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Advanced Certificate

Black Church Studies

Northeastern Seminary’s Black Church Studies certificate program is designed for students who want to deepen their understanding of the history, theology, and biblical interpretation unique to the Black Church. The certificate program is designed to equip men and women to be scholars, church practitioners, and transformative leaders in urban or suburban congregations and other settings within African American culture and beyond.

Black Church Studies

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Black Church Studies- Featured Courses

 

History of the Black Church

The historical role of the Black Church in the Black community is emphasized in conjunction with the contributions and distinctive characteristics within American Protestantism. The course focuses on an examination and interpretation of the history of the Black church, including the seven historic American Black denominations and other Pentecostal Associations and Non-Denomination affiliations.

Black Theology

The course will examine the enduring institution and changing dynamics of the Black Church from its inception in America to the present. It will explore its changing history, theology, Biblical interpretation, culture, education, ethics, and ministry. It will examine the importance of the Black Church in the life of the community and its people. Emphasis includes the relationship between the twentieth-century Black liberation theologies and civil rights movements. The lives and contribution of Black women and men who offered new theological interpretations, and social change movements, and provided a foundation for the global church in the twenty-first century is examined.

Leadership in the Black Church

The course is designed to acquaint students with major figures, movements, and issues in African American theological and ethical traditions with particular emphasis on leadership. The course explores theological and sociological concerns within respective traditions and offers a forum for practical engagement with contemporary problems associated with African American church life and culture.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education, which stops with efficiency, may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals. We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

Stackable Curriculum - Certificate to Master’s

Graduates of the certificate may go on to complete an M.A. or M.Div. without losing any credits with Northeastern Seminary's stackable curriculum.

Your Black Church Studies education develops the ministry skills to become a change agent in your ministry context.

Continue your education with another stackable block of courses to receive a Master of Arts degree in Ministry Practice or Theological Studies.

Complete the requirements for service as a chaplain when you assemble multiple stackable competency blocks to earn your Master of Divinity with a Black Church Studies concentration.