Do readers find truth or steal it? Create it or deconstruct it? This course explores how interpreters and texts dance with each other to discover and create meaning and truth. Classic stories (some of them biblical, some not) will be read, interpretive theories will be explored, and theological implications will be examined. Particular attention will be paid to how historical events like the Holocaust affect (and create and destroy) the reading of classic stories. We will explore how catastrophe changes what we mean when we talk about meaning or truth.
This course emphasizes the theological study of conversations between religion and science. Major topics of the course are: 1) a survey of the historical relationship between religion, science, and technology, 2) the breadth and depth of the conflicts and dialogues between religion, science, and technology, and 3) practical application to big problems in religion, science, and technology.
This course addresses the great issues of justice, both human and divine. What is justice? Does God act justly? Can human beings act justly? This course will focus on a close and careful reading of three important primary texts: the Republic of Plato, the book of Genesis, and the book of Job. Each text provides a different perspective on the problems of justice and its relevance for forgiveness, community, religion, punishment, and natural injury. Text and context course.
This course will engage different living religious traditions worldwide by studying their origins, writings, rituals, beliefs, and contemporary expressions, as well as the emerging non-religious categories of the nones, atheists, and agnostics. The primary questions to be addressed are: How can people engage across religious or worldview differences? What are the things people can learn from each other? How does each address ethical issues in contemporary times?
In voicing the proposition: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live," essayist Joan Didion asserts that humans derive meaning through stories. Stories shape and interpret life events (real or imagined) so as to yield meaning. This course will study the foundational (origin) stories of both the Old Testament and the New Testament in order to observe how these origin stories shape the faith of confessing communities and yield important conversations about divine and human nature and the meaning of life.
This course will study how Islam and Christianity understand Jesus Christ as an essential figure in connection to God's revelation to humanity. We will survey the Scriptures, tradition, spirituality, and contemporary views of Jesus in those religions, as well as several points of encounters in the history of Muslim-Christian relations, where Jesus became a contentious point through polemics and apologetics. While we address this reality and examine it critically, the course will utilize the comparative theology method to generate constructive reflections that can enrich dialogue and mutual understanding in today's pluralistic society.
This course explores the Lutheran traditions in conversation with other theological, historical, and cultural movements within the Church catholic. Specific emphasis will include theological doctrines and beliefs, confessional documents, organization, practice, history, and the location of Lutheran traditions within an ecumenical context.