REL 227(F) Critique and Christianity in the Modern World

This course seeks to address the main issues and concerns of Christian thought in the twentieth-century West. What does it mean to think theologically in an increasingly secular age? How does theology stand in relation to culture? The course opens with a consideration of the nineteenth-century confrontation between religion and secular culture and the correlative challenge to the very possibility of theology. It then assesses the extent to which this critique is addressed, appropriated or refuted in subsequent religious thought. One of the main concerns of the course will be to understand to what degree contemporary forms of theological reflection owe a debt to the nineteenth-century critique of religion and to what degree they recover what it put in question. Theological perspectives to be considered include dialectical and correlational theologies, feminist, liberation, and political theologies, the death of God theology, and others. Readings: Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Cornel West, Gustavo Gutierrez, Thomas J. J. Altizer, and Mark C. Taylor. Class format: discussion, with some lecture. Requirements: full attendance and participation; 3 papers (2 short, 1 longer). Open to all classes without prerequisite. This course will count as a junior seminar for Religion majors.

Hour: KOSKY