Congratulations to each of you! Class Member Claudia Winkler was the College's Honor Graduate, and all of you graduated on Dr. McGehee's Birthday! Stay tuned for updates on the publishing of your book.
May 18, 2008 - Graduation
Congratulations to each of you! Class Member Claudia Winkler was the College's Honor Graduate, and all of you graduated on Dr. McGehee's Birthday! Stay tuned for updates on the publishing of your book.
May 17, 2008 Baccalaureate
Three members of this seminar, Elise Boos, Mary Wheeler, and Chris Hines have solicited from the faculty suggestions for books to read. This Mentors' Reading List will be distributed at Baccalaureate and is available on the web. (Click Here.) Dr. Robinson's sermon is entitled "Mentors."
May 13, 2008 - Papers Due 11:00pm
The final project for our class is the publication of a book on Religion and Politics. Your final papers will be submitted as chapters of the book. We plan to have the book published by September 2008. Please leave a forwarding mailing address and email so a copy can be mailed to you.Please send your final papers to me electronically at ronald.robinson@wofford.edu. Please put “Religion 340 Final Paper” in the Subject line.
Please turn in your paper by 11pm on Tuesday, May 13. I will send a confirmation email when I receive your paper. I am willing to negotiate a later submission date on an individual basis if you let me know by May 8.
As far as grading and deadlines go, you drop to the next grade increment if your paper is late. For instance, an A becomes an A-, an A- becomes a B+, and so on. I do this in 12 hour segments: the first 12 hours late drops one increment, 12-24 hours is two increments, 24-36 hour is three increments, and so on.
May 8, 2008 - Toward a Definition of Religion and Project Presentations, Round 2
Over the course of this class we explore anthropological, sociological, psychological, theological and philosophical dimensions of religion.
The late Clifford Geertz said, "a religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."
Today we will discuss a variety of definitions of religion and respond to the remainder of the class projects.
You may invite a guest to any portion of the class, and to the class dinner.
May 1, 2008 - Stages of Faith and Project Presentations, Round 1
Today we will look at the research of James Fowler and his six stages of faith. Fowler's work draws upon the contributions of such thinkers as Piaget, Erikson and Kohlberg. In this work of developmental psychology, "faith" is a person's way of making sense of life with images, values and commitments. It is not to be equated with belief. We will also look at John Westerhoff's religious application of stages of faith.The second half of class will consist of the first round of project presentations.
April 24, 2008 - The Spiritual Marketplace / Religion and Fiction
Fiction Editor of The Atlantic, C. Michael Curtis, will join the class to discuss religion in American Fiction. He shares Wofford's John C. Cobb Chair in the Humanities with his wife, novelist Betsy Cox. The class will read two selections from Curtis' Fiction Anthology, God: Stories.
Leading a discussion on the topic of The Spiritual Marketplace will be Assistant Professor of Religion, Dan Mathewson. The class will read a chapter from noted sociologist Wade Clark Roof (Wofford '61) and another by Alan Wolfe.
April 17, 2008 - Religion and Civil Rights
The class welcomes guest Timothy Tyson, author of Blood Done Sign My Name. This book, frequently compared favorably with To Kill A Mockingbird, won the Southern Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been the featured book for college reading programs at such schools as the University of North Carolina, Villanova University and the University of Iowa. Hollywood screenwriter and director Jeb Stuart, best known for "The Fugitive" and "Die Hard," wrote a screenplay based on Blood Done Sign My Name and shooting of the film begins May 5. Tyson is currently serving as Senior Scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, with secondary appointments in the Duke Divinity School and the Department of History. [1] He is also adjunct professor of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
April 10, 2008 - The Arab-Israeli Conflict and American Religious Groups / The Emergent (emerging) Church
As we continue looking at Religion and Politics, we will have as our guest Dr. Byron McCane, Albert C. Outler Professor of Religion at Wofford. Dr. McCane will give us an overview of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and various responses to it. Class member Stephen Harris will present an introduction to his Community of Scholars research on The Emerging Church. We will spend 1/3 of the class working on our final projects.
March 27, 2008 - Religious Humor, Satire & Parody in Popular Culture
Class Members will each explore a particular aspect of religious humor in popular culture. Sometimes absurd, occasionally poignant, often offensive, we will discuss the uses of religious humor in society. In-class presentations will be 4 minutes per student. We will have session two of our project planning today. Class meets in 007, Main Building (next to Dr. Robinson's Office.) Dinner will be on the Yorke Protico.
