COURSES

REL 200 Theories of Religion
An exploration of theoretical models and methods employed in the study of religions. Particular attention to approaches drawn from anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Readings taken from writers of continuing influence in the field: William James and Sigmund Freud, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, Clifford Geertz and Victor Turner, Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade, Karl Marx and Paul Ricoeur. Normally alternates with REL 230.

REL 217 Christian Thought from the Reformation to the Present
A study of defining issues and essential thinkers in the Christian religious tradition from the sixteenth century to the present. Faith and grace, free will and determinism, mysticism and radicalism, reason and emotion, secularization and existentialism, orthodoxy and doubt, religious morality and social action examined through primary source readings. Readings include works by Luther, Calvin, Pascal, Locke, Wesley, Newman, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and Tullich.

REL 218 Religion in America
A study of the religions of Americans from the colonial period to the present. Special attention to the impact of religious beliefs and practices in the shaping of American culture and society. Representative readings from the spectrum of American religions including Aztecs and Conquistadors in New Spain, the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Isaac Meyer Wise, Mary Baker Eddy, Dorothy Day, Black Elk, Martin Luther King, Jr., and contemporary Fundamentalists. Normally alternates with REL 220.

REL 220 Religious Themes in American Fiction
Human nature and destiny, good and evil, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, tradition and assimilation, salvation and damnation, God and fate in the writings of Hawthorne, Thoreau, Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Leslie Marmon Silko, Rudolfo Anaya, Alice Walker, and Allegra Goodmen. Reading and discussion of these texts as expressions of the diverse religious cultures of nineteenth- and twentieth-century America, with a postscript on the popular contemporary Protestant Fundamentalist fiction of Tim LaHaye. Normally alternates with REL 218.

REL 230 Ethics
An inquiry into the nature of values and the methods of moral decision-making. Examination of selected ethical issues including self-interest, freedom, collective good, capitalism, just war, racism, environmental pollution, globalism, and religious morality. Introduction to case study and ethical theory as tools for determining moral choices. Normally alternates with REL 200.

REL 317 Seminar. Christian Ritual
An intensive study of selected Christian ritual practices from the apostolic period to the present. Topics include the origins of Christian liturgy; the doctrines of baptism and eucharist; the development of the Roman Mass and the Orthodox Divine Liturgy; Protestant worship reforms in the Reformation; Evangelical revivalism; Pentecostal charismatic expression; and liturgical innovation in Third World Christianity. Particular attention to musical and architectural settings, liturgical and hymnic language, and ritual theory. Normally alternates with REL 319.

REL 319 Seminar. Religion, Law, and Politics in America
A study of the relationships among religion, fundamental law, and political culture in the American experience. Topics include established religion in the British colonies, religious ideologies in the American Revolution, religion and rebellion in the Civil War crisis, American civil religion, and the New Religious Right. Special attention to the separation of church and state and selected Supreme Court cases on the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Normally alternates with REL 317.