An introduction to the academic study of religion; a survey of the thought and practices of major world religions; the impact of religion on society and culture; modern scholarly approaches to religious experience.
A survey of the principles of Judaism, their historical development, and their impact on the Jewish way of life.
This course examines the centrality of Jesus the Christ for Christian practice and beliefs. Topics covered include the background to early belief in Jesus, his presentation in Christian scriptures, the development of Christian claims about him, as well as past and contemporary representations of him in ritual, theology and/or art.
Principal persons and events in the New Testament will be studied for their meaning in the New Testament context. Representations of these in painting, sculpture, music, and literature will be examined. Comparisons between the New Testament and the artistic representations will be explored.
A "taste of heaven" for those who know it and live it, the Orthodox Christianity is a terra uncognita for most westerners. The aim of the course is to make the student familiar with the history, the beliefs, the practices and the cultural art of this 2000 year old Christian Church.
This course traces historically the various important events and persons—Catholic, Anglican, Protestant—from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century which helped formulate and put into action a contemporary Christian social teaching in Europe and Canada. Special reference will be made, among others, to the Social Gospel, to several papal social encyclicals since Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum through to the present, to Liberation Theology, labour and working conditions, poverty, war and peace, human rights, as well as to the special role Saskatchewan and western Canada have played in the Canadian social context.
The religious and cultural roots of anti-Semitism and its manifestations in Western civilization: the rise of racist and political anti-Semitism in Europe; seminal issues in the history of the Holocaust ranging from Hitler’s rise to power and the development of racial legislation in Germany (1933-1939) to the process of the destruction of European Jewry; an analysis of the various political and cultural responses to the events of this period.
The course will focus on the distinctive “Johannine school”, which produced the Gospel of John and the three epistles of John. Emphasis will be placed on the distinctive theology of this sect within Christianity, and the chequered history of its relations to both the Judaism and Christianity of its day.
This course explores the roots of Zionism and the age-old longing of Jewish people to return to the Land of Israel. It examines the thought of Theodor Herzl the founder of modern, secular Zionism in the 18th century and how Zionism branched out to include religious and political aspects. How Zionism has affected the Palestinian populations of the Middle East will also be explored.