EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY
3 credits
Patterns 1
A study of Christianity. Students will be introduced to four major topics: the biblical origins of Christianity; the development of the doctrine concerning Christ; key divisions within the churches worldwide; and contemporary beliefs and practices.
EXPLORING RELIGION
3 credits
Patterns 1
A study of religion that introduces students to religious symbols and rituals, as well as ideas about God and gods, salvation, death, evil, human suffering, and myths. This course also explores how religion affects social values, ethics, economics, and politics, as well as the positive impact that religions can exert to encourage people to work for justice and the common good.
THE HEBREW BIBLE/OLD TESTAMENT
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course examines the Jewish canonical writings in their historical and cultural contexts, introduces the scholarly tools employed to discover the meaning(s) of the documents, and investigates the rich and complex development of the religion of ancient Israel and biblical Judaism(s). The deutero-canonical writings, those not included in the Jewish canon, will also be discussed.
THE NEW TESTAMENT
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course examines the Christian canonical writings in their historical and cultural contexts, introduces the scholarly tools employed to discover the meaning(s) of the documents, and investigates the continuities and the transformations of Christianity from a Jewish movement to an independent religion.
THE PROPHETS OF ANCIENT ISRAEL
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
A study of prophecy and prophetical literature in the Bible. This course explores prophecy as an institution in the Near East and its unique development in Israel in connection with the theological message of the biblical prophets.
THE GOSPELS
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course is an introduction to the four New Testament gospels. While these texts agree on major events in the life of Jesus, they individually offer unique perspectives on who Jesus was. The synoptic gospels: Mark, Matthew, and Luke will be studied first, with special attention given to the question of literary relationships between these three texts, what scholars identify as the “Synoptic Problem.” Next, we will study the Gospel of John, the most unique of the four gospels. Finally, we will briefly explore apocryphal (extra-biblical) gospel traditions about the life and teachings of Jesus.
CATHOLICISM IN THE MODERN WORLD
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course is a historical and theological introduction to the study of Catholicism as it shapes and is shaped by the social, economic, political, and religious contexts of the late 20th century. Catholicism will be studied in light of the history of the issues and current theological thought.
CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course is an introduction to the development of Christianity from a fringe, Jewish apocalyptic movement to the state religion of the Roman Empire. The course objectives are as follows: (1) to familiarize students with the history and literature of formative Christianity in its Greco-Roman context; (2) to explore Jesus traditions in the New Testament and later Christian writings; (3) to discuss the diversities of “heretical” and “orthodox” Christianity in the first four centuries; and (4) to explore the roles of women in the earliest Christian communities.
ISSUES IN CHRISTOLOGY: JESUS AND HIS ACHIEVEMENT
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course studies the person, mission, and achievement of Jesus in the New Testament with reference to the post-biblical church reflections on this tradition. This course also examines contemporary attempts to interpret the story of Jesus and to draw implications for personal faith and society.
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY: VISIONARIES, MYSTICS, AND SAINTS
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
An exploration of the ways in which Christians, both Eastern and Western, have striven to express and deepen love of God and others. The course will analyze the origins and development of their various movements in spirituality and the means used to embody Christian discipleship.
THE SACRAMENTS
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course inquires into the origins and developments of, as well as the current theological issues concerning, Christian rites and symbols. This course also studies some of the problems of contemporary sacramental theology.
CHRISTIAN WORSHIP
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
A study of the shape and practice of worship, especially in Western Christian Sunday liturgy. The course understands worship as lying between art and life. The course examines both symbol and ritual and surveys the development of Sunday worship and contemporary issues.
BUDDHISM, HINDUISM AND OTHER RELIGIONS FROM THE FAR EAST
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course examines the major religious traditions that originated in India and China: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. The topics covered will include basic doctrines and practices of each religion, major figures like Confucius and the Buddha, central scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita and Dao De Jing, and the impact of each religion on society and culture. Secondary attention will be paid to other religious traditions from the Far East, such as Sikhism, Jainism, or Shinto.
