31 - 40 of 261 results for: RELIGST

Explore the world¿s largest religion as a multicultural, global faith, with attention to Christianity¿s origins, spread and impact around the world up to the present. Special attention to recent shifting demographics leading to declining numbers in mainline Christian denominations in North America and Europe and the rapid expansion of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and South America; the explosion of international Pentecostalism and other new Christianities; Christianity, global politics, and the global economy; Christian-Muslim relations and conflicts.

The relationship between Judaism and Christianity has had a long a controversial history. Christianity originated as a dissident Jewish sect but eventually evolved into an independent religion, with only tenuous ties to its Jewish past and present. At the same time, Judaism has at times considered Christianity a form of idolatry. It seems that only since the catastrophe of the Holocaust, Jews and Christians (Catholics and Protestants) have begun the serious work of forging more meaningful relationships with each other. This course explores the most significant moments, both difficult and conciliatory ones, that have shaped the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and introduces students to some of the most important literature, art, and music that are part of it. nSelected literature: Gospel according Matthew, the letters of St. Paul, St. Augustine, the Talmud (selections), Maimonides, Martin Luther's sermons on the Jews, Nostra Aetate (Vatican II)nArt and Music: Medieval art and sculpture, Haendel's Messiah.

This course provides an overview of Indian religious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, and Sikhism. We will spend approximately half the course on Hindu thought and traditions from the Vedic period until the present day, emphasizing the diverse forms of this religion in different times and places. The second half of the course will be devoted to religions that emerged in South Asia (e.g., Jainism) and those that came to find a home and particular forms of expression on the subcontinent (e.g., Islam). Throughout students will read selections from a range of theological texts, epics, and literature that have permeated many aspects of daily religious life in India. We will also emphasize ritual activities, visual experiences in temples, and networks of pilgrimage places that dot the subcontinent. We will often pair primary sources (in translation) with later interpretations and impacts of those texts in modern South Asia. We will also survey the modern incarnations of particular Indian religious traditions throughout South Asia and the diaspora. By the conclusion of this course, students will be conversant with the texts, beliefs, and practices of the major Indian religions in their cultural and historical contexts and also have a working knowledge of basic categories important for the study of religion more broadly.

Historical and contemporary Christianity from four viewpoints: ritual and prayer; sacred texts and creeds; ethics and life; and community governance.

The New Testament is many things to many people. Around the globe, it is and has been for two millennia a source of culture, law, and faith. It has been used both to undergird battles for civil rights and to fight against them. It has been used both to justify wars and to argue that all war is unjust. Yet, many people haven¿t read the New Testament and still more haven¿t looked at it from historical, sociological, comparative and literary frameworks. This course will provide you the opportunity to read the New Testament and to study it closely. We will ask questions of the New Testament about the early Jesus movement, how it fits into its historical context and how it developed. We will look at the range of opinions and views about Jesus present in this literature. We will explore the different genres used by early Christians. We will examine how this set of Early Christian texts came to be considered the canon.

This course will trace how contemporary beliefs and practices connect to historical trends in the American religious landscape.

Zoroastrianism was once considered one of the great religions of antiquity. It was the state religion of the Persian Empire and its theological influence has been traced in Graeco-Roman mystery cults, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Yet, today it is one of the least understood of living religions. This introductory class will introduce and analyze Zoroastrianism through some of its defining themes, including an examination of the figure of the prophet Zoroaster, modes of transmitting sacred knowledge, the nature of good and evil, and the importance of ritual practice and practitioners. We will also discuss how Zoroastrianism views the individual with respect to the body, the life cycle, and issues of gender and sexuality. Finally, this course will also examine the intersection of religion and ethnicity that has defined Zoroastrianism from its origins in the 2nd millennium BCE up to the present.

What does the Bible mean? Seeks to help students answer this question for themselves by introducing some of the many ways in which the Bible has been read over the ages. The focus will be the book of Genesis, but the real subject is the history of biblical interpretation¿how Genesis has been understood by theologians, writers, artists, scholars and others¿and the ultimate goal is not merely to engage the Bible itself but to gain a better appreciation of the act of reading, why people read differently and the consequences of that difference for religious history.

Counterculture: A radical culture, esp. amongst the young, that rejects established social values and practices; a mode of life opposed to the conventional or dominant. Cf. alternative adj. ~ O.E.D.nnWe will critically examine contemporary and past countercultural religious movements in light of larger debates on such perennially important issues as race, politics, environmentalism, and gender. In particular, we will focus on how mysticism, myth, and the radical religious imagination are mobilized to affect real change in the sociocultural realm. We will engage primary materials such as text, film, and music: a multimedia approach that will foreground the complex strategies used to transform ideas into actions, propositions into performances. To this end, assignments will offer creative yet critical opportunities to think through the complexities of the construction of our own group and individual identities. Subject matter treated will include sex, drugs and rock & roll¿as well as polite conversations about other things normally avoided in polite conversation. No prior experience with religious studies or philosophy is necessary. All materials will be in English. Everyone is welcome.