March 20, 2008 - Private Spirituality, Politics and Civil Religion
The class will discuss Robert Bellah's work on Civil Religion and his description of private spirituality as Sheilaism. We will begin work on our projects around the theme of Religion & Politics, and will be assisted by our class guest, Dr. Olin Sansbury, Visiting Professor of Government and former Chancellor of USC Upstate. Read or listen to Liberating the Founders from Speaking of Faith. The show is available in three audio formats as well as a transcript and an annotated guide with readings, images, and links. Oprah is making news with a worldwide webcast, A New Earth, which is being broadcast each Monday for ten weeks beginning March 3.
March 13, 2008 - Baptists
Joining the class today will be Baptist clergy from three churches. The Rev. Stuart Jones (a recent participant in the New Baptist Covenant) of Fernwood Baptist, The Rev. DJ Horton of Anderson Mill Road Baptist, and Dr. Tim Williams '77 of Roebuck Baptist Church represent different spectrums of Baptist belief and practice, including moderate, conservative evangelical and fundamentalist.
March 6, 2008 - 19th Century Shakers and Latter Day Saints
Bishop Joseph B. Larsen and four elders (19-year-old bicycling missionaries) from Ward One, Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons),will join the class today. In addition, Betsy McGehee will speak about 19th century Shakers.
February 28, 2008 - My Brother A Muslim
Filmmaker Wil Weldon will screen a Sneak Preview of his documentary film My Brother A Muslim. It is the story of Wil's family and the ways they deal with Wil's brother converting to Islam. Filmed on location in the Carolinas and Senegal, this film is intimate and authentic in its portrayal of how one family deals with the conversion in a variety of ways. Wil's grandfather was once the minister of Bethel UMC here in Spartanburg. The class will meet in Leonard Auditorium today.
February 21, 2008 - More Mainline Churches - Episcopal, Methodist, Moravian
Joining the class will be Dr. Clay Turner (retired) Episcopal Church of the Advent, Spartanburg, Dr. Dave Nichols, Bethel United Methodist, Spartanburg, and Dr. John M. Bullard, Professor of Religion, emeritus, Wofford College. The class will spend some time discussing religious diversity as presented by Robert Wuthnow in America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity.
February 14, 2008 - Three Church Modes: Episcopal, Presbyter, Congregational
The class will host Vicar James Houck (St. John's Lutheran), Dr. David Renwick (First Presbyterian), and The Rev. Meg Barnhouse (Unitarian Universalist Church, Spartanburg).
February 7, 2008 - Catholicism and Judaism in America
Rabbi Yossi Liebowitz of Spartanburg's Temple B'nai Israel and Father Jay Scott Newman of St. Mary's Parish in Greenville join the class to speak about Catholicism and Judaism in America.
Class Requirements
Religion 340 is limited to graduating seniors because it is designed to
1) demonstrate that life-long learning can be a pleasure,
2) traditional textbook-and-lecture classes can be transformed by classroom participation, and
3) the transition from college into the "real world" can include a different type of learning experience than normal.
Enjoy one another's company one last semester, relax, and prepare to meet the world boldly upon graduating. Soft drinks, water, and iced tea are available in the faculty dining room serving area near our AAAS meeting room. We’ll also have snacks in the room to tide us over until dinner. Previous seminars have recommended that we serve buttermilk fried chicken each Thursday. We’ll try that and see how you respond to it. The vegetables and desserts will vary. Some of you recall eating buttermilk fried chicken at Abby’s every Wednesday, until it closed. Salad will also be available—or if you wish, you can go upstairs and load up and bring your tray down to the Montgomery Room (Faculty Dining Room). Please courteous to our guests when they stay for dinner and try to be seated with one of them.
Unless otherwise arranged, you are expected not to miss any class session or to be late or leave early.
Readings for the sessions will appear in our Religion 340 blog. Read or scan the week's readings in preparation for the class each Thursday. Feel free to interrupt guest presenters with comments and questions. Enter heartily into discussions. Attendance, participation in discussion, evidence of doing the weekly readings, sending thank-yous, reporting on three service attendances, a research paper, and a closing project will all be parts of your grade. Everyone begins with an A grade. That declines when and if you shirk on these expectations.
