Course Descriptions

SCHEDULE

 WORKSHOPS

Choose from one of the following two courses.

Christian Spirituality and Human Rights
Patricia H. Davis
Director, Center for Religious Leadership
Adjunct Professor of Pastoral Care and Leadership

The “Human Rights” movement is a secular one. Yet the Christian church is rooted in the struggle for human rights. Jesus did the work of a human rights activist long before the term was conceived. These sessions will explore connections and disconnects between secular and religious views of human rights, and will assist and challenge participants to look at current human rights issues – including genocide, the death penalty, and immigration issues – from theological/spiritual perspectives.

Suggested Readings: Left to Tell, by Immaculee Ilibagiza; The Devil’s Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea; and the film, At the Death House Door

Pat Davis is director of the Center for Religious Leadership and adjunct professor of Pastoral Care and Leadership at Perkins School of Theology. She earned a Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University School of Law, as well as a Ph.D. in pastoral care and an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. She serves on the advisory boards of the SMU Human Rights Education Program, Human Rights Initiative in Dallas, and Center for Latino/a Religions and Christianity at Perkins School of Theology, and is a member of the Texas Bar. She is the author of Counseling Adolescent Girls as well as numerous articles on human rights.

Politics and Prophecy: How We Know God’s Will, According to First Samuel
Roy L. Heller
Associate Professor of Old Testament

How do we know the will of God? This short course will take a look at the various ways that the book of First Samuel addresses that question. The answer might not be as simple as you think!

Suggested Readings: Bring your Bible to class

Roy Heller is associate professor of Old Testament at Perkins and an SMU Altshuler Distinguished Professor (2010-12). He earned a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Old
Testament at Yale University in 1998. He also earned four Master’s degrees from Yale including an M.Div. and a Master of Sacred Theology. He is the author of Power, Politics, and Prophecy: The Character of Samuel and Deuteronomistic Evaluation of Prophecy and Narrative Structure and Discourse Constellations: An Analysis of Clause Function in Biblical Hebrew Prose, as well as several articles and professional papers. Heller received Yale University’s Dissertation Fellowship in 1996-97, and the Two Brothers Fellowship from Yale University Divinity School in 1991, which he used to study biblical archaeology at the Leon Levy Expedition in Ashkelon, Israel. 

Download Houston Lay School 2012 brochure.