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Home Short Courses Christian Spirituality Texts and the Christian Tradition (2025)

Texts and the Christian Tradition (2025) course

Come to Sarum College for a week of deep exploration of a specific text as it relates to the Christian Tradition.

This is an opportunity to have a week study break in the beautiful Salisbury Cathedral Close, where residential participants enjoy full board, access to the library and to the pattern of liturgy at Salisbury Cathedral. During the week, you will engage critically with the text using particular lenses to enable deeper consideration of its meaning, significance, impact and longevity for the Christian spiritual tradition, its adherents, and/or the wider cultural context.

The 2025 edition of the module will focus on the work, Scivias, by the monumental 12th-century theologian and polymath, Hildegard of Bingen, also drawing on her wider work where relevant.
The speakers include:
Dr Michael Hahn, who will introduce Hildegard’s context and think about how we study medieval women writers as theologians, as well as drawing out some of the major mystical-theological themes in Scivias.
Lauren Cole who will examine Hildegard’s writing on nature and medicine as well as thinking about the dissemination of Hildegard’s texts.
Dr William Flynn will teach on musicology in Hildegard’s texts and how Hildegard’s understanding of music and composition sat within her wider theology.
Mary Sharratt will focus on how to write historical religious women into fiction, speaking particularly about her book,  Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen.

 

Auditors are participants who learn alongside postgraduate students but are not required to complete an essay or earn academic credit.

What does it mean to audit a course? 

There is also an option to choose to participate in a module as an assessed auditor for those who would like to add discipline and tutor feedback to their study but aren’t sure about taking on a full degree programme.

Joining this course is an opportunity to have a study break in the beautiful Salisbury Cathedral Close, where residential participants enjoy full board, access to the library and to the pattern of liturgy at Salisbury Cathedral.

Whether it’s cultural events, sightseeing (Stonehenge is nearby for example) or shopping — there’s plenty to do if you’d like to extend your stay the weekend before and after the course. For ideas, visit Salisbury Cathedral Close attraction websites to see what’s on Sarum’s doorstep. Visit the Wiltshire Creative website to view events at nearby Salisbury Playhouse and the Salisbury Arts Centre. The Experience Salisbury website has an excellent city-wide listing of forthcoming events around the city.

Need financial assistance? View our list of grantmaking trusts

Learn more about postgraduate study in Christian Spirituality 

Learn more about postgraduate study in Theology, Imagination and Culture

Enrolled students also may attend teaching weeks for modules in addition to the modules which they are studying for credit, by permission of the Programme Leader.  The audit fee and hospitality prices are reviewed annually with any changes effective from 1 July.

 

 

Book Event

(residential) Texts and the Christian Tradition £735

Residential with B&B (ensuite). Check-in 9 September check out 12 September. Includes evening meals on course days. If you require any additional nights B&B, please contact our hospitality team on 01722 424800.

Available Tickets: 5
The (residential) Texts and the Christian Tradition ticket is sold out. You can try another ticket or another date.
(non-residential) Texts and the Christian Tradition £495

Includes the evening meal on Monday, lunch and refreshments on the remaining course days. No B&B nor evening meal Tuesday and Wednesday.

Available Tickets: 5
The (non-residential) Texts and the Christian Tradition ticket is sold out. You can try another ticket or another date.

Details

Dates & Times

12 - 15 May 2025
Day 1 - Starts at 2pm, Day 2 & 3 - Full days, Day 4 - finishes at 2:30pm

Location

Sarum College

Category

Tutor(s)

Dr Michael Hahn
Professor Graeme Smith

Course code

Other Notes

This is an ideal course for a study break inthe Salisbury Cathedral Close.

The course fee includes lunch and refreshments. Residential bookings include the evening meal and B&B.

For queries, please contact maadministrator@sarum.ac.uk

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What our students say

PhD Research Programmes

Visual Artist Claire Reed

The complex and sometimes fractious relationship between contemporary art and religion has intrigued me throughout my art career, informing my direction as an artist. It has led me to work in sacred spaces with their immediate and wider communities, to study an MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture at Sarum College, and recently to become artist–researcher at Leo Baeck College of Jewish scholarship and learning.

