DESCRIPTION: This course, taught in Spanish for Hispanic and Latin American pastors and church leaders, has at the center the biblical vision of fullness of life for all God's people through the lens of the Sabbath-Jubilee materials of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: Students will focus upon biblical teachings about economic justice and ecological integrity, and they will examine these teachings in terms of their original contexts and today's contexts of socio-economic injustice and ecological destruction, locally and globally. Their fundamental purpose will be to develop their ability to use the hermeneutical circle (analysis of today's world, interpretation of biblical faith in response to today's world, and commitment to responsible discipleship coherent with that analysis and interpretation) as a primary resource for their faith and ministry.

RELEVANCE FOR MINISTRY: It can be said that economic injustice and ecological destruction are the two greatest threats to life in the 21st century. They should become, for Christians, primary concerns of mission, ministry, and spirituality, as they clearly are in the Bible. Many of today's theological and missiological traditions have not yet taken up these challenges. This course will attempt to equip pastors and church leaders to deal with the prophetic biblical message of Sabbath economics/Jubilee spirituality in their churches as an invitation to personal, ecclesial, and social transformation.

COURSE FORMAT: The class will meet once a week for three-hour sessions that will include various seminar methods--brief expositions, group Bible studies (exegesis), reports and discussion of readings, plenary and small group discussion of handouts, liturgical moments, etc.

REQUIRED READING:

Kinsler, Ross, and Gloria Kinsler. El Jubileo Bíblico y la Lucha por la Vida. Quito: CLAI, 2000.

Selected articles from Revista de Interpretación Bíblica Latinoamericana (RIBLA) to be assigned. (English versions of these articles are available in Ross Kinsler and Gloria Kinsler, eds., God's Economy: Biblical Studies from Latin America [Maryknoll: Orbis, 2005].)

Select one of the following:

Hanks, T. Opresión, Pobreza, y Liberación: Reflexiones Bíblicas. Miami: Editorial Caribe, 1982.

Herzog, William R. Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God: A Ministry of Liberation. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000.

Horsley, Richard A. Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003.

Tamez, Elsa. Luchas de poder en los orígenes del cristianismo: Un estudio de la Primera Carta a Timoteo. Santander: Sal Tierra, 2005.

Select one of the following:

Galeano, Eduardo. Las Veinas Abiertas de América Latina. México: Siglo Veintiuno, 1971.

Rivera Pagán, Luis N. Evangelización y Violencia: La Conquista de América. San Juan: Editorial CEMI, 1990.

Todorov, Tzvetan, La conquista de América: El problema del otro. México: Siglo XXI, 1989.

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. New York: Harper Collins, 1980.