Each Friday, we will send you addresses for the guest speakers who appeared the day before. You are expected to send personal thank-you notes to all guests as soon after their appearances as possible. (The cost of postage is about your only expense for the class.) There will be a pile of cards and envelopes at the February 7th opening session. Count out 25 to take with you and to use for thank-yous.
Between now and Easter, attend three religious services of faiths other than your own, and write 1-2 page reports on each visit. Attach church/synagogue/mosque bulletins to reports, if available. Turn them in as you complete each. Reports are your personal reflections and impressions, maybe contrasting services with those with which you are already familiar. Be daring enough to try some adventuresome visits--evangelical church, Unitarian church, African-American church, synagogue, etc.
You will need to select a topic and prepare a 10-15 page paper on some American religious topic of interest* and significance, and be prepared to make a 7-10 minute oral summary of it for the class. The 2006 seminar wrote religious figure biographies. An earlier seminar group wrote papers on non-mainstream religions or religious practices. We compile the papers and bind and publish them, so we need electronic copies, proof-read for errors and corrections, with footnotes (endnotes) and bibliographies in proper form.
Likely some special closing project will be designed for our final session, May lst.
You will receive periodic updates on the class session schedule, the research paper topic, and the closing project.
*The 2008 Class theme is "Religion and Politics."
1) demonstrate that life-long learning can be a pleasure,
2) traditional textbook-and-lecture classes can be transformed by classroom participation, and
3) the transition from college into the "real world" can include a different type of learning experience than normal.
Enjoy one another's company one last semester, relax, and prepare to meet the world boldly upon graduating. Soft drinks, water, and iced tea are available in the faculty dining room serving area near our AAAS meeting room. We’ll also have snacks in the room to tide us over until dinner. Previous seminars have recommended that we serve buttermilk fried chicken each Thursday. We’ll try that and see how you respond to it. The vegetables and desserts will vary. Some of you recall eating buttermilk fried chicken at Abby’s every Wednesday, until it closed. Salad will also be available—or if you wish, you can go upstairs and load up and bring your tray down to the Montgomery Room (Faculty Dining Room). Please courteous to our guests when they stay for dinner and try to be seated with one of them.
Unless otherwise arranged, you are expected not to miss any class session or to be late or leave early.
Readings for the sessions will appear in our Religion 340 blog. Read or scan the week's readings in preparation for the class each Thursday. Feel free to interrupt guest presenters with comments and questions. Enter heartily into discussions. Attendance, participation in discussion, evidence of doing the weekly readings, sending thank-yous, reporting on three service attendances, a research paper, and a closing project will all be parts of your grade. Everyone begins with an A grade. That declines when and if you shirk on these expectations.
Each Friday, we will send you addresses for the guest speakers who appeared the day before. You are expected to send personal thank-you notes to all guests as soon after their appearances as possible. (The cost of postage is about your only expense for the class.) There will be a pile of cards and envelopes at the February 7th opening session. Count out 25 to take with you and to use for thank-yous.
Between now and Easter, attend three religious services of faiths other than your own, and write 1-2 page reports on each visit. Attach church/synagogue/mosque bulletins to reports, if available. Turn them in as you complete each. Reports are your personal reflections and impressions, maybe contrasting services with those with which you are already familiar. Be daring enough to try some adventuresome visits--evangelical church, Unitarian church, African-American church, synagogue, etc.
You will need to select a topic and prepare a 10-15 page paper on some American religious topic of interest* and significance, and be prepared to make a 7-10 minute oral summary of it for the class. The 2006 seminar wrote religious figure biographies. An earlier seminar group wrote papers on non-mainstream religions or religious practices. We compile the papers and bind and publish them, so we need electronic copies, proof-read for errors and corrections, with footnotes (endnotes) and bibliographies in proper form.
Likely some special closing project will be designed for our final session, May lst.
You will receive periodic updates on the class session schedule, the research paper topic, and the closing project.
*The 2008 Class theme is "Religion and Politics."
Your Professors
Dr. Larry McGehee, Professor of Religion, Emeritus
Dr. Ron Robinson, Perkins-Prothro Chaplain & Professor of Religion
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