Religion

Perceptions of and actions upon the natural world are deeply connected to religious traditions and practices. The way we encounter, destroy, enhance, consume, honor, and attend to the natural world is related to human understandings of creation, beauty, responsibility, community, justice, interconnection, human identity, the value of non-human sentient life, and expectations of the future, all of which are often related to religious teaching and commitments. In a world currently characterized by environmental crisis and conflict, it has never been more important to examine the role of religion in human understandings of the natural world. This class offers students an opportunity to investigate the connection between religion and nature in the current 21st Century context of urgent eco-anxiety, as well as stubborn hopefulness for a just and sustainable relationship with the Earth.

Religious traditions are often studied in isolation from one another. However, religious traditions have always developed in relation to the world around them. Because of this connection between religious traditions and the practices and beliefs of others, religious traditions are perhaps best understand when they are explored in relation to one another.  Therefore, the objective of this course is to explore the ways that religious traditions develop in conversations with each other, both historically and in our present-day context.

This course offers students an opportunity to identify the ways their own lives, personally and culturally, have been shaped by racial and ethnic identity and develop an understanding of the way race and ethnicity have developed over time.

This class will explore how the New Testament has been interpreted, retold and visualized in literature, art and film.  What happens in the appropriation of an ancient text to other forms of media? Will will explore the dynamics of biblicall interpretation in deiverse forms of media with the intention of becoming more astute "readers" of film, visual and literary culture, as well as the biblical text itself.

This course is about assumptions (ancient and modern) about social justice, human rights, economic equality, concepts of otherness, and social ethics.  In this class, we will examine the various bibilcal ideas of social justice in an attempt to hear more clearly their assumptions and their cultural location.  Studying ancient ideas of social justice will provide a clearer understanding of our own understandings of these important concerns.

This class examines a diversity of ways religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have understood, taught and enforced sexual ethics.  Special attention will be given to understandings of sexual ethics in sacred texts and the ways those ancient narratives continue to affect modern discourse around the world about such issues as gender identity and gender roles, constructions of the body, marriage and family, sexual orientation, and the place of sexualtiy in human life more generally.

This course is an exploration of the violent narratives, imagery, symbolism and rhetoric of the Bible.  That the Bible contains violent themes and stories is not a new observation.  In fact, one of the fundamental assumptions of this class is that violence occurs in biblical texts and that the Bible, as well as other sacred texts, has authorized and legitimated acts of violence in the world on many occasions.