Religion-Christianity

Studies the history, literature, and religion of ancient Israel in the light of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Emphasizes methods of contemporary biblical criticism. Cross listed as RELJ 1210.

Studies the history, literature, and theology of earliest Christianity in light of the New Testament. Emphasizes the cultural milieu and methods of contemporary biblical criticism.

Surveys Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Examines how the Bible becomes sacred scripture for Jews and Christians.

This course traces the rise of Christianity in the first millennium of the Common Era, covering the development of doctrine, the evolution of its institutional structures, and its impact on the cultures in which it flourished. Students will become acquainted with the key figures, issues, and events from this formative period, when Christianity evolved from marginal Jewish sect to the dominant religion in the Roman Empire.

This course is designed to add substantive depth to a general understanding of American religious pluralism and insight into the socio-historical context of American religion through the study of Mormonism. In addition to introducing Mormonism's basic beliefs and practices, the course will explore issues raised by Mormonism's move toward the American mainstream while retaining its religious identity and cultural distinctiveness.

The story of Christianity's emergence in the Middle East and its migration into Europe and then North America is just one aspect of Christian history, which also has a rich and long history in Africa, Asia and other parts of the global South. This course looks at the shape Christianity is taking in non-Western parts of the world and how this growth impacts Christianity in the West.

This course considers the complex world of Christian thought, examining various perspectives on the nature of faith, the being and action of God, the identity of Jesus of Nazareth, the role of the Bible in theological reflection, and the relationship between Christian thought and social justice. Students will read various important works of Christian theology and become acquainted with a range of theological approaches and ideas.

This course engages in a historical survey of American Catholicism from colonial beginnings to the present. It especially explores the theme of how Catholicism has been enculturated in America, how Catholic faith and practice have interacted with the social, cultural, and political environment of the nation.

This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Christianity

"The Black Church" carries unique symbolic weight in America--but why? This course explores how the idea of the Black Church gained moral authority, whether there is a collective Black Church or only black churches, the traditions and practices the concept names, who the concept celebrates and who it marginalizes, and how--or whether--the Black Church, as myth or reality, is still relevant in African American life today.

This course examines the influence of theological ideas on social movements in twentieth- and twenty-first-century America and investigates how religious commitments shape everyday living, including racial perception and economic, political, and sexual organization. The course will examine the American Civil Rights Movement, late 1960s counter-cultural movements, and recent faith-based community-development movements and organizing initiatives.

A text-focused class that will read the entire City of God, supplementing that work with several other of Augustine's smaller texts (particularly letters and sermons) to attempt to understand that work's argument, paying attention to the various audiences to which it was addressed, and to Augustine's larger thought as captured in that one great and difficult book

This course focuses on Jesus of Nazareth as an historical figure, that is, as he is accessible to the historian by means of historical methods. Our most important sources of information on Jesus are the canonical Gospels, and so much of the course will involve reading and attempting to understand these texts. We will attempt to reconstruct at least the broad outlines of Jesus activity and teachings, keeping in mind the limits of our sources.

Intensive study of the theological ideas and arguments of the Apostle Paul in relation to their historical and epistolary contexts.

This course is an introduction to the thematic core of the Orthodox Christian tradition. There is first reviewed the major elements of the Orthodox faith, its theology and doctrine, that developed over the course of the Byzantine era, This study is followed by an examination of writings on scripture and tradition, iconography. liturgy and sacrament, as well as the relationship of Orthodox Christianity to the culture.

Exploration of transgression in Judaism and Christianity with a focus on the Ten Commandments and the seven deadly sins. Reflection on who determines what is sinful and why. Close reading of texts challenging the wrongfulness of acts and attitudes long considered sinful, with critical attention to the persuasiveness of religious rules.

"Liberation Theology" has emerged in modern contexts of violence and oppression as a faithful form of critique and protest. It radically contextualizes the pervasive scriptural emphasis on freedom from injustice and exploitation. In this course, we will examine the larger biblical narrative of human suffering and divine justice and the way it is reanimated in global theologies of liberation, including Latino/a, Black, and feminist theology.

From the revivals of George Whitefield to the antebellum abolitionists to the unexpected rise of Donald Trump, Evangelicals have played a vital and contested role in American society. Evangelicalism has also burgeoned into a truly global faith tradition, with an estimated 600 million+ adherents around the world. This course presents a multidisciplinary and polyperspectival introduction to this religious movement in World Christianity.

Reading historical and social analyses along with a range of environmental theologies, this seminar investigates entanglements of Christianity with modern environmental problems. It considers the influence of Christianities in various environmental imaginations, and the role of ecological science and environmental stress in reshaping religious imaginations.

This course introduces students to the extensive philosophical, theological and exegetical work of St. Thomas Aquinas. Students will read his foundational texts, a range of important tractates from the *Summa theologiae*, and a range of Aquinas's scriptural exegeses. Comparisons will be made to other scholastic theologians and commentators, including those of the previous generation, i.e., the monastic theologians.

This course is about America's newer religious movements: Scientology, Nation of Islam and Mormonism. The class will be using theories of ritual and text to understand how religious communities constitute themselves around an originating vision and retain a sense of continuity notwithstanding dramatic change. We will ask also why these three movements have created such crisis for the American state and anxiety among its citizens.

A seminar focused upon some of the most significant philosophical and religious thinkers that have shaped and continued to shape American religious thought and culture from the founding of the Republic to the Civil Rights Movement, including Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane Addams, William James, Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King, Jr. We will explore how their thought influenced the social and cultural currents of their time.

Introduces the major mystical traditions of the Middle Ages and the sources in which they are rooted.

An examination of the legal evolution, philosophical underpinnings and political application of the First Amendment religion clauses. Analysis of specific controversies and court opinions will be supported by attention to such key concepts as "secularism," "tolerance," "civilization," "gender" and "race" in the application of these clauses domestically and in U.S. foreign policy.

Surveys the history of Christianity in the Byzantine world and the Middle East from late antiquity (age of emperor Justinian) until the fall of Constantinople.