Lucinda Mosher simply loves to teach. For more than a decade, she has offered courses and workshops at various universities, seminaries, and church venues. Like many part-time professors and lecturers, she often can be found teaching at more than one institution in a give semester. She enjoys the challenge of developing a new course or retooling one for a new venue. Here are some examples.

The Worldviews Seminar

America ’s religious landscape has always been diverse. However, since 1965, this diversity has been compounded—a phenomenon which is not merely urban and which is not confined to America ’s coastlines. Inaugurated in response to questions rasied by the attacks of 9/11/01 with regard to religious identity, the purpose of this course is to provide foundational information about the world’s religions as integral to the fabric of 21st-century America. A phenomenological and experiential methodology predominates in this one-week intensive with daily site visits. See Teaching Religion and Healing (OUP, 2006) for an extended description of The Worldviews Seminar as it has been offered annually at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, using metropolitan Detroit as its “text”. For more information, click here. Seminarians earn credit for The Worldviews Seminar by registering for Detroit's Ecumenical Theological Seminary course, Experiencing Religious Diversity. A similar course has been offered in New York City as Worldviews: America's Religious Diversity.

Culture, Leadership, and Identity

In his Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Abingdon 1996), theologian Miroslav Volf asserts that “it may not be too much to claim that the future of our world will depend on how we deal with identity and difference;”—and, we scarcely need be reminded, religion is a major category of identity and difference with which we wrestle. Byron Earhart defines religion as “a distinctive set of beliefs, rituals, doctrines, institutions, and practices that enables the members of that tradition to establish, maintain, and celebrate a meaningful world” (HarperCollins 1992). Learning how our neighbors make sense of the world is a step toward fulfilling the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves. While a number of scholars have stressed that religious “manyness” has always been a fact of the American context, it is also clear that, in recent decades, changes in immigration laws and patterns have made that religious diversity even more expansive and complex. Questions regarding the extent to which religion and culture are separate categories encourage us to understand the fault-lines which separate the adherents of any given religion. They also bear upon notions of religious leadership. As a component of a program for the formation of Doctors of Ministry with special expertise in multi-faith concerns, this course explores definitions and theories of culture and identity as they relate to America’s religious diversity; definitions and methods of leadership as these play out in America’s various religion-communities; and theologies of religious difference, thus modes and rationales for ministry in the current American context.

Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

The purpose of this course is to equip people engaged in (or preparing for a career in) Christian ministry in our multi-religious society for deeper understanding of, and engagement with, their Muslim neighbors. To that end, through lecture, discussion, audio-visual materials, and field work, this course provides participants with a basic knowledge of Islam (its history, theology, practices, and diversity), and of guidelines for learning more; outlines Anglicanism's particular and various intersections with Islam (historically and academically); broadens participants knowledge of the American Muslim experience, especially since 9/11/01; considers methods and possibilities for openhearted Christian-Muslim interaction.

The Religions of Abraham: Intersections, Issues, Possibilities

The purpose of this course is to provide people engaged in Christian ministry in our multi-religious society with a broader understanding of points of connection and sources of misunderstanding in the ongoing Christian conversation with Jews and Muslims. To that end, this course discusses Jewish, Christian, and Muslim notions of such topics as Revelation, Scripture, Peoplehood, Law and State, Liturgy, Gender justice, Fundamentalism, Mysticism, Teleology, and Jerusalem; gives particular attention to respective understandings of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad; underscores the variety of opinions regarding matters of piety, theology, and politics among serious Jews, Christians, and Muslims; outlines Anglicanism's particular intersections with Judaism and Islam historically and academically; discusses theology and methods of Jewish-Christian-Muslim interaction; reviews examples of successful programs of interfaith relationship. Methodologically, class participants eavesdrop on a published Jewish-Christian-Muslim conversation (e.g., The Abraham Connection, Grose and Benjamin, eds.; The Faith Club, Idliby, Oliver, Warner; Heirs of Abraham, Hinze and Omar, eds.) supplemented with readings from other sources, conversations with guests, and fieldwork.

Art, Culture, and the City

Team taught by experts in theatre, visual arts, music, architecture, and urban religious diversity, lectures and discussions are interspersed with site-visits, walking tours, and attendance of performances.

Christian Ministry in Multi-religious America

America's religious landscape has always been diverse. However, since 1965, this diversity has been compounded a phenomenon which is not merely urban and which is not confined to America's coastlines. The new dimensions of America's religious diversity have profound implications for anyone preparing for or practicing Christian ministry. The purpose of this course is to equip Christians to engage America's religious diversity intelligently, sensitively, and authentically. To that end, this course acquaints students with the vocabulary of America's religious diversity as they learn foundational information about the beliefs and practices of a number of religions; considers various theories and models of interfaith dialogue; and explores practical issues for ministry in a multi-religious environment, including a Christian theology of religious difference.

The Worldviews Seminar

For description, see above. For more information, click here.

The World’s Religions

A survey of the worlds religions: their basic beliefs, practices, and sacred texts. It employs a phenomenological methodology, thus emphasizes religion as worldview, thus gives pride of place to the lived reality and internal diversity of each religion rather than to their historical development.

Religion and Society

An exploration of service to humanity as it is mandated by the sacred texts and teachings of various religions of the world, and examples of these teachings in practice especially in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Faith & Critical Reason

In this course, students bring close reading of texts, critical reason, and thoughtful reflection to bear on a series of theological questions. In moving from definition to analysis to reflection to ethical implications, the focus of the course is explicitly Christian, albeit in dialogue with other religions.

Early Christian Writings

A study of selected writings from the first four centuries of Christian thought, in order to better understand the early development of Christian beliefs about God, Jesus, the Church, and the sacraments; the evolution of the Christian scriptural tradition; and the intersection of theology, practice, and daily life during this period. Prominent theologians from Justin Martyr to Augustine will be featured, but attention will be given as well to material by less familiar thinkers and from anonymous yet significant sources.

Classic Islamic Texts

This course is an introduction to the classical literature of Islam its genres and themes and through it, an understanding of the doctrines and practices of this religion, and acquaintance with some of the major thinkers of the early centuries of Islam. It will involve close readings of portions of the Qur'ān plus examples of Hadīth, Sīra, Tafsīr, Fīqh, philosophy, history, biography, and the literature of supplication and spiritual guidance. All material will be read in English translation.

Sacred Texts of the Middle East

A consideration of foundational religious texts of the Middle East their literary, historical, and social contexts by means of historical criticism and other methods of close reading. Selections for study will be taken from the classical literature of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and (to a limited extent) other religions of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.

The Christian Tradition

As a survey of Christian history, theology, and praxis, the purpose of this course is to introduce the student to the development of Christian doctrines and institutions, and to the diversity of Christian culture. To accomplish this, it will acquaint the student with the vocabulary of the academic study of Christianity; accounts of Christian history from Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant perspectives; the Christian world view and the doctrinal controversies and decisions which have come to define it; the range of (and reasons behind the range of) Christian praxis. In the process, students should acquire increased understanding of the plurality of Christian tradition in their locale, in the United States as a whole, and globally; draw connections between the study of religion and other academic disciplines; become interested in further study of religious traditions or issues.

Since 1999, Dr. Mosher has offered numerous workshops (either as a single session or a series) in church venues in Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennesee and Washington D.C. Most have been for individual congregations; others have been diocesan or national gatherings. Topics have included various aspects of America's religious diversity, beliefs and practices of particular religions, theology of religious difference, and (especially in recent years) Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. She tailors the content and mode of presentation to the particular needs and interests of the particular host institution.

The Neighbor-Faith Project