Guide to Year 3

In Year 3 we start to move from received theology to applied theology, from theoria to praxis.  

Term 1 brings together into a coherent synthesis the major themes of the terms of the second year.  The approach, therefore, is much more thematic, a sort of beginners guide to systematic theology.  Students will need to call to mind the four lectures on Salvation in the first term of Year 1.  The first term of Year 3 puts this teaching concerning into a much broader and deeper context from Creation to the Second Coming of Christ, from our birth to our theosis, from the Old Creation (cosmic and personal) to the New.

Term 2 covers the vast arena of Christian believing and living whereby a practical theology assumes a much stronger pastoral and ascetical dimension.

Term 3 provides a theological overview of ordained Christian ministries, the lives of Christians in parishes and monasteries, comtemporary ethical issues and the engagement of the Church in both mission and ecumenism.  Some of these areas, of course, contain hotly contested issues in contemporary society, and sometimes in the Church as well.  We seek to provide a rational and engaging commentary on these questions which, while being faithful to the Church's Tradition, is also open to insights from the sciences and the arts.  As St Justin Martyr and Saint Basil the Great remind us, all that is good must be harvested for the Kingdom of God.