Past Greystone Modules & Events
for long-term usefulness to the Lord of the church and world
Greystone Theological Institute is a network of scholars, ministers, and Christian friends that hosts theological edification modules and events for both students and the general public. All modules and events are open to the public for audit unless stated otherwise.
2024 Modules and Events
Water, Bread, & Wine:
A Theology of the Church’s Elements
with Dr. Mark A. Garcia
Program: ThM/PhD
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Jan. 29 - Feb. 2 | On Site and Online
The elements of water, bread, and wine, as the elements of the Church’s two sacraments of baptism and the Supper, serve as guides to the Church’s being and well-being. These elements weave together the realities of Christ and the Church, creation and new creation, craftsmanship and pastoral ministry, perception and labor, dependence and joy. They also elucidate how the Church lives under the sign of her baptism and at the Table of fellowship. Each of these elements also enjoys a rich theology in Scripture, tradition, and liturgy, a theology which may serve to deepen the Church’s appreciation of her sacramental life and practice, including aspects of pastoral care. In this course, we will examine the water of baptism and the bread and wine of the Supper by exploring the theological and pastoral dimensions of each element within the world of Scripture and the Church.
Note: this module ends on the 2nd which is the same date as our Greystone Winter Feast. Registration for the Feast is not included in registration for the class.
A Greystone Special Event
Feb. 2 | At Greystone Coraopolis
At Greystone, we revel in the beauty of God's ordered creation and push hard against the haste and waste of modern life. This, and not only rigorous study and research, is the Greystone way. We routinely slow down with quality food and drink and extended table conversation, song, and laughter, believing that this habit helps strengthen and enrich our relationships to one another, to the texts and ideas we discuss, and to the God who has wisely made us the ways we are. The times and seasons of the year, then, and the occasions we have for marking God's faithfulness in them, are important to the Greystone community.
This year, we are pleased to host the third annual Greystone Winter Feast, the continuation of a lively tradition in which we aim to encourage this way of life as a Greystone-wide phenomenon.
New Testament Greek II
with Dr. Jared Brown
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Theology and Practice of Preaching
with Dr. Daniel Hyde
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Introduction to Reformational Anglicanism
with Dr. Benjamin Fischer
Program: Greystone Certificate in Anglican Studies
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
MAP II: Viticulture
with Dr. Mark A. Garcia
Open to the Public | Satisfies the MAPII Requirement for Greystone MAR/MDiv
More Information to Come
Studies in Soteriology
with Dr. Ben Burkholder
Program: ThM/PhD
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
New Testament Greek III
with Mr. Blake Franze
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
To help redress the neglect of the primary languages of Scripture and the tradition in schools and in the practice of ministry, Greystone has made language acquisition and use a defining feature of the Greystone way.
Moral Theology for Ministry
with Dr. Mark A. Garcia
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
This course is designed to provide both a general overview and a focused analysis of theological ethics, especially but not only in relation to pastoral theology.
MAP I: A Guided Reading Course
Open to the Public | Satisfies the MAP I Requirement for Greystone MAR/MDiv
This guided reading course focuses attention on texts which either exemplify or elucidate the relationship between the “mechanical arts” and moral formation. Special attention is given to the nature of human labor in the contexts of creation, providence, and culture; craft and craftsmanship or workmanship; the importance and cultivation of “perception”; and forms of theological and pastoral deployment of the acquired skill of perception.
The Wisdom of the Body Seminar
Open to the Public | Satisfies the MAP II Requirement for Greystone MAR/MDiv
Drawing from the work of key figures in the theology of the body, phenomenology, Levitical ontology, and the mechanical arts, this seminar will take an interdisciplinary approach that integrates theoretical and practical components.
The Greystone Retreat
This retreat is particularly suited for those in leadership positions in the Church but is open to all at any age or in any vocation.
Greystone invites you to a brief retreat of focused and earnest prayer, Scripture meditation, self-discipline, and fellowship
Theological Anthropology
with Dr. Mark A. Garcia
Program: ThM/PhD
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
This course will restate and develop in new directions the theology and anthropology of the man/woman distinction and relationship, the notion of vocation and its relationship to humanity as a liturgical and craft-oriented creature, and the theological and ecclesial significance of marriage and family.
