CALL Courses: Winter 2026
All Winter 2026 courses run January 19 – March 9. Courses are online and fully asynchronous, each week a separate interactive lesson featuring discussion with your classmates and instructor.
The public course cost is $150. Registration for Winter 2026 opens on November 17.
- Liturgical Leadership with the Rev. Melissa Hartley, Ph.D. Registration for this class is closed
- History of the Episcopal Church with Dr. Liza Anderson
- Violence and the Pentateuch with Dr. Mónica Rey
- Celtic Spirituality and English Mysticism with the Rev. Daniel London, Ph.D. Registration for this class is closed
- Navigating Conflict: Speaking the Truth in Love with the Rev. Alex Leach
- Introduction to the New Testament with Fr. Laurent Okitakatshi, Ph.D. Registration for this class is closed
- Living Scripture with Dr. Donn Morgan
- What We Believe: Theology in the Anglican Tradition with the Rev. John Kater, Ph.D.
- Images of Diakonia with the Rev. Phina Borgeson
Liturgical Leadership
Registration for this class is closed
This course will examine the liturgical principles underlying the planning process for Episcopal Church worship, with specific emphasis on the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. This course will offer students a foundation for planning and leading worship services in the Episcopal Church. We will look at issues which influence the planning of any given service, such as the Church calendar and the liturgical space. We will look specifically at what to consider when planning and presiding at a baptism, at the Eucharist, at a marriage, and at a burial. We will also plan for special liturgies, such as those of Holy Week. This course would be beneficial to those who are wanting to know more about the liturgy of the Episcopal Church and will also offer a practical component for those who may be preparing for holy orders in both the priesthood and vocational diaconate.
Instructor: The Rev. Melissa Hartley, PhD, is Priest Associate at the Episcopal Church of the Nativity in Huntsville, Alabama, where she oversees liturgy and adult Christian formation. She also teaches at The University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, in the ACTS (Alternative Clergy Training in Sewanee) program at the School of Theology. Melissa is an Episcopal priest originally from Atlanta and has served parishes in Georgia, New York, New Jersey, and Tennessee. Most recently, she was the Senior Associate University Chaplain at Sewanee. She holds the following degrees: B.A., University of the South; M.Div., S.T.M., General Theological Seminary; Ph.D. (Liturgical Studies), Drew University.
History of the Episcopal Church
This course offers a careful examination of the stories that Episcopalians tell ourselves about who we are and what our family history is. It provides an overview of the major themes and events in Episcopal Church history, but also considers the study of history as a spiritual practice: learning how to inhabit time, working to tell a truer story about ourselves and our shared past, and seeing the realities of human sin and God’s grace in the messiness of that history. While the primary focus will be the history of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the course will also examine the growth of the Episcopal Church in diverse international contexts, and the relationship of the Episcopal Church to the worldwide Anglican Communion. It will also include reflection on the ways that Episcopalians relate the particular history of our own church to the diverse traditions of ancient and medieval Christianity that we have inherited, and to the histories of our ecumenical partners.
Instructor: Dr. Liza Anderson has been a member of the Episcopal Church since her baptism as an undergraduate, and she is active in Episcopal Church governance and churchwide leadership. She holds degrees from Swarthmore College, Trinity College Dublin, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale University, and has held faculty positions at Episcopal Divinity School, Claremont School of Theology, and General Theological Seminary. Liza is a past president of the North American Academy of Ecumenists, the associate editor of the Anglican Theological Review, and a member of the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Commission. She has been involved nationally and internationally in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, has taught at seminaries in Iraq and Ukraine, and has studied Islam and Muslim-Christian dialogue in Yemen, Egypt, and Morocco. She lives in central Minnesota, where she shares life and prayer with the Roman Catholic sisters of Saint Benedict’s Monastery, but during the 2025-2026 academic year she is a research fellow at the Angelicum Institute for Ecumenical Studies in Rome.
