GENERAL QUESTIONS ON RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Be familiar with the following terms and names. (For meanings see R204 Lectures (1998) and the R204 Glossary.)
2. What are the three tests (or criteria) that must be met for publically sponsored instruction in religion to be in agreement with the First Amendment according to current legal interpretion? (Essay I, J2)
3. Distinguish teaching of religion from teaching about religion, and explain why the latter but not the former is appropriate for public education in the U.S. (Essay I, J2)
4. What is empathetic objectivity and why is it important in religious studies? (Essay II, J2)
5. What is the test of empathy and what is its purpose? What is the test of neutrality and what is its purpose? (Essay II, J2)
6. Explain how religious symbols change or alter in appearance and meaning ("the threshold effect") as one moves across the threshold of the system of symbols making up a religious tradition. (Essay II, J2)
7. Why is the "threshold effect" important to understand and keep in mind when studying religious phenomena? (Essay II, J2)
8. What is the working definition of religion being used in this class? Explain with an example. (Essay III, J3)
9. What are the practical advantages of being able to recognize, and have some understanding of, the six different ways of being religious discussed in the duplicated essay? Explain with examples. (Essay IV, J3; Cannon, Six Ways of Being Religious, chs. 1 & 6)
10. Be able to identify, cite examples of, and briefly explain any of the six ways of being religious. (Essay IV, J3; Cannon, Six Ways of Being Religious, chs. 3 & 4)
11. How are Judaism, Christianity and Islam internally connected with each other? In other words, what makes them "blood brothers," as it were? (Essay V, J4)
12. What distinctive understanding of the nature of God is shared by the three traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? Be able to explain each of its three aspects. Essay V, J4)
13. Be able to recognize the six traits that distinguish Western religions (the ones we are studying), beyond their shared understanding of the nature of God, from other major religious traditions of the world. (Essay V, J4)
14. Explain the respect in which Judaism, Christianity and Islam are "historical religions." What does this have to do with the "otherness" of God as these traditions portray ultimate reality? How does it give rise in each to a "scandal of particularity"? (Essay V, J4)
QUESTIONS ON CHRISTIANITY
Be familiar with the following terms and names; be able to state their meaning, identify that (or those things) to which they refer, and/or indicate in a phrase their meaning in the mainstream tradition(s) of Christianity. (For meanings see R204 Lectures (1998) and the R204 Glossary.)
2. Be able briefly to tell the story of the Gospel. (Be able to identify its key elements.) (C2; "Handout on Christianity;" Ludwig, The Sacred Paths of the West, ch. 7)
4. In what sense is Christianity a "historical religion"? (C1; J4, Essay V)
5. How is it that a "historical religion" inevitably gives rise to a "scandal of particularity"? In what ways is the scandal of particularity manifest in Christianity? (J4; C1, Essay V)
6. What is the principal significance of the Resurrection of Jesus in mainstream traditional Christian belief? (On this see Huston Smith's account discussed in class lectures.) (C1; see also Ludwig, ch. 7)
7. What (as explained in class) was it that led the early Christians to conclude that Jesus and God were in some fundamental sense the same? (C1; Ludwig, ch. 7))
9. The Christian Church (inclusively conceived) dates its birth from what event? What is understood to have happened then? (C1; Ludwig, ch. 7)
10. If the Gospel is the central story of the Christian tradition, what can be said to be the central Christian rite? Or are there different rites for different Christian traditions? Explain your answer. (C2)
11. What is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity? What explanation has the Christian tradition to the apparent contradiction between this doctrine and the oneness of God? (C2; Ludwig, ch. 8)
12. [Optional study question, not on exam:] What is the Christian understanding of the Atonement of Christ? Be able to recognize the several traditional versions of this doctrine (sometimes called "Christologies"), and indicate how they each express one of the "ways of being religious" we have discussed. (C7; "Handout on Christianity;" Ludwig, ch. 8)
13. Upon being shown a particular expression of Christianity, be able to identify which one of the "six ways of being religious" (possibly more than one) it manifests, explaining how it is an example of that particular way. Be able to identify which of the six ways are exemplified by the expressions of Christianity in the videos shown in class. (C2, C4, C5, C6, C7, "Handout on Christianity")
14. What has tended to divide the more formal or sacramental Christian traditions from the less formal or non-sacramental traditions with regard to their understanding of what a sacrament is? (C2, C3)
15. How does worship in the Eastern Orthodox Church differ from that of the Western Churches? (C5, Ludwig, ch7 and 9)
16. Describe and briefly explain the four-fold inner action of the Eucharist or Holy Communion as understood and practiced in the sacramental Christian traditions. How does it help explain why sacramental Christians insist that the consecrated bread and wine are "the Body and Blood of Christ"? (C3, "Handout on Christianity")
17. What is Baptism and how do sacramental and non-sacramental traditions differ in their understanding of it? What is the Christian rite of Baptism (at least in sacramental traditions) supposed to have to do with Original Sin? (C2; "Handout on Christianity;" and Ludwig, ch. 9)
18. Christians, in contrast with Jews and Muslims, have traditionally said that no one is able to get right with God or to fulfill God's will by himself or under his own efforts. What in the structure of Christian religious experience (see "Handout on Christianity") has led Christians to this view? And what do Christians generally see as the way out of this predicament so that life may be lived as they teach that God intended to be lived? C2; "Handout on Christianity;" Ludwig, ch. 8)
20. What were the main themes or stresses of the Protestant Reformation? (C5; Ludwig, ch. 7)
21. Why do Protestants characteristically emphasize the Bible more than other Christian traditions? What has the Roman Catholic position been in response to this stress? What is its more recent response (since Vatican II)? (C5; Ludwig, ch. 7)
22. What is the point of the Protestant stress on "justification by faith alone, apart from works"? What was the position of the Roman Catholic Church in response to this Protestant stress? What is its present position? (C5; Ludwig, ch. 7)
23. What brought about the great schism of Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity? (I.e., what were the principal disagreements which led to it?) (C5; Ludwig, ch. 7)
24. In what respects is Eastern Orthodox Christianity more 'mystical' than Western forms of Christianity? Explain their idea of deification (theosis) and the main features of the path to the experience of being transformed by "the uncreated light of God." (C5; Ludwig, ch. 7)
25. Explain the meaning of icons, according to the Eastern Orthodox Church, and what place they have in Orthodox worship. (C5; Ludwig, chs. 7 and 9)
26. What is the meaning of being "born again" in Protestant Evangelical Christianity, and how does it differ from mainstream sacramental Christian teaching on the subject (as found, say, in traditional Roman Catholic or Lutheran traditions). (C8; C6; Ludwig, ch. 7)
27. In what respect is there in Christianity a parallel to the relationship in Judaism between Oral Torah and Written Torah in bringing the Whole Torah to realization in life? What were some of its direct results? (C3)
28. What was the European Enlightenment and what principal kinds of impact has it had on traditional forms of Christianity? (C8; Ludwig, ch. 7)
29. What is Fundamentalist Protestantism and what are the factors that have given rise to it? What relationship does it have to Evangelical Protestantism? (C8; C6 Ludwig, ch. 7)
30. What do Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians mean in speaking of "the baptism of the Holy Spirit"? (C8; see also C2 and C7)
31. What is the traditional Roman Catholic understanding of 'praying' to the Virgin Mary and other Saints? (C5)
32. Contrast Roman Catholic tradition with both the Magisterial Reformation tradition and the Radical Reformation tradition in terms of their relative emphasis upon different ways of being religious. (C5; C7; "Handout on Christianity")
