Religion

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NEW! What’s So Unique About Christianity?

There are two unique truths of Christianity: the Trinity and the Incarnation. Both of these tenets of the Christian faith are ultimately manifestations of how love operates: interpersonal communion and personal union. Explore how the Trinity is one divine nature shared perfectly by three divine persons and how and why the second person of this Trinity became human. Basic scripture and key theologians will be examined.
RELG:703 | 1 session | $19 AGE 60+ | $19 REG

Forgiveness: The Key to Happiness

Love can heal the world and forgiveness is the catalyst for making it happen. When we give up all grievances, the path is open to finding real peace and happiness. Discussion will include inspirational stories of the miracles of personal healing that radical forgiveness can produce and why forgiveness is so important for our own well-being and for others. The steps of performing forgiveness will be presented and discussed. Following these steps outside the classroom can release grievances and heal relationships. This presentation of forgiveness is psychologically based and is not focused on any particular religious view of forgiveness, so no religious or faith-based view of forgiveness is needed to understand and practice it.
RELG:701 | 1 session | $13 AGE 60+ | $19 REG

How We Know and Why We Believe

This course is an expansion of “How Do We Know What We Know to be True?” offered in 2018. It examines four major ways in which humans have come to “know” what they believe to be true. In addition, there is a focus on comparing and contrasting knowledge and belief.
RELG:701 | 2 sessions | $21 AGE 60+ | $29 REG

History of the Bible

Join us for the fascinating history of one of the world’s most famous, most read, most debated and most controversial books. Discussion will focus on how, when and by whom the material was recorded, copied, translated, debated and eventually selected to be canonized into collections to form the Hebrew scriptures followed by the Christian Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments. The Protestant Reformation will be discussed with attention to the implications of printing and translation of the Bible into English, and the recovery of ancient manuscripts, construction of critical editions and the rise of critical historical scholarship as well as contemporary responses. Stories within the Bible will not be discussed.
RELG:701 | 2 sessions | $19 AGE 60+ | $29 REG

Classical Anti-Semitism

During World War II the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, recruited 20,000 volunteers to work with the SS in implementing Hitler’s Final Solution. The Mufti’s effort to bring Hitler’s program of extermination of Jews to the Arab world created a bridge of sorts between the classical form of anti-Semitism that motivated Hitler and modern anti-Zionism. The first part of this series focuses in detail on classical anti-Semitism, which is marked by a series of distinct characteristics related to history, religion and culture beginning with Moses. In framing the tenets of classical anti-Semitism we will begin to draw a distinction between it and its contemporary, specifically Israel-based component.
RELG:765 | 1 session | $13 AGE 60+ | $19 REG

Modern Anti-Zionism

Recently, Palestinian demonstrators from Gaza flew a swastika-decorated kite into Israel proper. This action marked an unusual but undeniable connection between modern anti-Zionism and its cousin, classical anti-Semitism. The first part of this course explores the historical development of anti-Semitism, beginning with Moses and progressing through the pseudo-scientific theories that classify Judaism not as merely a religion, but a race—an idea promulgated by, among others, Nazi Germany. This installment focuses on resentment directed specifically toward Jewish control of Israel by an array of detractors, including some in the Jewish community. It will delineate between religious and ethnocultural-based hostility toward the Jewish people and that which results directly from the Zionist movement and its results. Join us for an examination of this significant “-ism” from the perspectives of international relations, internal Israeli dynamics, religious sensibilities and historical patterns.
RELG:765 | 1 session | $13 AGE 60+ | $19 REG

 

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