Violence and the Pentateuch
“The violence in the Bible is appalling,” wrote Christopher Hitchens — a provocation that invites not dismissal but investigation. This course takes that challenge seriously. Violence and the Pentateuch explores how the first five books of the Bible construct, justify, and resist violence — physical, social, epistemic, and divine. There has been no text more influential on Western and colonial understandings of sex, gender, race, and sexuality than the Bible, and no corpus within it more formative than the Pentateuch. Through close reading and critical theory, students will encounter feminist, queer, trans, and Womanist scholars whose interpretations expose the Bible’s complicity in — and potential for critique of — systems of domination. Topics include gendered violence, conquest narratives, divine punishment, and the afterlives of these texts in modern political and theological discourse. Together, we will ask: what does it mean to read ethically when the sacred itself is violent?
Instructor: Dr. Mónica I. Rey (she/her/ella) is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Gammon Theological Seminary. Her teaching specialty is in courses that tackle religion, gender, sexuality and violence. Rey is especially interested in teaching contextual interpretations of the Bible (especially from feminist and LGBT+ perspectives). As a Latina of Peruvian descent, Rey has an immense appreciation for different points of view, perspectives, and epistemologies. Her research focus navigates multiple worlds at these intersections. This is also reflected in her pedagogy which at its heart is intersectional, experiential, and embraces multiple diverse canons.
A feminist biblical scholar with a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University (2024), her research is primarily concerned with gender, genocide, and the Hebrew Bible (and its afterlives). Rey also completed a graduate certificate from BU in Women’s and Gender Studies and took part in the MIT GCWS Workshop for Dissertation Writers in Women’s and Gender Studies which is an outstanding resource for research and collaboration in areas related to WGS. She has published on the law of the foreign female captive (Deut 21:10–14) as a case of genocidal rape in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Rey has a peer-reviewed journal article forthcoming on the use of just war theory in interpretations of Deuteronomy, as well as a chapter in the edited volume The Bible and Violence (Bloomsbury T&T Clark 2026) titled, “Genocidal Language in the Hebrew Bible: A Reappraisal,” and a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of the Hebrew Bible, Gender and Sexuality, “Yefat To’ar in Deuteronomy 21:10–14 and the Role of Beauty in Warfare.” Her first book, Gendering Genocide in the Hebrew Bible is forthcoming with Routledge in the book series Rape Culture, Religion and the Bible. Rey is a 2023-2024 Charles E. Scheidt Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention Faculty Fellow and currently co-chair of the Feminist Studies in Religion CoLaboratory.
Celtic Spirituality and English Mysticism
Registration for this class is closed
This course will cover the history of Christian Spirituality in the British Isles prior to the Protestant Reformation, including Celtic spirituality, Romano-British Christianity, Anglo-Saxon spirituality, and medieval English mysticism. Students will practice and reflect upon the spiritual disciplines described and prescribed in primary texts (The Cloud of Unknowing, Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, Julian of Norwich’s Showings, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of English People, Aelred of Rievaulx’s Spiritual Friendship, Celtic prayers and more) in order to better understand the texts in light of their experiences and their experiences in light of the texts. Their reflections will focus on the following two questions: How does the text inform my experience of the spiritual practice? And how does my experience of the spiritual practice inform and deepen my reading of the text? In this class, which will include both lecture and discussion, students will gain a broad knowledge of the various theologies and spiritualties that formed and eventually produced the distinctive flavor of Anglicanism and its many offshoots.
Instructor: The Rev. Daniel London, PhD, serves as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA. He earned his doctorate in Christian Spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He is a certified Forest Therapy Guide and the author of several books. He has also published articles and presented papers at academic conferences around the world. He serves as the Ecumenical Officer for the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California and lives in the Transfiguration House in Eureka CA with his wife Dr. Ashley London Bacchi and their two Yorkies, Seabury and Gubbio.
Navigating Conflict: Speaking the Truth in Love
Reconciliation is the mission of the Church; and reconciliation is not the absence of conflict but rather the navigation of it. When approached with skill and grounded in Christ’s love, conflict is a healthy process through which we fully encounter our neighbor, we learn about ourselves, and ultimately leads to unity amidst difference. In this course, you will learn concrete skills and tools that help keep conflict healthy and safe. You will also explore the spiritual practices which form the bedrock of this work. Over the seven weeks, you will be asked to read, listen, reflect, and practice skills.
