Praying the Lord's Prayer with All Creatures: Online Class 

Overview: this is a class about prayer—about integrating all creation into our practice of praying; about praying for our nonhuman kindred, and joining our praying with theirs. 

Instructor: Collin Cornell is a teacher and writer. He earned his Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament from Emory University and taught for three years as a visiting professor of biblical studies in the School of Theology at the University of the South (Sewanee). He is now the coordinator of the School's Center for Religion and Environment. He brings an ecological conviction, rooted in scripture, to all his work of educating.

The tuition for the course is $100.

Sessions:

Theocentric petitions. This session begins with the invocation and first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, which face towards God’s name, kingdom, and will. It will examine the biblical significance of these terms, and how they are embedded within a world of scriptural reference that very much includes nonhuman creatures.

Creature-centric petitions, part 1. This session engages the requests for daily bread and forgiveness and considers these as pertaining not just to humans but nonhumans. In scripture, God provides for food for all beings; and forgiveness, release from past misdeeds, applies, somehow and mysteriously, beyond the human, too (e.g., Gen 9; Jonah).

Creature-centric petitions, part 2. This session interprets the two requests concerning temptation and deliverance from evil (or rather, in Greek, “the evil one”). If and insofar as the activity of the evil one impacts earth and its nonhuman residents, then this prayer is also made on their behalf.

Doxology. This session considers the biblical rootage for each of the key terms within the closing line of the Lord’s Prayer (kingdom, power, and glory), and how they implicate the nonhuman.