Summary

Modern cultural pressures on religious traditions take many forms, and religious ways of dealing with those pressures create diverging camps within religious communities.  This course identifies those modern pressures, and analyses religious responses from the Christian, Judaic, Islamic, and Hindu traditions.  We will look carefully at the difference between the religious fundamentalist response and the liberal reformer response to modern trends.  Along the way, basic background information about each of those traditions will be provided.  One result should be that students will understand much of what is going on in the religious and political worlds of the United States, Israel, Muslim countries, and India.  Another result should be that students will see that there is an important worldwide conflict over the soul of Christianity, of Judaism, of Islam, and of Hinduism.

Details

1. Orientation and Basic Concepts
   The educational value of this course
   Survey of religious opinion
   The Big Questions
   Worldviews
   Religious traditions, not religions

2. Christianity and modern culture
   Orientation to the Christian tradition
   What is it to be modern?
   Pressures on the Christian tradition arising from modernity
      Modernity and secularism
      Christianity and science
      Christianity and modern social issues
      Scriptural interpretation
   The battle for the soul of Christianity: fundamentalism, traditionalism, liberal reform

3. Judaism and modern culture
   Orientation to the Judaic tradition
   Pressures on the Judaic tradition arising from modernity
      The formation of Israel and the Holocaust
      Scriptural interpretation
      Alternative movements in Judaism today
      Conflict in Israel
   The battle for the soul of Judaism: fundamentalism, traditionalism, liberal reform
   Violence and radicalization

4. Islam and modern culture
   Orientation to the Islamic tradition
   Modern pressures on Islam
      Post-colonial politics
      Ossification clashes with a changing world
      Westernization of Muslim regions
      The ideal of the Islamic state
      Radicalization and violence as a response to pressure
   The battle for the soul of Islam: fundamentalism, traditionalism, liberal reform

5. Hinduism and modern culture
   Orientation to the Hindu tradition
      Hinduism as a collection of religious traditions
   Modern pressures on Hindu traditions
      The formation of India as an independent secular nation
      Can India form a Hindu identity while remaining secular?
      Dealing with the religious fallout from British rule
   Radicalization and violence against non-Hindus
   Is there a Hindu fundamentalism?  Can there be a Hindu traditionalism?

6. Reflections
   What might the future hold?
   How has this course changed you?