning, Being, and Knowing via a close reading of Hendrik Hart’s Understanding Our World: An Integral Ontology, paying careful attention to the ways in which his interpretation of Dooyeweerd’s ideas—not least the discussion of “meaning” that occurs at the midpoint of his Appendix (see 8.1.4) and in a pivotal section within his central chapter (see 4.4 and 405–406n37)—might deepen our insight into how what is known in faith and articulated via our web of beliefs can help us identify and evaluate the core concepts and the conceptual-ontological connections that play such an integral, influential role in the scholarly disciplines with which we are engaged. In paying attention to developments in Hart’s Ontology and Epistemology since the publication of this work, we shall also ask whether the broadly Dooyeweerdian position he initially adopts is as post-metaphysical as it may first appear. 

In this iteration of the course, we shall pay special attention to the central concerns of political theory and aesthetics, including their respective interests in the way we posit societal principles and protect, reveal, expand, and find ourselves via the symbols that make up the fabric of our life, history, and society. In further probing the relationship between the aesthetic and political dimensions of created meaning, and between the mystery of our selfhood and the structural contours of reality, we shall also be asking what the development of an Ontology in the Reformational tradition might offer to the scholarly search for disciplinary integrity and interdisciplinary integration—this being a neo-Calvinism in which the unity and diversity we rightly seek are typically seen as covenantally, rather than ontotheologically, grounded. 

Given this relational emphasis, we may well wonder what might happen if “Being” were to make way for—or make a way for—“Loving.” Perhaps, following Dooyeweerd’s (post-metaphysical?) turn to “Meaning,” we may find that a Christian scholarly approach to knowing and understanding our world and ourselves “after Being” may have something new to say to the peril and promise of life “post-truth”!

Dr. Nik Ansell

ICS 2105AC F22

Remote (Online Synchronous)

Schedule TBD

(MA, PhD)

Syllabus

*NOTE: This course is only available to ICS Junior Members.

The Craft of Reflective Practice

We humans make sense of things by telling stories. In this course we will learn how to do critical reflective practice, primarily by telling stories about our everyday professional lives. We will zoom in on the story of an ordinary day at work, and then zoom out to the story of our career to date, zoom out further to the story of our work community, and zoom out even further to the overarching story of God’s world. In the process we will learn qualitative research skills, receive an introduction to phenomenology (the philosophical study of lived experience), develop our own approach to praxis (that is, the craft of morally-oriented, theoretically-informed, and theory-generating critically reflective practice), and, most significantly, come to terms with who we are in what we do.

Dr. Gideon Strauss
ICSD 132501 / 232501 F22*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MWS, MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 16, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Approved for Area 2 of the CSTC

Transformative Teaching: The Role of a Christian Educator

Transformative Teaching is a course for instructional leaders as they consider their roles as Christian educators called to be transformers of society and culture by seeking justice for those who are marginalized and disenfranchised. In this course we will consider constructivism (a dominant educational theory in the twenty-first century that informs student-centred pedagogies such as Project Based Learning) through the lens of Scripture and investigate the assumptions that it makes. We will explore our calling as Christian educators to transform culture in our schools, local community, and the world. 

This course seeks to help Christian educators find clarity in answers to the following questions: 

• Context: Who am I called to be as a Christian educator in my particular place and time?

• Constructivism: How does constructivism inform my practice?

• Culture: What role does education play in creating culture?

Dr. Edith van der Boom

ICSD 260006 F22*

Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:

To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register September 16, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Approved for Area 2 of the CSTC

Biblical Foundations

What is the Bible? Is it a guidebook, a legal text, a book of poetry? The simple answer is that the Bible, in its entirety, is none of these. Perhaps, then, the better question is what can the Bible do? In this sense, while it's not a guidebook, it can guide us. That is, the Bible can help us reflect on our lives—our personal lives, our work lives, our church lives, etc.—and rouse a productive surprise. Such a productive surprise causes us to rethink our practices, opening up the possibility of doing things differently instead of unthinkingly pushing on ahead.

