The Certificate in Theology and the Arts provides new opportunities to develop passions for the arts and integrate them with a lively and robust theology.

The Certificate in Theology and the Arts (CTA) offers M.Div., M.T.S., and Th.M. students firm grounding in the key theological loci and practices relevant to a lifetime’s engagement with the arts in the church, the university, and beyond.

To complete this certificate, students must complete the core course and two other courses from an approved list (normally one of these will be a course offered outside the Divinity School). In addition, all students must complete a research or service learning project. Finally, participants are required to participate in events sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, as well as bimonthly CTA colloquies.

Meet Our Students

Derek Uejo: Finding New Avenues of Exploration
December 12, 2022
Derek Uejo: Finding New Avenues of Exploration
Derek Uejo, M.Div. '23, is a seminarian whose theological and pastoral interests converge at the intersection of academic study and artistic affection.
Hannah Anderson: A Writer Learns to See New Creation
December 12, 2022
Hannah Anderson: A Writer Learns to See New Creation
Hannah Anderson talks about how the Certificate in Theology and the Arts program has impacted her writing, faith, and intellectual formation.
Chinwe Edeani: Exploring the Boundaries
January 25, 2024
Chinwe Edeani: Exploring the Boundaries
Edeani, M.T.S. '25, explores how the Certificate in Theology and the Arts program has impacted her faith, her photography, and her theology.

The primary objectives of the certificate program are:

  • to help students recognize and put into practice the constructive possibilities of the mutual enrichment of theology and arts
  • to provide students with a firm grounding in the key theological loci and practices relevant to a lifetime’s engagement with the arts in the church, the university, and beyond
  • to offer students an appreciation of the current shape of the arts-theology conversation
  • to foster and support research and community service projects which responsibly integrate the arts and theology
  • to increase the opportunities for field education placements in the arts with community and church organizations
  • to encourage and facilitate a community of students with a particular interest in engaging the arts as they discern their particular vocations
  • to encourage disciplinary education and cross-departmental collaboration within Duke Divinity School and the University

Learn More About the Program

Learn more about the program, including requirements and other information.

Learn More about the theology and arts certificate

Certificate Courses

The courses offered as a part of the Certificate in Theology in the Arts focus on three main areas: visual arts, literary arts, and music. All certificate students are required to complete an introductory course in theology and the arts as well as two additional theology and the arts courses taught by our affiliated faculty. Below are examples of recent theology and arts courses; full course offerings are listed in the Divinity Bulletin.

  • XTIANTHE 773 "Introduction to Theology and the Arts"
  • XTIANTHE 815 “Theology and Music"
  • XTIANTHE 848 "Versions of Charity and Its Impediments: Aquinas; Langland; Milton"
  • XTIANTHE 812 "The Doctrine of Creation and Theological Anthropology"
  • XTIANTHE 845 "Beauty, Suffering, and the Cross"
     
  • BCS 768 "Race, Relationship, and Religion in Film"
  • PARISH 764 "The Poetic Imagination"
  • PARISH 800 "Women and Spiritual Memoir"
  • SPIRIT 802 "Spiritual Writing Workshop"
  • XTIANTHE 782 “Poetry and/as Theology: Part I – G. M. Hopkins, Paul Claudel, R. M. Rilke"
  • XTIANTHE 783 "Poetry and/as Theology: Part II – T. S. Eliot, Czeslaw Milosz, Geoffrey Hill"

Meet Our Alumni

Breaking and Making Bread: A Food Writer Finds Healing
March 12, 2023
Breaking and Making Bread: A Food Writer Finds Healing
Read an interview with Kendall Vanderslice, a baker, writer, and food critic whose work blends her expertise in the kitchen with academic training and scriptural imagination.
Finding the Right Question: From the Classroom to the Museum
December 12, 2023
Finding the Right Question: From the Classroom to the Museum
Read an interview with Emily Normand, a museum educator, academic, and art historian who earned the Certificate in Theology and the Arts while completing her M.T.S.
D'Andrea Fanning: A Creative Finds an Interdisciplinary Career
October 17, 2024
D'Andrea Fanning: A Creative Finds an Interdisciplinary Career
D’Andrea Fanning (M.Div. '23) shares how Duke Divinity School, DITA, and the Certificate in Theology and the Arts led her to an interdisciplinary career as a business owner, consultant, professor, and Church minister.
DITA students pose at Duke Chapel
DITA students pose on the steps of Duke Chapel.

The 2023 cohort of twelve M.Div. and M.T.S. students represents the largest class to matriculate with a Certificate in Theology and the Arts since DITA’s founding in 2009, and their research projects, excerpted below, represent a wide variety of academic engagement with the arts.

  • Seeing Mary: Late-Medieval Marian Iconography and the Innovations of Mary Corita Kent
  • Adam and Cain: A Literary Engagement with the Scriptures
  • Learning the Craft of Love: Participatory Theology in Piers Plowman and the Old Order Amish for the Contemporary Christian

  • Communion of Saints: A Reflection on Woodblock Printmaking and Prayer

  • Indigeneity, Idols, and Biblical Imagery in Jean Charlot’s Picture Book (1933)

  • Theology and Visual Art through Experimental Film: “The Eucharist”