Professor Terry Martin
Saint Mary's
College
Religious Studies 251
"Christian Tradition"
Christianity--like any religion--is historical and pluralistic, that
is, it changes and develops through time, and thereby, it includes
within itself a host of different experiences and perspectives. This has
always been the case, from the early Jewish-Christian communities to
the present day. Each generation passes down what it takes to be the
essential core of the Christian message in a way which it hopes will
be faithful to its classic sources and credible to its own situation. We
inherit both the wisdom and the illusions of each step and each
voice along the way. In this course we will take a close look at ten
authors who have been instrumental in raising the critical questions
necessary to allow the Christian tradition to respond creatively and
responsibly to the challenges faced in different periods. Each author
poses a different critical question about what it means to be
religious and what it means to be human. In doing so, each provides a
distinct portrait of what Christian existence is all about--the nature
of ultimate reality, the place of human existence in the larger scheme
of things, the kind of life people are called to live, the usefulness
of religious institutions, and so on.