Mary and Judas
Ancient Gospels from the Egyptian Desert
Karen L. King

The gospels of Mary and Judas—attributed to two of Jesus’s most famous (and infamous) disciples—paint portraits of Jesus and his disciples that seem shockingly at odds with the New Testament gospels. And yet the issues they raise are extremely contemporary: What was the real purpose of Jesus’s death? How could the God of love desire the suffering and death of his Son and of believers? What role did women play in the early church, and what roles should they take up today?
      According to Karen King, these two gospels ask us to consider thoughtfully why women came to be excluded from leadership. They invite us to look carefully at how violence at the hands of imperial Rome shaped the tradition that modern Christians have inherited. Far from being bizarre and marginal as we might initially suspect, they lead us right into the center of the debates about what Christianity would become—and indeed about what it has become.

Karen King is Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard University in the Divinity School. She is the author of several books including Reading Judas (2006, with Elaine Pagels) and The Gospel of Mary of Magdala (2003).

Between the Monster and the Saint
Thoughts on the Human Condition
Richard Holloway

The writer Margaret Drabble says that the gloomy poet Philip Larkin cheers us up because he reconciles us to our ills by the scrupulous way in which he notices them. The same could be said of religion, and one way to use it is to observe how it notices and responds creatively to the tensions in the human condition. Hugh Walpole said that the world was a comedy for those who think, a tragedy for those who feel: any scrupulous noticing of the ills of the world must hold both ends of that polarity. One of the consolations of literature is the way it transmutes the tragic-comedy of life into art, by noticing it. The same can be said of existential religion. Richard Holloway will examine the human predicament, looking honestly at the fact that we are the most dangerous animal on the planet, yet the only one equipped with the spiritual resources both to understand and respond to the crisis we ourselves have created.

Richard Holloway was Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church till 2000. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he is the author of twenty-seven books, including How to Read the Bible (2006) and Doubts and Loves (2001).

The American Bible
A Mirror Of Cultural Values
Lane C. McGaughy

Bob Funk claimed that the Bible is like a fester in the American tradition because it has not been allowed to speak for itself. Rather, fundamentalists interpret the Bible in light of a Baconian, rationalist worldview, and liberals read it in light of post-Darwinian, scientific empiricism. Both fundamentalists and liberals exploit it to support extra-biblical theological assumptions and cultural values.
      Lane McGaughy will survey the ways the Bible has functioned in the American tradition, showing how it has served as a weapon for protagonists in the culture wars that are increasingly polarizing Americans. He will ask how the Puritans, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and others interacted with the Bible and discuss the ways in which Moses and Jesus have been turned into American superheroes. The course will conclude by exploring the authority of the Bible in a pluralistic culture.

Lane McGaughy is the Atkinson Professor Emeritus of Religious & Ethical Studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He currently serves as chair of the Boards of Directors of Westar Institute and Polebridge Press.