JUDAISM, ISLAM, AND OTHER RELIGIONS FROM THE NEAR EAST
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course examines Judaism and Islam. The Judaism segment of this course covers the historical origins, roots and developments of Judaism as a religion. The course will evaluate Jewish social and cultural values as well as religious problems faced by Jews today. The Islam segment covers the origins of Islam and the background and development of the Qur'an, Muslim traditions, and values as well as the inner tensions, contemporary movement, and interaction with the non-Muslim world. Secondary attention will be paid to Middle Eastern Christianity (e.g., Coptic or Syrian), Zoroastrianism, Ba'hai, or other aspects of the religious life of Israel, North Africa, and the Middle East.
ISLAM IN AMERICA
3 credits
The course explores how American Muslims live and interpret Islam in a western, secular society. Students will learn about the teachings of Islam, its historical development in the United States from the time Muslim slaves were brought to the country to the emergence of local and diasporic Muslim communities in contemporary times. Various dimensions of Islam will be examined while paying attention to the social-political-economic contexts and issues that helped shape these communities. Among topics included in the course are: Qur’an as interpreted in the American environment, women and gender, religion and race, American Muslim politics and civic engagement after 9/11, visual expressions of Islam (material culture), American Muslim spirituality and religious life, Muslim youth and Muslim identity.
CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course offers a critical study of the principal figures who have shaped religious thought in the modern world and exerted influence on societies and their ecclesiastical and political systems. Each phase of the course is structured around a significant religious writer or theme in order to analyze the issues of justice, peace, and responsible leadership in both church and state.
WOMEN AND WESTERN RELIGION
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
An examination of the interaction between women and religion in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Readings will attend to the role of women in the origins and development of these traditions, to contemporary women’s efforts to reform the traditions, and to recent diverse women’s spiritualities outside the mainstream tradition.
SPORTS AND SPIRITUALITY
3 credits
Patterns 2 or Concentration Option or
This course explores contemporary spirituality in relation to the phenomena of sports. Students study how human beings encounter the Holy in the midst of everyday life with emphasis on how experiences associated with sports, either as an athlete participant or as identifying with athletes and teams, impact on developing a critical assessment of one’s personal values system. This assessment, in turn, becomes a focus on the ways in which one relates to the Holy or the Transcendent in the course of one’s life.
RELIGION AND CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
A study of religion and religious themes in literature, this course focuses on both literary critical concerns and a religious analysis of the readings. This course is cross-listed with ENG 243.
RELIGION IN AMERICA
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course examines the origins of the American national character, the religious and secular roots that have nourished it, and the myths—especially those of being a chosen people, of Progress, and of unlimited freedom. The dominant Protestant tradition in its Calvinist, Evangelical, and Fundamentalist forms will be examined, as well as the the religious “outsiders” who came to be Americans: Catholics, Jews, Native Americans, Blacks, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and East Asians. The secular tradition will be explored as a religion of possessive individualism and consumerism as a new way of being religious. Finally, the apocalyptic strain in American thought will be considered as feeding the desire for an American world empire.
CATHOLICISM IN THE UNITED STATES
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course will examine the history and place of the Roman Catholic community in the United States from the colonial period until the present, with special attention to the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics include: ethnicity, devotional life, and the social, cultural, and historical dynamics that have shaped Catholicism in the United States.
CONTEMPORARY MORAL ISSUES
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course studies and promotes discussion on the variety of moral perspectives on selected current issues: war, racism, social justice, sexual conduct, abortion, euthanasia, women’s rights, and capital punishment, as these relate to diverse faith traditions.
PEACE, JUSTICE, AND THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course explores the fundamental principles which have influenced religious thinking about and action for peace and justice. Although the principal focus is on Western Christian thought, peace and justice traditions of other world religions may also be included.
ST. PAUL
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
A study of the 13 New Testament letters associated with Paul. These letters bear witness to a diversity of belief and practice in the earliest Christian communities. This course will examine the following: the first century historical and political context, Paul's Jewish background, authorship of the letters, Jesus according to Paul, Paul and women, and primitive Christianity as described in his letters.
WOMEN IN THE BIBLE
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
A select survey of “women” in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and New Testament, this course examines biblical stories about women; biblical attitudes about femaleness; women’s religious and social roles in their respective historical settings; and recent feminist biblical interpretation.
