Certificates
Outside of the Center for Reconciliation, students can earn academic certificates alongside their degrees. A number of certificates address questions related to justice and reconciliation.
The CFR’s programs equip Duke Divinity School students with the tools and resources to practice Christian reconciliation in their future ministries. The programs also provide opportunities for students to substantively contribute to the center’s mission and vision through employment, courses, and mentorship opportunities.
CFR Fellows and Friends
Embodied Practice
The CFR aspires to cultivate theology and practices to help Duke Divinity School continue to grow as a leading community that equips Christian leaders to be effective ministers for transformation and reconciliation. One opportunity for regular embodied practice is through the weekly gathering of the CFR Fellows and Friends. In this gathering, CFR staff hold space for prayer and reflection as an active practice of lament and hope within the ecumenical body of Christ in uncertain times.
Academic Courses
Reconciliation Topics
Duke Divinity School is one of the country’s best centers for theological learning, with a historical commitment to reconciliation. In addition to the courses taught by the Center for Reconciliation faculty, many professors focus their core classes and advanced seminars in topics of reconciliation.
The Berean Cohort
Spiritual Formation
The Center for Reconciliation offers a reconciliation-centered spiritual formation group for residential students at Duke Divinity School. The Berean Cohort aims to form students into transformative Christian leaders who are deeply prepared for the mission of reconciliation in the church, academy, and world by connecting to and building on Duke Divinity School’s programs of teaching and learning.
CFR Conversation Series
Engaging Workshops
Center for Reconciliation hosts a series of conversations meant to introduce individuals and organizations working on particular aspects of justice, transformation, and reconciliation. The goal of this series is to help the Duke Divinity School community develop theological language, moral imagination, and practical resources for dealing effectively with tough issues facing our churches and our world.
The Certificate in Black Church Studies can be earned within the M.Div., M.T.S., Th.M., and M.A. degrees and aims to help strengthen the body of Christ through critical reflection, dialogue, and practice at the intersection of race, faith, and Christian witness in the tradition of Black churches.
The Certificate in Faith-based Organizing, Advocacy, and Social Transformation is for students in the M.Div. (residential and hybrid), M.T.S., or M.A. programs seeking to engage in campaigning and advocacy work, community organizing, community development, and related forms of social, political, and economic witness from a Christian basis.
The Certificate in Gender, Sexuality, Theology, and Ministry can be earned alongside the M.Div. (residential and hybrid), M.T.S., Th.D., and M.A. and enables students to make the study of gender, sexuality, theology, and ministry a core component of their theological education. It fosters a collaborative environment for teaching, research, service learning, and dialogue.
The Certificate in Faith, Food, and Environmental Justice is for students in the residential M.Div. and M.T.S. degrees seeking training and preparation for engaging faithfully in environmental justice work, agricultural production, healthy food access and food systems, creation care ministries, land use issues, policy advocacy, and environmental management.
The Certificate in Prison Studies is available in the residential M.Div., M.T.S, and Th.D programs and provides students with the opportunity to engage specifically with people in prison and the system that imprisons them in the context of theological education and formation for ministry.
The Certificate in Latinx Studies is available to students in the residential and hybrid M.Div. and M.T.S. degrees and is designed to provide theological and ministerial formation to students preparing for ministry with Hispanic/Latinx churches and communities in the U.S.