Reformed Symbolics
with Dr. Michael Lynch, Rev. Dr. Daniel Hyde, and the Rev. Canon Henry Jansma
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
This course surveys the constitutive and authoritative “symbols” or formal documents of the three principal expressions of the confessional Reformed tradition—Presbyterian, “Continental,” and Anglican—with a view to their deep theological and liturgical coherence and foundation as well as their distinctive accents and concerns.
Faith Seeking Understanding: Anselm on Interpreting Scriptural Metaphor
with Ryan M. Hurd
A Greystone Microcourse
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
This series focuses upon a central section of Proslogion (cc 6–11) which represents the core of Anselm’s theology. Therein, Anselm engages the task of rendering intelligible various truths about God involving our salvation–many of which are given to us in holy Scripture under metaphor.
Greek I
with Dr. Jared Brown
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
The primary objective of this course is to provide the student with a foundation for reading and interpreting the Greek New Testament and the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT). The course is designed for beginners; no prior knowledge of Greek is assumed.
MAP I: A Guided Reading Course
Open to the Public | Satisfies the MAP I Requirement for Greystone MAR/MDiv
This guided reading course focuses attention on texts which either exemplify or elucidate the relationship between the “mechanical arts” and moral formation. Special attention is given to the nature of human labor in the contexts of creation, providence, and culture; craft and craftsmanship or workmanship; the importance and cultivation of “perception”; and forms of theological and pastoral deployment of the acquired skill of perception.
Hebrew I
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
The primary objective of this course is to provide the student with a foundation for reading and interpreting the Hebrew Old Testament. The course is designed for beginners; no prior knowledge of Hebrew is assumed.
2023 Modules and Events
Program: ThM/PhD | Open to MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Jan. 30 - Feb. 3 | On Site and Online
Among Greystone's fundamental commitments is the conviction that the recovery of a biblically determined, historically aware, and theological sophisticated Reformed liturgics is at the heart of the Church's identity and mission in the world. This module will extend select arguments made in the Reformed Catholicity, Order of Reality, and Theological Anthropology modules into the specific concerns of Reformed liturgical theology. Subjects covered include the principal developments and concerns in the history of confessional Reformed liturgics; the place of sacred times and spaces in the world of Holy Scripture in relation to debates over times and spaces in worship; the dialogical, regulative, and the "doxological" principles of Reformed worship; the eucharistic core of the Reformed church in light of the overall nature of pastoral ministry and the Church's witness; and the concept of worship (including the specific ordering of services of worship) as itself a critically important form of pastoral care.
A Greystone Special Event
Feb. 3 | At Greystone Coraopolis
At Greystone, we revel in the beauty of God's ordered creation and push hard against the haste and waste of modern life. This, and not only rigorous study and research, is the Greystone way. We routinely slow down with quality food and drink and extended table conversation, song, and laughter, believing that this habit helps strengthen and enrich our relationships to one another, to the texts and ideas we discuss, and to the God who has wisely made us the ways we are. The times and seasons of the year, then, and the occasions we have for marking God's faithfulness in them, are important to the Greystone community.
This year, we are pleased to host the second annual Greystone Winter Feast, the continuation of a lively tradition in which we aim to encourage this way of life as a Greystone-wide phenomenon.
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Feb. 24, March 24, April 24 | Online
This core course module orients the entire curriculum as well as matters of life and Church ministry in terms of Leviticus as the foundational biblical text commending a covenantal vision of reality. Prompted by the structure of Leviticus in relation to the Pentateuch and the canon of Holy Scripture as a whole, this module considers the real biblical world along the lines of time, space, and vocation. Students will thus learn in detail the nature and importance for the individual, family, and Church of the Sabbath and Israel’s Levitical festal calendar (time); the various sanctuary realties in Scripture and the biblical teaching on the relationship of the Church to other spatial realities (space); and the special importance of the human person as male or female, alongside the nature and content of human callings in the Church and the world (vocation). Special attention will be given throughout to the way this Levitical framework helps in the interpretation of Scripture and provides perspective on common ecclesiological questions.
