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Session One

June 4–9, 2006
 

Creationism, Intelligent Design,
and Evolution
Eugenie C. Scott

The perennial creationism/evolution controversy seems very resistant to solutions from either scientists or the faith community. Polls show considerable persistence of belief in biblical literalism among Americans, including members of "mainstream" faiths that do not hold to biblical literalism. And, although Americans respect science, most do not understand even basic concepts of the physical or biological sciences. In addition, there is much confusion over how science actually works, as exemplified by the confusion over the word "theory". This class will consider the history and current status of the creationism/evolution controversy, with special attention to the emerging form of creationism, "Intelligent Design."

Eugenie C. Scott (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California. She is the recipient of numerous public service awards, including the Hugh H. Hefner First Amendment Award, and the author of Creationism vs Evolution: An Introduction (2005).

The Five Gospels and the Gospel
Roy W. Hoover

With the advent of the Jesus Seminar twenty years ago, scholarship on the historical Jesus has captured the imagination of the public as never before. But many readers of this scholarship remain uncertain about what the import of this scholarship is for the faith and life of the church. Roy Hoover will lead a guided tour on how to use The Five Gospels (and other works of modern scholarship on religion) as a resource for teaching and learning in communities of faith. Can we really distinguish what Jesus said from what the gospel authors said for him and about him? What implications does the search for the historical Jesus have for the way we should think and speak about the Bible and about the religious significance of Jesus?

Roy W. Hoover (Th.D., Harvard University) is Weyerhaeuser Professor of Biblical Literature and Professor of Religion Emeritus, Whitman College. He is co-author (with Robert W. Funk) of The Five Gospels. The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, 1993 and editor of Profiles of Jesus (2003).

Rethinking the Death and Life
of Jesus
Stephen J. Patterson

Early followers of Jesus said many things about his death and what it meant to them. But did their words mean the same thing then that they do today when repeated by Christians in the twenty-first century? In this seminar Stephen J. Patterson will try to answer this question historically, by placing early Christian claims about the meaning of Jesus' death in the context of the ancient Mediterranean basin in which they were first uttered. Why did early Christians say Jesus' death was "for us?" Why did they call his death a "sacrifice?" Where did this language originate? The answers to these questions are sometimes quite surprising.

Stephen J. Patterson (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School) is Professor of New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. A Fulbright Fellow at the University of Heidelberg in 1986, he is the author of several books, including Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus (2005), The God of Jesus (1998), and The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus (1993).

Session Two

June 11–16, 2006

What Is Religion?
Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong observes that it sometimes seems that we are developing exactly the kind of religion that people such as the Buddha, Confucius, Laozi, Jesus and Muhammad wanted to get rid of. How, she asks, did the preoccupation with orthodoxy become so important in the Western Christian tradition? Confucian, Daoist, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Greek and monotheistic traditions were not much interested in metaphysics or theology, and each one of these faiths began in recoil from the violence of their time. They developed an ethic based on compassion and the Golden Rule, which they declared to be the essence of the spiritual quest. She will look in detail at the implications of this conviction and see what it has to say to us in our conflicted world.

Karen Armstrong is the author of numerous books, including the international best seller, A History of God, and most recently The Spiral Staircase . She is also the author of three television documentaries and the recipient, in 1999, of the Muslim Public Affairs Council's Media Award.

Christianity after Christ
Thomas Sheehan

What happens now that Christianity's worst nightmare has come true? What becomes of the traditional theological core of Christian religion and practice in the light of the settled findings (1) of natural science regarding, for example, the age and origins of the universe and the origins of consciousness, (2) of historical science regarding what Jesus of Nazareth said and did not say, did and did not do, or (3) the relation of science to faith, reason, and philosophy. Thomas Sheehan will explore what, in fact, the theological core of Christian religion and practice is, if it is to exist at all. In short: What forms might "Christianity" take in light of the Copernican revolutions that have given us contemporary science, history, and culture?

Thomas Sheehan (Ph.D., Fordham University) is Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of several books in philosophy and religion, including The First Coming (1986), a widely acclaimed and controversial account of Easter.

Making Sense of Early Christianities
Perry V. Kea

As an old evangelical hymn states, "I love to tell the story." Many people assume that there is a single Story—a coherent, unified account of how early Christianity emerged and triumphed. However, scholarship is now aware that there was greater diversity in early Christianity than previously thought. This class is designed to help people re-discover the richness of the early Christian stories and teach these materials to others. Perry Kea will identify source materials that participants can use to re-engage these traditions. He will examine topics of special importance to illustrate this diversity: these include the role of women in early Christian communities, heresy, and the emergence of the canon of Christian scripture.

Perry V. Kea (Ph.D., University of Virginia) is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and the Chairperson of the Philosophy and Religion Department at the University of Indianapolis. He is the co-editor of Perspectives on New Testament Ethics and author of numerous articles in scholarly journals.