Christ in a Culture of Violence
Fall 2009
Instructions for Community Learning Component
Further Instructions for Community Learning Component (including working groups)
For the week of Sept. 21-25
Tuesday: Please Read the linked selections from Edward Schillebeeckx's Church: the Human Story of God and from Johann Baptist Metz's Faith in History and Society and A Passion for God. The question we will be discussing, with the help of these theologians, is how to interpret, understand, and respond to the ambiguous history of violence and suffering that is the Christian (and human) inheritance.
Thursday: We continue with the question of how to deal with the violence in our histories (and in us) and the legacy of suffering that that violence leaves in its wake in light of the concrete example of the suffering of black people in the United States at the hand of white people. We will use the work of Christopher Pramuk, "'Strange fruit': black suffering/white revelation" from Theological Studies 67 (June 2006): 345-377. Here is the persistent link to this record at out library: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001512976&site=ehost-live .
For the week of Sept. 28-Oct. 2 (N.B., I just changed the link to MLK's letter because I found a more accurate version on another site).
Tuesday & Thursday: We continue asking about the violence in our midst, it's meaning and our responses to it. Please read (in this order) Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Thomas Merton's essay, "Events and Pseudo-Events" and James Alison's essay, "Contemplation in a world of Violence."
Next: as time and energy permits we will be reading and discussing the work of Chris Hedges, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. Ideally, students would read the whole book. If you have to cut corners, though, please give your attention to chapters 3, 4 & 5.
We will be continuing our discussion about memory adding a question about truth. How does war (or other more subtle patterns of violence) shape, or rather distort, our access to truth, our own ability to see or recognize what is real? In the face of terrifying violence and unspeakable suffering, what responses are appropriate? What might be healing? Is transformation even possible?
Hedges' book should be available in the bookstore by early the week of Sept. 21st.