Gospel and Cultures

CL8530

This website is an adjunct to a course taught at Luther Seminary.

You can download the syllabus as a ".doc" file here.

“Theology is what occurs when the Christian community knows itself to be living between text and context, between the revelatory answer and the human question (that is Tillich’s formulation), between the Bible and the newspaper (that is Barth’s formulation), between the tradition bequeathed to it from those who have gone before and the unfinished book of time present and future. Or perhaps we could put it even more simply: Theology is that ongoing activity of the whole church that aims at clarifying what ‘gospel’ must mean here and now.” (Douglas John Hall, “What is theology?” in Cross Currents, Summer 2003, p.177.)

So how are we to do this? And what do we mean by the “whole church” and by “here and now”? The key exploration of this course centers on the relationships among Gospel and cultures.

Choice books

Marginality, by Jung Young Lee (added by Scott Hagley) . The New Faces of Christianity, by Philip Jenkins (added by Dwight Zscheile) . Urban World/Global City, by David Clark (added by Johannes Swart) . Exclusion and Embrace, by Miroslav Volf (added by Kyle Small).God's Politics, by Jim Wallis (added by David Everett) . Being Human: Race, Culture and Religion, by Dwight Hopkins (added by Sekenwa Moses Briska) . Beads and Strands: Reflections of an African Woman on Christianity in Africa, by Mercy Amba Yamoah Oduyoye (added by Faith Lugazia) . Public Worship and Public Work: Character and Commitment in Local Congregational Life by Christian Scharen (added by Daniel Anderson)

Culture

The Material History of American Religion . Resources for American Christianity . The Pluralism Project . Resource Center for Media, Religion and Culture . Symbolism, Media and the Lifecourse . The Sociable Media Group . The Visible Knowledge Project . Media, culture and teens . Social theory for pop culture fans . the Visual Casebook project (tactical media) .