Online systematic theology course - any suggestions

Do any of you have any suggestions as to a free online systematic theology course?

Can be audio, video, textual, or any combination thereof.

My pastor suggested Birmingham Theological Seminary, which I'm currently listening to. It's Reformed, which isn't really my cup of tea but I can't deny their rigorous approach to theology, and I know it's not going to be flaky or iffy.

Dallas Theological Seminary also has a course which I've earmarked.

I found this as well: https://www.biblicaltraining.org/about (seems to have a Reformed slant also, per their Statement of Faith).

Don't have the funds to enroll in formal seminary but since it's been a couple decades since I last took a formal theology course, I reckon a refresher is indicated.

I would prefer something more ecumenical but realistically I probably can't be too picky.

Thanks in advance!

 

The theology course I took back in the day was basically a Bible overview of the books, plus an overview of Church history. It had tapes and workbooks and the whole thing and took several weeks. I was a baby Christian at the time so I thought I needed a formal foundation.

I'd now like to go deeper and broader, personally.

I've done a lot of studying on my own over the years, but nothing really structured and/or coherently built upon itself. Just sermons, books, articles, some topical studies at church, that sort of thing.

I'm admittedly pretty horrible at studying systematically on my own without some sort of external framework.

I'm willing to devote whatever time is necessary. I would love to get an actual theology degree but that's not realistically going to happen nor would I know what to actually do with it. So this is for self-study purposes only.

I'm willing to piece together individual subdisciplines as long as they come highly recommended. It doesn't have to be "a" single course that has everything in it.

I do trust y'all's judgment even though we don't always see eye to eye on everything (then again, who does?).

Keep in mind your "light reading" and my "light reading" are probably not the same. 8)

Part of me is probably looking to wash the last bit of American "evangelicalism" off my soul and so I have a strong desire to remove the fluff and extraneous and erroneous bits I've picked up along the way. You already know of my diving into Eastern Orthodoxy as of late, and I'm still camped out there. I feel ... disconnected and in need of putting some pieces back together. Not disconnected from God but from ... I don't even know what exactly. Can't explain it, but I know I need to do it, and systematically so.

 

I don't want to Google it and get some dry explanation, so please explain what "American evangelicalism" is to YOU. I can almost smell your venomous disgust with it, whatever it is, through my computer screen. Thanks...

 

I put "evangelicalism" in quotes for a reason. Didn't have a better way to describe it without going into detail.

Can we keep this on topic? You can start a new thread or send me a message if you'd like details. Thanks. We've all seen a lot of it over at BF, so you should be at least somewhat familiar with it.

 

I'm actually liking that Reformed course a lot so far and I'm going to stick with it. Maybe it's God nudging me to go back to my German roots and dig up what I know from back then and integrate it. It's the birthplace of the Reformation after all, and I've sorely neglected that part of my faith, to my shame.

I'm definitely interested in going back further to the early church fathers. I've never heard of Eastern systematics, but now I'm intrigued ... are there e-books available or is that something I can dig up online?

I'm currently also quite a ways in a church history book I found for Kindle that I'm enjoying a lot. He's referencing a lot of German theologians, to which I say "squee" (because I can understand the references. Ha.)

 

Thanks Ted!! I'm hoping TrustGzus will pop in actually, and RK also.

Aaron, to actually answer your question, now that I thought about it some more and can formulate it: I'm German. By birth and by upbringing. Germany is the land of the Reformation. What y'all call "Protestant" in German is actually called "Evangelisch" (i.e. evangelical). I'm from the land of Martin Luther and the center of the Reformation.

Words like "Lutheran", "Calvinist", "Protestant" and "Reformed" to a German mind just all means "evangelical", although we evidently put a far greater emphasis on Martin Luther than we do on John Calvin, who was French and therefore basically our neighbor to the west who gets an "also mentioned" along with Zwingli and some others. To the German mind, Reformed and Cavinist are not synonymous, which is what I mean when I say "Reformed (American) isn't my cup of tea" because I define it differently. If you can ever get a hold of a German hymn book, you'll find it full of hymns penned by Martin Luther. When Americans celebrate Halloween, Germans celebrate Reformation Day and commemorate Luther and his 95 Theses and that whole thing.

Understand that when and where I grew up, there were Catholics and then Protestants/Evangelicals/Lutherans, and that was it. When I left in the 80s, Baptist and nondenominational churches were just beginning to gain a foothold. There were no Methodists or Presbyterians, never mind Charismatics or Pentecostals or any of that stuff. I didn't grow up in the mishmash hodgepodge that's the American church environment, where "evangelical" means all those other things and whatever else to boot. We had 2 denominations, and a sprinkle of a few others, and no more. Not 200. The German brain cannot comprehend such an extremely splintered thing.

I'm kind of disturbed by what's happened to evangelicalism although there is obviously great value in revival and new life being breathed into dead religion. I have a rather strong urge to go back to my roots and dig up old treasures and combine them with what I know now and the way I know Jesus now. It's a personal quest of sorts.

Anyway, I reckon from there I'll go back further into the early Church fathers and Eastern Orthodox theologians, because that's built upon the foundation of the Apostles, before the Catholic Church happened and then the Reformation, and then everything else just kinda grew wings and exploded from there. I also took Religion with an emphasis on Evangelicalism as a major in high school actually and so I have all these things floating around and need to pull them together and forge them into a consistent whole for myself.

That's all the explanation I got. Hope it helps.

 

Actually, no. I don't know what you're referring to, but whatever.

 

Bookmarking all the things. Really appreciate it.

 

Right. With Grudem you come away with a fairly exhaustive, well-balanced treatment of almost all historically debated views and church positions, and he clearly presents and contrasts his own particular views , though you might not hold to them.

I prefer to read his publications, but have listened to some of his podcasts.

 

Thank you so much! I'll definitely bookmark Gruden and give him a try. I can appreciate any theologian that actually considers other views and interpretations of Scripture other than the ones he/she believes and who doesn't think of himself/herself as holding the corner on truth. I do think there are certain things that God has declared to be His own, that He does not give us access to, that we can never reconcile in our own heads, and that we will always argue about without any sort of resolution. ;:h;

I found a free version of Karl Barth's "Humanity of God", and the more I read about him and his works and read what he had to say, the more I find him quite the treasure. I can see why he's considered the foremost Protestant theologian of the 20th Century. Wish I had 300 bucks to purchase Church Dogmatics, but I'll start with his Epistle to the Romans once I'm done devouring the free stuff that's available.

I find it extremely interesting that Barth addresses an issue of the theologians of his time who tried to formulate their theology in response to the cultural Zeitgeist to make Christianity "relevant" and treat it as a religion, rather than focusing on Christ and our faith in Him and the reason for that. It was like reading a contemporary commentary on the American evangelical Church. D'oh!

I also downloaded a few of The World's Greatest Sermons series, available on Amazon. Half of them are free, the others are 99 cents a book. It's a 10-book series, and each book has 10 sermons. It starts with Basil of Caesarea and goes on down through the centuries until Charles Spurgeon.

Many of the Christian classics that are now in the public domain are available in e-book format or as a .pdf and you can read them with any e-reader. Amazing resource.