Fall 2023 Course Descriptions
This seminar explores what it means to think and live faithfully in our world by engaging in an in-depth study of an important issue. Each class will engage with the richness and complexity of its subject by considering diverse viewpoints and multiple academic disciplines and exploring their interconnections. Each class will also be challenged with some of the best Christian thinking about the issue. The class will maintain an atmosphere of open inquiry and discovery, and provide occasion for each student to reflect on God’s call on his/her life. Prerequisite: senior standing, or junior standing and completion of all other general education requirements.
GEN 460 01: PEACE IN STRESS
Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. Ebenezer de Oliveira
As the Covid-19 pandemic overwhelmed the globe, many of us have more than ever endured stress linked to economic and relational strains, imminent graduation, job hunting, and work overload. But is a peaceful life supposed to be stress-free? In this course, we will explore what it means to thrive in the presence of 21st-century life stressors in young adults mainly in the US, but also in more collectivistic contexts where “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” is seldom worthy. We will be seeking answers to questions such as these: How did we get to this “age of stress”? How do our everyday emotions and thoughts influence our well-being and physical health? Drawing from multiple disciplines, the goal will be to build a repertoire of responses to stressors which will increase participants’ chance of experiencing “shalom” as expressed through personal resilience and caring relationships.
GEN 460 02: AMERICAN GOD TALK
Tuesday and Thursday, 9:00-10:15 a.m.
Instructor: Jason Moyer
This course examines three sources of U.S. religious communication—from particular religious groups, political speeches, and popular culture—to learn how U.S. Americans talk differently about God in public life. We begin the course by noticing disagreements within Protestant circles over what God wants from the United States. From there we study the extent to which different theological voices—like black theology, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, atheism, and Buddhism—have been included within or excluded from the U.S. denominational system. Students will leave class able to speak critically about religious persuasion in the American public sphere.
GEN 460 03: GRIEF AND LOSS
Wednesday, 6:00-8:30 p.m.
Instructor: Cherie Parsons
This is a course on loss and grief; but it also a course about joy, truth seeking, and vulnerability. Whether we want or expect to be, we are tossed into the vastness of vulnerability and loss of time and time again in our lifetimes. We will explore what it means to be vulnerable and the profound power that can come from it. How do we help others and ourselves embrace vulnerability and accept the role loss plays in our lives so that we might live wholeheartedly and faithfully? How do we continue to live and love, despite the pain and sorrow of loss? These are the questions central to the course – and to our lives.