A Greystone Microcourse Module
March 17-18 | On Site and Online
The Old Testament discloses a robust cluster of institutions for Israel to keep liturgical time. The Sabbath is the principle of its full, annual calendar. The New Testament, in its brevity, discloses only one day, called "the first day of the week" and "the Lord's Day." The Church, as heirs of both testaments, keeps Sunday in some places, and a whole calendar--the Church Calendar--in others. This microcourse pays close attention to the New Testament's reception and development of the Old Testament's liturgical institutions, and especially that reception and development in Luke's gospel. This series of Scriptural studies compasses the meaning of the Sabbath in the Pentateuch; the relationship between history and holidays in Scripture; and Luke's use of the Sabbath, the Passover, and the Feast of Firstfruits. As it investigates the Scriptural shape of liturgical time, it asks the questions, How does Scripture prompt the Church to keep liturgical time, and What does Sunday mean?
Program: ThM/PhD | Open to MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
April 3-7 | On Site and Online
Luke is the only New Testament author to offer a continuous narrative of the first decades of the earliest days of the Church. His work is skillfully crafted, profoundly theological, and deeply rooted in the Old Testament Scriptures, and carefully framed as a continuation of the story of the life and work of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ. Luke weaves a rich and complex tapestry that tells his readers the story of how YHWH’s work of redemption is accomplished in Christ and his Church. In a time when mission thinking and practice is commonly confusing and confused, a fresh examination of Luke’s narrative and Scriptural theology of “mission” is urgently needed. This course module develops a Lukan theology of mission through a biblical and theological reading of Luke-Acts that also pays close attention to its linguistic, intertextual, and narratological dimensions. It also interacts critically and constructively with various contemporary missiological concepts, theories, and practices.
Program: ThM/PhD | MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
The Mechanical Arts Program practicum (MAP) connects the biblical concerns for attentiveness, wisdom, and patience in the Christian life and in pastoral care to the biblical context for these graces: the ordinary sources of wisdom found in quality workmanship, the natural world of God’s providential governance, and the ordinary sources of wisdom surrounding the saint, namely, the proximate relations of spouse, family, the church congregation, and mature, experienced saints who exhibit accumulated wisdom. The MAP is divided into two parts: MAP 1 and MAP 2. MAP 1 is a guided reading module that requires the completion of the required reading list, a set number of digests connected to certain of the required readings, one small paper, and one class-wide meeting with the instructor(s) scheduled during the term. MAP 1 is offered in all terms throughout the year. MAP 1 is a prerequisite for MAP 2.
Program: ThM/PhD | Open to MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
This module examines the complicated theme of domestic violence within the world of Holy Scripture, and considers the nature of abuse in marriage and family from the perspective of theological anthropology and the vocation of the Church. This module weaves together theological ethics, the use of Scripture, pastoral theology, and applied theological anthropology. Topics include the nature of abuse within a theological anthropology and the Exodus paradigm of redemptive history, the complications of relational sin, justice/righteousness and mercy, divorce theory, forgiveness and reconciliation in pastoral theology, and child abuse.
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
To help redress the neglect of the primary languages of Scripture and the tradition in schools and in the practice of ministry, Greystone has made language acquisition and use a defining feature of the Greystone way. Without these language tools in hand, there is no prospect of a meaningful and productive catholicity in reading and proclaiming Scripture.
The primary objective of this course is to provide the student with a foundation for reading and interpreting the Greek New Testament and the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT). The course is designed for beginners; no prior knowledge of Greek is assumed. The course involves intensive instruction in New Testament Greek with emphasis upon morphology, vocabulary, and translation.
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
This course module consists of three parts. The first part examines the way Holy Scripture functions morally, including the nature and proper uses(s) of law (general and special), the Torah as law “collection,” and the ways non-legal biblical genres (historical narrative, poetry, and wisdom) serve as Torah. The second part explores the history, nature, and continued importance of Reformed casuistic pastoral theology against the backdrop of mid- and late-medieval penitential theory and practice, including discussion of the principles and practices of theological reasoning in pastoral contexts in light of biblical examples. The third part carries forward these studies to investigate the uses and abuses of church power, especially in disciplinary contexts, and includes case-study examinations of covenantal apostasy, domestic violence/abuse, and church/home/state relations.
A Greystone Microcourse Module
June 26, 28; July 3, 5, 10 | Online Only
Hailed as one of the greatest and most challenging of Christian poets, the "metaphysical poet” Gerard Manley Hopkins traversed the breadth and scope of human and Christian experience with a seldom encountered profundity of insight and expression. His poetry provokes both classic and timely questions of theology, as well as provides perspectives on the nature of Christian existence, suffering, and hope that can help—even transform—how ministry and general Christian care are carried out. Join Dr. Mark A. Garcia for this online-only series of theological and pastoral readings of select poems from this master of literary expression who can help us notice the “dappled things” of God’s world and ways.