This course will explore the Bible by examining selections from across the canon, reading thought-provoking secondary sources and learning hermeneutical strategies along the way. We will read these selections with two competing emphases: consonance and dissonance. In terms of consonance, we will examine how the Bible is the story of God's presence in the world for and through his creatures. In terms of dissonance, we will examine how we cannot distill the Bible down to one single narrative. In this way, when we read Scripture, we must be open to being surprised. When we find ourselves surprised, we can respond to the call of surprise: to rethink our assumptions and think differently. Accordingly, our approach to reading Scripture, we will find, is the same as our approach to relating to Scripture in our various practices; responding to Scriptural surprise prompts us to follow the implications of that surprise into all aspects of our lives.

Dr. Nik Ansell, and Mark Standish
ICSD 1108AC/2108AC S22*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MWS, MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register April 19, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Approved for Area 1 of the CSTC

Cultivating Learning Communities of Grace

Cultivating Learning Communities of Grace is a course for instructional leaders and school administrators in the consideration of both school and classroom cultures. Course content will include attention to social and cultural contexts, racial justice, indigenous perspectives, human sexuality, and restorative practices and how these topics impact and form school and classroom cultures.

This course seeks to help students find clarity in answers to the following questions:

• What is the relationship between the daily behaviour of educational leaders and the cultures of schools?

• How do we awaken our students’ knowledge, creativity, and critical reflective capacities in our schools and classrooms?

• How do racism and other forms of oppression underlie achievement gaps and alienation within our schools?

• How can classroom learning be linked to larger movements seeking to effect change in the community?

• How can school culture be a vehicle for social change?

• How do we cultivate learning communities of grace in our schools?

Course Format

This course is an online course consisting of six synchronous discussions and ten weeks of asynchronous online interaction. Specifically, participants will:

• Write weekly reflective responses to the assigned readings (April 25 - June 30)

• Participate in ten weekly forum discussions (April 25 - June 30)

• Participate in six 3-hour online, interactive Zoom sessions (starting late in April and concluding in an intensive series of sessions on three consecutive days early in August)

• Zoom 1: Thursday, April 28

• Zoom 2: Thursday, May 19

• Zoom 3: Thursday, June 16

• Zoom 4: Tuesday, Aug. 9

• Zoom 5: Wednesday, Aug. 10

• Zoom 6: Thursday, Aug. 11

• Complete a project that applies their understanding of Cultivating Learning Communities of Grace (Final draft due September 2);

• Provide feedback on the projects of other course participants;

• Share their project with an authentic audience; and

• Post their project in an e-portfolio.

Dr. Edith van der Boom
ICSD 260008 S22*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register April 19, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Approved for Area 2 or 3 of the CSTC

Lead From Where You Are: Making a Difference in the Face of Tough Problems, Big Questions, and Organizational Politics

Leadership is not about personality, authority, position, influence, or power as such. Leadership is an art, a craft, a practice, to which everyone is called sometime or other, in widely different situations. Leadership can be practiced with varying degrees of authority, from any position, at varying scales of influence, and with varying access to different sources of power. Leadership is the work of motivating a group of people to act in certain ways as they shape what they share.

In this course we will explore two kinds of leadership, positional leadership and contributory leadership, and two kinds of leadership practices, algorithmic leadership practices and heuristic leadership practices. Positional leadership is the kind of leadership that comes with a particular, recognized position in a group, and contributory leadership is the kind of leadership that you can contribute regardless of your position in a group. Algorithmic leadership practices are those leadership practices for which there are clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals, and heuristic leadership practices are those leadership practices for which there are not (or not yet) clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals and that demand imaginative discernment. We will attend to leadership with regard to both making beneficial change happen and ensuring needed maintenance.

Participants in the course will read from a carefully curated selection of texts on the practice of leadership, will engage one another in asynchronous online forum discussions about their own leadership experiences in relation to these readings, will meet in a series of six synchronous online video sessions (starting late in April and concluding in an intensive series of sessions on three consecutive days early in August), and will draft and workshop two papers on topics selected from a set of options but all oriented towards the leadership practice and professional development of the participants. Participants are encouraged to take a complete break from coursework during the month of July. The course will conclude with each participant organizing and reflecting on a celebration of learning done in the company of their own confidantes.

Dr. Gideon Strauss
ICSD 132504/260003 S22*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)

(MWS, MA-EL)

Syllabus

Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register April 19, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.

*Approved for Area 2 or 4 of the CSTC