The Early Church and Empire in Western Turkey—May 2025
Professor Matt Skinner taught a for-credit travel course next year centered around a trip to Istanbul and the breathtaking excavated ruins of several ancient cities including Ephesus, Pergamum, Sardis, and Alexandria Troas.
Knowing Our Neighbors in Latin America: Guatemala and Mexico—January 2025
Professor Guillermo Hansen led a study course in Guatemala and Mexico. Through an immersive field experience, this course explored the history and mission of our companion Lutheran churches and ecumenical partners in these countries, focusing particularly on their ministry with indigenous peoples, migration, and human rights. The course also familiarized students with the historical, social, and cultural features of this region through visits to archeological sites (Tikal, Templo Mayor in Mexico City), attending lectures/round-tables with local leaders and scholars, as well as experiencing several cultural-historical venues—Antigua, Anthropological Museum in Mexico City, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and mores.
Germany: Land of Martin Luther—May 2024
Mark Tranvik, professor of Reformation history and theology, led a study trip to Wittenberg, Germany, and surrounding sites. With a home base in Wittenberg, the city where Luther lived, taught and preached for much of his life, students also visited surrounding sites of interest in Berlin, Torgau, Buchenwald, Erfurt, Eisenach, Leipzig, Eisleben, and Dresden. The course also covered the experiences of Germany in the recent past, including the Nazi period and the Holocaust, the 1989 peaceful revolution, and the issues surrounding immigration.
Germany: Bonhoeffer as Youth Minister—June 2024
In this course led by Professor Andrew Root, students were immersed in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life, theology, youth ministry, and resistance through an integrative mix of lectures, tours, conversations, and experiential learning set in the Bonhoeffer family home and various museums and sites all around the historic and vibrant city of Berlin.