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Sept. 8-Dec. 15
What is the “catholicity” of the Church confessed in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds? Does it only mean “universal,” or is there more to its significance? This class introduces the meaning and the significance of catholicity, exploring its function in confessional Reformational traditions and its ongoing importance for those traditions as a mode of ecclesiastical and theological labor. Figures and topics surveyed in this class include catholicity and the relationship of Scripture, the rule of faith, and tradition; Trinity, Christology, ecclesiology, and catholicity; Ignatius of Antioch; Augustine; the catholicity of the Reformation; the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Westminster Assembly, and other Reformed contexts for catholicity; Herman Bavinck; catholicity, preaching, the sacraments, and liturgy.
Open to the Public | Satisfies the MAPII Requirement for Greystone MAR/MDiv
October 16-20 | Sedgwick Maine
Understanding wood and how to shape it into cultural artifacts such as houses, furniture, and basic household utensils has a venerable heritage. Man has always been a tool-using creature, and from the prelapsarian commission to “work and keep” the earth into the present day, wood has been one of the most foundational materials he has learned to work. In this weeklong class, Mortise & Tenon Magazine editors Joshua Klein and Michael Updegraff will lead an immersion into the premodern world of hand-tool woodworking. Using the same time-tested tools that built our material heritage (such as handsaws, handplanes, and chisels), students will learn to prepare and smooth boards, cut joinery (such as mortise-and-tenons and dovetails), and build their own bookstands. This class is designed to accommodate all skill levels from beginners to woodworking veterans. If our present technophilic age has taught us anything, it has taught us that we have a lot to learn from the past. The ancient wisdom of craftsmanship will not only aid our own personal formation, but it also teaches us how we can better love our neighbors and how we might more deeply engage the world that reflects the glory of our Triune God.
New Testament Greek I
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Students who have already been accepted into a Greystone Program do not need to fill out the application form, but can register for the modules of their choice through their existing Populi account.
New Testament Greek II
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Students who have already been accepted into a Greystone Program do not need to fill out the application form, but can register for the modules of their choice through their existing Populi account.
Biblical Hebrew I
Program: MAR/MDiv
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
Students who have already been accepted into a Greystone Program do not need to fill out the application form, but can register for the modules of their choice through their existing Populi account.
A Greystone Reading Room Event
Online | Open to the Public
Regularly listed among the classics in theology as well as in the lists of the great works of Western literature, St. Augustine’s Confessions is among the most familiar texts in the Christian tradition and beyond. Perhaps no other text from the ancient world so intimately portrays the thoughts and feelings of one person. This course will canvass the entirety of the work in English, including not only all nine narrative books often read as autobiography, but also the final four books which have baffled modern interpreters who question their inclusion in the work. The aim of this course will be to see the work as a unified whole, not primarily about Augustine as a person, but about the soul’s quest for God. We will follow along with Augustine as he teaches the willing student how to lay hold of Jesus’ promise: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt. 7:7). This course will be taught by Greystone Associate Fellow Dr. Chad Kim, a life-long student of Augustine, and author of several articles on Augustine as well as the forthcoming book, The Way of Humility: St. Augustine’s Theology of Preaching (Catholic University Press, 2023). Dr. Kim is professor of theology and classical languages at Saint Louis University and creator and host of the podcast A History of Christian Theology.
Program: ThM/PhD
Visiting Students and Auditors Welcome
What kind of community is the Church, and what is the center, and what are the outer limits, of the Christian Faith? How does the confessional Reformed tradition relate to the Christian tradition as a whole? How does the ontology of Scripture as the Church's divinely inspired canon affect the work of theology? Does the story of Scripture's formation illuminate the relationship of Scripture to tradition and confession?
These and other questions are explored in this core class in the Greystone program. "Catholicity" is an often-misunderstood term, and "Reformed Catholicity" sounds to others like a contradiction, but in fact the early and formative voices of Reformed Protestantism were persuaded the life and health of the Church depends on its catholicity in Protestant, not Roman Catholic terms.