Master of Arts: Theopoetics and Writing

Bethany Theological Seminary provides a unique educational experience with its new graduate degree in theopoetics and writing (MATW). The first of its kind at a seminary, this degree enables students to focus study in ways that celebrate mystery, metaphor, and meaning in texts and contexts for expansive reflection, critical engagement, and various forms of writing. The MATW joins theology, poetry, narrative, spirituality, and public conversations together in the pursuit of inquiry and understanding that result in creative production across multiple genres.

Graduates from the MATW program will be prepared to

1. read, write, and engage in linguistic creativity as formative spiritual practices, both for communities and for individual lives, including their own;
2. apply intellectual disciplines, skills, and creative processes that empower them to practice their writing publicly in ways appropriate to specific genres, audiences, and purposes;
3. demonstrate theopoetic understanding of method, meaning and value, with attention to their function in the public sphere and connections to the cultural context;
4. explore and articulate diverse, lived possibilities of theopoetics, such as literary craft, popular writing, justice advocacy, peacemaking, and community building.

Course Requirements

Summative Exercise (one courses, 3 hours)

• MATW summative exercise (thesis/portfolio/project in final semester)

Core Theopoetics and Writing Courses (seven courses, 21 hours)

• Theopoetics
• Theopoetics, Mythopoetics, Aesthetics
• Two 200-level writing courses from list below
• Three other courses from list below

Elective Courses (four courses, 12 hours)

These may come from the list below (other MATW courses) or may be any course offered by either Bethany or ESR.

• Writing the Story
• Creative Nonfiction
• Writing Public Theology
• Writing for God and God’s People
• Writing Mental Illness/Writing as Mindfulness
• Writing Seminar
• Applied Storytelling
• Christian Themes in the Gallery: Contemporary Images in the Church
• Spirituality and Ecology: Sabbath Poetry of Wendell Berry
• Ecological Theology and Christian Responsibility
• Theology of Place and the Built Environment
• Art, Justice, and Peace
• Science Fiction and Theology
• Narrative Theology
• Modernity, Postmodernity, and Belief
• Peace of the City and Quest for Public Theology
• Bonhoeffer, War, and Peace
• Theology and Preaching
• Preaching, Theopoetics, and Society
• Preaching, Poetry, and Prophetic Imagination
• Poetry Writing Workshop
• Visual Communication and Faith
• Poetics of Jesus
• Writing Midrash
• In Their Own Words: Readings in Christian History
• Spirituality courses, ESR
• Christian Ethics
• Interfaith Dialogue
• Process Theology
• Liberation Theologies

For more information about the master of arts: theopoetics and writing at Bethany, refer to Bethany’s Academic Catalog.