UDTS is intentional introducing our students the global character and interconnectedness of Christian faith. Our goal is to teach our students to respect, engage, and learn from global perspectives and sources. In the two required What Christians Believe: Introduction to Doctrine courses there are three classes devoted entirely to reading, learning about, and interacting with Latin American Liberation theology, several versions of Third World Christology, along with Pluralist Christologies that engage the religiously diverse global village that we all inhabit in the twenty first century. Students interact with these diverse global perspectives in their final integrative papers.
The UM Studies courses required for all UM students introduces them to the global character of the Wesleyan Methodist tradition in general and the United Methodist Church in particular. In UM History the required textbooks and in-class lectures and discussions students are introduced to the global character of the Methodist tradition and ecclesial expression from its early roots in British Methodist that spread to Ireland, Scotland, the Americas, and other parts of the world. The course covers the subsequent spread of Methodism throughout the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century and its impact on Methodism, which has become progressively more diverse and global up to the present day. The dramatic growth of the Central Conferences over the past thirty years has further heightened the global character of the UMC. In UM Doctrine, UM students encounter multiethnic, intercultural, and global expression of Methodist theology. UM students read about, read primary texts by, and discuss in class a wide range of international theological voices like José Míguez Bonino . . . Finally, UM Polity introduces students to the global character of United Methodism in The Book of Discipline of the UMC. The texts, lectures, and in-class discussions enable UM students to understand the way the global expression of Methodists gets officially embodied within the communal conversations in Annual Conferences, Central Conferences, global representation of the UM General Boards and Agencies, and the General Conference that meets every four years and is the sole official decision making body and voice of the United Methodist Church progressively globalized by the growing representation of the delegates from the Central Conferences outside North America.