THL-1050-007, 008:  Christianity: Trad/Trans

Course Description: The Matrix of Christian Faith

This course begins from the assumption that , whether we live in a Christian, post-Christian, or 'secular' world, that world is every bit as 'religious' as the ancient and medieval worlds. People still search for meaning, still want their happiness to be rooted in something that won't betray them, still long for wholeness-- all the deep religious questions persist.   Many may not subscribe to a particular religious institution, but the choice many face is not for or against religion, but what religious stance one will take.  Not a choice, then, between a virtual 'Matrix' and the real world, but between competing matrices that make sense of the world. We will assume that  Christianity must be considered in this  context of cultural pluralism.

Imagine an ancient mosaic -- a work of art made of hundreds or thousands of little bits of stone and glass.   Then imagine what would happen if you found the mosaic only after most of the pieces had fallen off the wall.  You might possess all the pieces, but you would have no idea how they fit together. Without some idea of the what the whole picture was about, it would be very difficult to put the pieces in the right places.  And yet, one couldn't get a full view of the whole picture until every piece was carefully placed.   This course begins with the suggestion that something like this has happened to Christianity in the (post)modern west. We still have many of the pieces of Christian faith (we've heard of Jesus, the Trinity, the Church, etc.), but we've lost a deep sense of what it's all about or why it matters.

So the fundamental work that we'll do is what I'll call 'theological archeology'-- digging into the traditions of Christian reflection to see if we can get a sense of the whole and the parts together.   This will be done always with an eye upon the present cultural context, looking for points of resonance and points of dissonance with our contemporary questions and desires.

    Supplemental texts for the course: (Some are hyperlinks to other websites. Others are in .pdf form -- requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free download. Many of these are Microsoft Word documents.)

Dupre Reading

Flannery O'Connor, "Revelation"

St. Bonaventure, "Prologues to the Second and Third Books of Sentences"

Olivier Clement, "God, Hidden and Universal" from The Roots of Christian Mysticism (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1993).

Robert Barron, Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Master (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 31-40.

Richard of St. Victor, "Book III of the Trinity" (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1979)., Chapters V-VII, XI, XIX-XX.

Gilbert Meilaender, "To Throw Oneself into the Wave: The Problem of Possession" Things that Count (Indianapolis: ISI, 2000), 181-200.

Thomas Keating, "Toward Intimacy with God, in Intimacy with God (New York: Crossroad, 1999), Ch. 14.

Willigis Jaeger, "The Way of Body and Breath," The Way to Contemplation: A Christian Path (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1984), Ch. 1, pp. 5-12.

Olivier Clement, "Confidence and Humility" (as above)

Olivier Clement, "Passions Transfigured, Thoughts Transcended" (as above)