What to Expect

Here's a learning opportunity you will certainly enjoy. Filled with interviews with religious practitioners, you will learn directly from those who are on the inside of each of the new religions we study. This learning experience is designed for those who are interested in the religions in their neighborhoods.

  • You will hear from Satanists, Pagans, Witches and many others about why they believe as they do.

  • You will explore the major world religions which have come to America.

  • You will be intrigued by the reason why people chose to worship and/or practice in different ways.

  • You will be prepared to have meaningful conversations from a position of mutual respect.

  • You will learn ways in which you can introduce the story of your faith in a non-threatening manner.

In Partnership with Multifaith Matters

Multifaith Matters is a support hub for Christians and churches who are seeking to fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandments in a multifaith world.
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What's inside the course:

  1. 1

    • Welcome to this Ephesiology Master Class

    • How to use this course

    • Description and Objectives

      FREE PREVIEW

    • Get Your Copy of the Books

    • Be Sure to Subscribe to Sacred Tribes Journal - It's Free!!

    • Before we begin...
  2. 2

    • Instructions

    • Learning Tasks and Syllabus

    • Reading, Participation, and Class Lessons

    • Writing Academic Book Reviews

    • Rubric for Book Review

    • Writing a Seminary Paper

    • Rubric for Final Research Project

    • Course Bibliography

    • Resources for Academic Research

    • Writing & Style Guides
  3. 3

    • Emergence of NRMs

    • Apologetics, Mission & New Religious Movements: A Holistic Approach

    • Religious Identity

    • Center for the Studies on New Religions

    • Bitter Winter: A Magazine on Religious Liberty and Human Rights

    • Notes Submission

    • Annotated Bibliography
  4. 4

    • Defining NRMs

    • Charismatic Leaders in New Religions

    • Violence in NRMs

    • "Cults" and Euro-American Nativist Millennial Movements

    • Notes Submission

    • Annotated Bibliography
  5. 5

    • The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Lived Religion

    • Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

    • What Mormons Believe about God

    • Latter-day Saints, Rituals, Pilgrimage and Cultural Symbolics

    • Jehovah's Witnesses

    • The Family International: A Brief Historical and Theological Overview

    • The Church of Almighty God

    • The Last Reformation

    • Notes Submission

    • Annotated Bibliography
  6. 6

    • Church of Scientology

    • Western Esotericism

    • From the Occult to Western Esotericism

    • Dark Green Religion

    • Heathenism

    • Christian and Pagan Conversations

    • Stonehenge, Druids, and King Arthur

    • Defining Paganism

    • Wicca

    • Contributing Factors in the Resurgence of Paganism in Western Society

    • The Wheel of the Year

    • Christian Responses to Halloween

    • Notes Submission

    • Annotated Bibliography
  7. 7

    • Phil Wyman and Festival Settings

    • Alternative Cultural Events

    • Burning Man Festival in Alternative Interpretative Analysis

    • Notes Submission

    • Annotated Bibliography
  8. 8

    • Hinduism in America

    • Hinduism and the Simpsons

    • Hinduphobia

    • Hare Krishna

    • Transcendental Meditation

    • Sikhism in America

    • Sikh Coalition

    • Jainism

    • Overview of Buddhism

    • Buddhism in America

    • Asian American Buddhism

    • Tibetan Buddhism

    • D.T. Suzuki and Zen

    • Humanitarian Islam

    • Baháʼí

    • Notes Submission

    • Annotated Bibliography
  9. 9

    • Satanic Temple

    • Compassionate Satanism

    • Satanism

    • UFO Religions

    • Astrotheology and UFOs

    • Notes Submission

    • Annotated Bibliography
  10. 10

    • A Legacy of Civility

    • Watching our Orthopathy in Religious Dialogue

    • Hospitality in Multifaith Engagement

    • Mormon Lived Religion

    • Mormon-Evangelical Dialogue

    • Neighborly Responses to Atheism

    • Relationships with Muslims

    • Loving Their Muslim Neighbor

    • Wicca and Jesus

    • Methods and Perspectives in Understanding and Reaching Satanists

    • Notes Submission

    • Annotated Bibliography
  11. 11

    • Before you go...
  12. 12

    • Reading, Reflections, and Class Lessons

    • Participation

    • Book Review

    • Research Project

    • NRM Research Template

The benefits of this course include:

  • More than twelve hours of on-demand video

  • Articles and blogs written by your instructor

  • Accessible 24/7 from your phone, tablet, or computer

  • Personal reflection questions to help you digest and apply the content

  • Discussion forums to do theology in a community with others taking the class

  • Certificate of completion for continuing education credit

Perspectives on Post-Christendom Spiritualities

Don't forget to pick up your copy of the book

“There is here a wealth of information and careful analysis which will enable better understanding of an often confusing subject. The concern throughout is to understand the [new spiritualities], not to castigate or ridicule. The contributors write from a desire that fol-lowers of the new religious movements would come to faith in Jesus Christ. Responsible scholarship about new religious movements need not be incompatible with missiological objectives. To the contrary, as the essays which follow demonstrate, the latter actually depends upon the former.”

- Harold A. Netland, professor of philosophy of religion and intercultural studies, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
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Meet your course facilitators

John and Michael bring years of practical experience in researching other religions and constructively dialoguing with those who believe very differently than they do.

Director of Multifaith Matters

John W. Morehead

John W. Morehead is the Director of Multifaith Matters. He is the co-editor and contributing author for A Charitable Orthopathy: Christian Perspectives on Emotions in Multifaith Engagement, and Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach, and the editor of Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue. John has also provided expertise to the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization issue group on "The Church and the New Spiritualities." He has been involved for many years in multi-faith relationships and conversations in the contexts of Islam, Mormonism, Paganism, and others. His ongoing research in multifaith engagement and religious conflict involves bringing social psychology and neuroscience into conversation with a theology of love of religious neighbors. Particular areas of interest are emotions and orthopathy, evangelical concerns for purity in relation to syncretism, intellectual and cultural humility, post-9/11 psychology, dehumanization, Christian Nationalism, as well as the cognitive science and biocultural study of religion.

Professor of Missiological Theology

Michael T. Cooper

Dr. Cooper earned a PhD in Intercultural Studies with a focus on religious movements and a minor in theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He currently serves as a missiologist for a missions agency where he focuses on missiological research and equipping missionaries for effective cultural engagement. He has thirty years of missions experience, including ten years as a pioneer church planter in Romania after the fall of communism and has equipped church planters and leaders in Africa, Europe, North America, South America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. He is a guest faculty at Torch Trinity Graduate University, adjunct faculty at Mission India Theological Seminary, Asia Graduate School of Theology Nepal, and Ebenezer Bible College in Katmandu, and affiliate faculty at Kairos University. He has written and contributed to more than 30 books and academic articles and has presented conference lectures at the London School of Economics, University of Bordeaux, Loyola University, Baylor University, and many others. His recent book, Ephesiology: A Study of the Ephesian Movement is a best seller at William Carey Publishing.

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