Instructor: Alex Leach is currently a Priest-in-Charge at St. Luke’s in Woodland, CA. But before becoming a priest, Alex worked extensively in the field of conflict navigation. He ran a private coaching business for seven and a half years that focused on conflict communication skills. He also worked for five to six years for an agency in Sacramento called Relationship Skills Center. This Center offered free classes on conflict navigation skills to low-income individuals and families. Alex is excited about exploring the lessons that behavioral psychology and research on healthy communication skills can offer in conversation with our faith and church contexts.
Introduction to the New Testament
Registration for this class is closed
The course introduces the New Testament (NT) from a historical, literary, and theological perspective. It focuses on the Canonical Gospels’ distinct nature: the authorship, the key themes, issues the authors addressed, the theological teachings, and their relevance for ministry today.
Instructor:
My name is Laurent Okitakatshi, the instructor Introduction to the New Testament. I am a Roman Catholic Priest and I hold a doctorate in Biblical Studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. The New Testament is my primary area of concentration with a particular interest in the letters of St. Paul. I am the author of “Beloved Brother or Slave? Rethinking Koinonia in Paul’s Letter to Philemon. Eugene, OR: Cascade Library of Pauline Studies, 2025.”
Ordained for the diocese of Tshumbe, I am originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo (Central Africa). English is my second academic language and my fourth spoken language after Otetela, Lingala, and French. I’ve been an instructor for the CALL Program since 2020 and I teach courses on Introduction to the New Testament, The New Testament Parables, and The Pauline Epistles. I am also the professor of New Testament Studies at St. John Paul II Theological Seminary in Lodja (Democratic Republic of Congo).
Living Scripture
We are a people of the book, of scripture. How does scripture live in our communities of faith? How do we live out its many messages? This course, focused especially on the Writings of the Hebrew Bible and the Apocrypha, explores these questions and the difference scripture can make for our own lives and for the missions of the communities of faith to which we belong. We will look at and learn from ways this special literature responds to normative traditions (Torah and Prophets) in: (1) remembering their sacred history while being open to change and revision; (2) encouraging the people of God to worship in times that call for both lament and praise; (3) learning how to live wisely in God’s created order; (4) telling stories of witness that grapple with questions of identity and context for faithful living; and (5) finding and envisioning hope in challenging times. All of this scriptural literature provides role models for all the people of God and makes important connections between Old and New Testaments.
Instructor: Donn Morgan is Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Always a student and teacher of the Bible, he also held administrative positions at CDSP (academic dean, president). He has been deeply involved in theological education in The Episcopal Church and the Graduate Theological Union, as well as teaching in Asia and England. His books include Fighting with the Bible, Manifesto for Learning, Talking with the Bible and The Oxford Handbook of the Writings of the Hebrew Bible (editor
What We Believe: Theology in the Anglican Tradition
It has become rather commonplace to suppose that Anglican Christians care mostly about liturgy and not very much about theology. That’s not true! Anglican traditions exhibit a rich and diverse history of theological reflection. Anglicans have always insisted that that how Christians think and talk about God makes a critical difference in what Christians believe.
Instructor: A native of Virginia, John Kater served as assistant minister and later as rector at Christ Episcopal Church, Poughkeepsie, NY and also taught for ten years as a visiting professor at Vassar College. From 1984 to 1990 he served as education officer for the Episcopal Diocese of Panama and priest-in-charge of Iglesia San Francisco de Asís in Panama City. He is Professor Emeritus of Ministry Development at CDSP and since 2007 has been teaching one semester yearly at Ming Hua Theological College in Hong Kong, In 2022 he was appointed Rector Emeritus at Christ Church in Poughkeepsie, where he now lives.
Images of Diakonia
Diaconal ministry has at its heart connecting Christian scripture and tradition with the needs, hopes and concerns of the world. Using a framework of five key images, students will strengthen awareness of the sacred in the Church and the wider community, invigorate their practice of diakonia, and gain confidence in engaging others to do the same.
Instructor: Deacon Phina Borgeson brings to her work with CALL more than forty years experience teaching, facilitating, and mentoring in ministry education and formation. She thrives on encouraging deacons, those preparing to be deacons, and other members of the baptized to make connections among their daily lives, cultural and civic contexts, and faith traditions. She lives in Sonoma County, California, where her community ministry focus is on policy and practices for just and resilient food systems.