My aim is to examine the extent to which this creative approach might generate fruitful inter-religious theological insights within a Jewish and Christian ministry training context.

Sarum College combines an open-minded embrace of the imagination and the arts with a supportive, questioning and diverse community. Crucially for me, the Sarum-Winchester PhD programme is one of the very few UK university programmes to offer a hybrid thesis in art and theology in which the creative process and resulting art output along with a written critical component are presented for examination.

This PhD research is a key part of my development as an artist engaged with theology and inter-religious dialogue.

Read full article

Stimulating and Challenging

What is Successful Ageing? led by James Woodward

I enjoyed the course immensely from beginning to end – the seamless interweaving of knowledge, ideas and research and the linking with belief and faith.

The content was stimulating, challenging, thought provoking and I was greatly appreciative of the contributions and questions from other participants, your considered and sensitive responses and integration with your presentations.

Thank you!

 

 

Netflix, Theology and Pastoral Practice

Peter Butchers on his MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture student experience

How do cultural tropes, like those found in Black Mirror, help bridge the gap between what academic theology espouses and what the everyday Christian believes? In his research as a student on the MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture, Peter Butchers explored platonic philosophy, digital theology and eschatology, and pastoral practice around death and dying.

Read more 

Rewarding Sabbatical Stay

The Revd Greg Syler, is Rector of Ascension & St. George’s, Resurrection Parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC USA, spent part of his ministry sabbatical at Sarum College in spring 2022.

His account of the experience begins: ‘I loved spending nearly three weeks of my ministry sabbatical at Sarum College earlier this year.

Not only did I rest, and rest well in the comfortable care of the Sarum College staff, I experienced very significant renewal and fresh insights.’

Read more

The Road Not Taken

Sarum Graduate Mike Truman

January 2022

Five years ago, I told my Warden of Readers that I would not be renewing my licence when it expired in 2019, as I thought my faith was becoming too unorthodox for a Church of England licensed lay minister. As someone who knew me well, she challenged me to actively explore what I did still believe. Thus started the journey that ended last August with the dissertation completing my MA in Theology Imagination and Culture (MATIC) at Sarum College.

Read more 

Clergy Study Breaks

The opportunity for clergy to get away occasionally from their own context, to have an overnight stay in the beautiful setting of Sarum College and all that the Salisbury Cathedral Close offers is hugely valuable. All the clergy I have suggested who have spent 24hrs at Sarum College have benefit greatly from the experienced mentoring where they can talk, reflect, think, plan and pray.

The support and encouragement they receive is excellent and has a positive on their on going ministry. This is something the Diocese of Rochester encourages and supports financially in preparation for their clergy preparing for Extended Ministerial Development Leave (Sabbatical).

— Canon Christopher Dench, Diocese of Rochester Director of Formation and Ministry

Retreats and Private Stays

When I arrived, exhausted and sensitive, I was grateful not to be asked by Reception were I came from, whether I had had a good journey etc. That was the kind of hospitality I needed: a non-intrusive welcome that was found in ancient cultures and still survives in some societies today, where the host asks questions about a stranger and his journey only when the visitor has rested and been given food and drink.

— guest on a private stay

Biblical Study Breaks

I just found it very refreshing – as a leader of a church I don’t get as many opportunities to step out and do courses (my fault, not the church!) and so I loved it. I think it was run really well online – which is a difficult medium to work with.

Pádraig Ó Tuama (pictured) was outstanding in his balance of getting us to engage and sharing his learning. Also the quick availability of resources provided by Sarum College Librarian Jayne Downey was excellent.

— course participant, Story Theology: Narrative Approaches to Scripture

Tutor(s)

Dr Michael Hahn

Programme Leader for Postgraduate Programmes in Christian Spirituality

Professor Graeme Smith

Programme Leader, Theology, Imagination and Culture Postgraduate Programmes

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