LA SALLE AND HIS LEGACY
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
John Baptist de La Salle (1651-1719), saint, scholar, priest, founder, educational innovator, spiritual guide, and universal patron of teachers, initiated a spiritual and educational legacy that drew upon the religious currents of his times and has endured into the present. This course will explore the life experiences, spiritual insights, educational innovations, and lasting influences of St. La Salle, with particular attention to how his legacy continues to inspire and guide Lasallians worldwide today. As participants in an upper division course, students will engage in theological discourse, read and analyze foundational texts, and research and write about course topics with an appropriate level of skill.
RELIGION IN PHILADELPHIA
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course in historical theology examines religion through the prism of significant events in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. In examining the original inhabitants of the Delaware Valley, the Lenni Lenape, and their relations with William Penn, the course considers the meaning of race in America. Similarly, through study of the origins of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and of abolitionism, the course deals with race in the United States. Feminist strands of American religious history also emerge in the writings of Lucretia Mott and Jarena Lee, and in the watershed ordination of 11 women in the Episcopal Church in 1974. Important contemporary ideas and forces follow from the history of the region. Readings are both primary and secondary, and students visit historical sites and attend at least one contemporary religious service. The premise of the course is that education about the past and experience in the present lead to an understanding of culture and self.
PLAYING GOD: RELIGION, ETHICS, AND THE LIFE SCIENCES
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course will examine the dilemmas and debates related to many of today’s most controversial issues in the life sciences, as well as the role of religion as a frame for understanding and evaluating the ethical dimensions of these controversies. Topics will include: the American health-care system, stem cell research, genetic engineering, cloning, drug development, pollution, global warming, euthanasia, plastic surgery, and reproductive technology.
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course is designed for students who would like to become involved in community outreach activities or who have already demonstrated an ongoing commitment to such activities. This course will integrate community service with issues of justice from the perspective of theology. Its purpose is to provide not only analysis, but also a deeper appreciation and respect for the disadvantaged, and a more long-lasting commitment to enter into solidarity with them in their struggle for justice. Through readings, reflection, a community service project, and discussion, this course will allow students to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the social, political, spiritual, and economic causes of injustice and how their service influences the clause of social justice.
LOVE, SEX, AND FRIENDSHIP: RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
What is the nature of love? What role does friendship play in our happiness? Can sex be a religious experience? Does it have to be? This course will explore how different figures in Western religious thought have dealt with questions such as these, and how love, as a theological idea and as the foundation of a religious ethic, has had an impact on the various religious perspectives on sexuality, friendship, and family life.
THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF IRELAND (TRAVEL/STUDY)
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course explores the foundations of Ireland’s religious history from its foundations in Celtic-Druidic religious practices through to its Christianization under Patrick and subsequent influence on Irish Catholicism, political conflicts, and cultural development. Students focus on how the more democratic monastic movement entered into conflict with the hierarchical Roman Church and what role Irish monasteries played as centers of culture and education from the Dark Ages to the medieval period. The course directs attention to the role a powerful Roman Catholicism played in the periods of persecution following the Reformation and in the struggle for independence from Great Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. Finally, the course examines the decline of the Roman Catholic Church's influence on politics through contemporary Ireland’s emergence as an economic power, its confrontations with the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, and a budding anti-clericalism. As a travel/study course, students journey to Ireland to see first-hand the various sites that illustrate Ireland’s impressive and diverse religious history and culture.
INTERNSHIP
3 credits
Elective only
This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to apply their knowledge to relevant positions in religious, charitable, or other nonprofit organizations. Prerequisites: Permission of the Chair, GPA of 2.67.
SPECIAL TO MAJORS
MAJORS CAPSTONE
3 credits
Concentration Option or Patterns 2 or
This course focuses on scholarly research through the selection, writing, and small-group presentation of formal papers in an area selected by the student in consultation with his or her instructor. Required of all religion majors; open to others approved by the Chair. Prerequisite: 15 hours of religion. May be taken in junior or senior year.
SPECIAL TOPICS
REL 270-273, 370-373, 470
SPECIAL TOPICS
Special topics are offered in accord with student demand. These courses are assigned the numbers listed above.
