Assessment

Continuous Assessment: 20% + 80% Project

Module Aims

To provide an introduction to key topics and critical issues that are relevant to our understanding of how Christian faith is received, develops, interacts with, and finds expression in a rapidly changing, contemporary culture. To explore the issues in question as they have emerged in recent decades, paying special attention to the understanding of culture, inculturation, the processes of secularization, various expressions of humanism, new atheism, the arts, the internet and social media, women and the institutional church, and religion in a so-called post-secular context.

Indicative Syllabus

• Theories of Culture – Inculturation
• The Pontifical Council for Culture
• The Processes of ‘secularization’ and exculturation
• Secular Belief Systems, Humanism, and Materialism/Behaviourism
• Scientific Realism and the New Atheism
• Fundamentalism(s)
• Christianity and the Visual Arts
• Church and Cinema
• New Religious Movements
• Women in the Church
• The Christian Message in the Age of the Internet

Learning Outcomes

• — Engage critically on a series of topics that are central to the interaction between Christian faith and contemporary culture.
• — discuss the interface between Christian faith and culture, with a particular emphasis on the complementary dynamics of inculturation and secularization.
• — conduct research in a particular area of theology in its interaction with an instance of culture, work as part of a group, and present a project on the findings.
• — reflect critically on personal group skills and work in a group to complete a research project
• — manage time and tasks independently and co-operatively with others.

Bibliography

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