Degree Offered: Ph.D.

Christian Spirituality is an academic field that requires an interdisciplinary approach in the study of Christian religious experience as such, i.e., as religious and as lived experience. Students in this program focus on Christian spirituality in the context of the broad contemporary understanding of spirituality and in conversation with religious spiritualities outside the Christian sphere. Because the field is intrinsically interdisciplinary, students in the program are required to achieve a basic competence in five major areas of study pertinent to the field of spirituality: biblical foundations of Christian spirituality; history of Christian spirituality; the field of Christian spirituality itself; the relation of spirituality to the human, social, and natural sciences; and a spirituality outside the Christian tradition.

Although students may concentrate in any appropriate area of Christian spirituality, the GTU through its member schools, centers, related institutes and relationship with the University of California, Berkeley offers especially rich resources for the study of biblical spirituality, history of Christian spirituality, liturgical spirituality, psychological dimensions of spirituality, mystical literature of the Jewish and Christian traditions, Buddhist spirituality, environmental/cosmological dimensions of Christian spirituality, and certain traditions and schools within Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox spirituality.

Objectives
The doctoral program in Christian Spirituality prepares students to read and interpret biblical texts for Christian Spirituality; to contextualize the major figures, texts, and themes in the historical development of Christian Spirituality; to achieve a dialogical understanding of another spirituality not within the Christian tradition; and to do research and create analytical arguments in this interdisciplinary field. With these skills students have graduated from the program and gone on to teach religious studies, Christian Spirituality, and theology in undergraduate and graduate programs in colleges, universities, and seminaries; to administer and deliver programs at retreat centers; and to serve churches at local, regional, national, and international levels.

Admissions Requirements
An advanced degree in theology (i.e. a degree beyond the B.A. or its equivalent and focused in theology, e.g., one of the ordinary disciplines of Christian theology, such as Bible, Historical/Systematic theology, or Christian Ethics).

Diagnostic Interview
Upon admission to the program and prior to registration for classes, students will go through a diagnostic interview conducted by two Area faculty members to determine the breadth of the students’ prior academic experience in the interdisciplinary range of studies that support the study of Christian Spirituality. Courses will be chosen to broaden and deepen each student’s respective knowledge with particular attention given to prepare each student for their comprehensive examinations.

Language Requirements
Students are required to attain proficiency in two research languages other than their native language, one of which is ordinarily French or German, or Spanish, and the other an ancient or modern language pertinent to the student’s research.

Course Work
The Christian Spirituality Area Seminar (SP 5090) and two graduate courses in theology are required. After a diagnostic interview and in consultation with the academic advisor, additional courses are selected appropriate to the five major areas of the comprehensive examinations. A practicum in the field, normally completed before the writing of the special comprehensives, is also required.

Comprehensive Examinations
Students are required to complete comprehensive examinations which are divided into two parts. Students take general standard written examinations in biblical foundations of Christian spirituality and history of Christian spirituality. Students then take special comprehensives, according to an approved proposal, in Christian spirituality; the relationships between the human, social, or natural sciences and Christian spirituality; and a spirituality outside the Christian tradition. The exam in Christian spirituality is in the form of an extended research paper. Ordinarily, at least one of the other two is a timed written response to questions. Students conclude their comprehensive examinations with a three-hour oral examination on all of the written material in the special comprehensive examinations.

Dissertation
After successfully completing the oral examination on the written Special Comprehensive Exams, the student forms a dissertation committee and proceeds to formulate a dissertation proposal approved by the Area faculty and the Doctoral Council. An oral defense takes place upon completion of the dissertation.

Extended Protocol & Requirements (pdf)

CORE DOCTORAL FACULTY IN CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY

JOSEPH D. DRISKILL • Associate Professor of Spirituality, PSR
Protestant spirituality; pastoral counseling and spiritual direction; contemplative prayer; spirituality and health; Disciples church history.

JOHN C. ENDRES, SJ • Professor of Sacred Scripture, JSTB
Book of Jubilees and Qumran; Chronicles; Psalms.

BARBARA GREEN, OP • Professor of Biblical Studies, DSPT
Deuteronomy; hermeneutics; Mikhail Bakhtin.

ARTHUR HOLDER • Professor of Christian Spirituality, GTU
History of Christian spirituality; Christian spirituality as an academic discipline; Anglo-Saxon spirituality; Benedictine spirituality; Celtic spirituality; medieval Christian exegesis of the Song of Songs.

ELIZABETH LIEBERT, SNJM • Professor of Spiritual Life, SFTS
Discernment; Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.

DARLEEN PRYDS • Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality and History, FST
History of lay preaching; Christian mysticism; devotional practices.

WILLIAM J. SHORT, OFM • Professor of Christian Spirituality, FST
Franciscan spirituality; Franciscan history; medieval spirituality; sixteenth century Spanish Franciscan mystics.

CONSORTIAL FACULTY RESOURCES

DORSEY O. BLAKE • Visiting Professor of Spirituality and Prophetic Justice, SKSM
Prophetic justice and society; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Dr. Howard Thurman.

JOSEPH BOENZI, SBD • Associate Professor of Theology, DSPT
Francis de Sales and Salesian spirituality; Church history; nineteenth-twentieth century developments; new ecclesial movements and communities; the ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger; faith development and youth spirituality.

KEVIN F. BURKE, SJ • Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, JSTB
Christology; Liberation Theology; spirituality; ecclesiology; theological method; theological synthesis; Ignacio Ellacuria.

JOSEPH CHINNICI, OFM • Professor of Church History, FST
History and theology of prayer in American Catholicism, 1945-1975; history of contemplation in the Catholic community in the U.S.; popular religiousity: Europe and the U.S.; American Catholicism.

JAMES F. LAWRENCE • Instructor of the History of Christianity, PSR
History of Christianity; history of biblical spirituality; Western esotercism; Swedenborg.

BRUCE LESCHER • Lecturer in Christian Spirituality, JSTB
American Catholic spirituality; spiritual formation; spiritual direction.

LISA FULLAM • Assistant Professor of Moral Theology, Ethics and Social Theory, JSTB
Virtue ethics; Thomas Aquinas; medical and bioethics; the relationship of spirituality and ethics.

FRANCIS X. McALOON, SJ • Assistant Professor of Spirituality, JSTB
Ignatian spirituality; poetry and prayer; hermeneutics; contemplative prayer.

ROBERT RUSSELL • Professor of Theology and Science, GTU/CTNS
Resurrection, eschatology and physical cosmology; Trinitarian theologies of Pannenberg, Tillich, Rahner, and Peters in relation to the natural sciences; time and eternity in relation to physics; non-interventionist objective divine action (NIODA) and quantum mechanics; Christology and life in the universe; creation and physical cosmology; theological and scientific methodologies; inter-religious dialogue and natural science.