Module THEO3651: Faith and the Experience of War in the Christian World

Department: Theology and Religion

THEO3651: Faith and the Experience of War in the Christian World

Prerequisites

• • None

Corequisites

Excluded Combination of Modules

Aims

• To offer the opportunity to engage in an informed and critical manner with major debates on faith and armed conflict in in Great Britain and the United States;
• To enable students to assess the critical interplay between Christian concepts of Divine providence and the historical reality of military conflict;
• To enable students to assess the ways the Bible and the churches have been used (or have chosen) to justify and condemn conflict, and to console those caught up within it;
• To equip students with the tools for conducting historically sensitive research into a range of appropriate primary texts;
• To build on students’ prior knowledge of the history of Christianity.

Content

• A soldier of the government must be told not to execute men’, so wrote around AD 215 Hippolytus of Rome. Despite the Gospel-like simplicity of his directive, however, theologians since the earliest days of recorded church history have continued to debate what the appropriate attitude of a believer should be to the questions of war and peace. The longer a theological tradition has been around the more substantial its reflection on these central questions will be. In this module, students will be able to engage first hand with the thinking on faith and the experience of war from the earliest times of recorded Christian history, right down to the modern day.
• To approach to this longstanding tradition will be selective and the module will adopt an explicit historical perspective. The focus will on the study of primary texts in their context. We will begin with the earliest war-related church regulations and will study the interpretation of key biblical passages on the topic – such as the book of Joshua – in the third-century author Origen. We will then analyze the Life of Constantine by Eusebius and other relevant fourth- and fifth-century sources (including Ambrose and Augustine) with the purpose of examining variations in the engagement of pre- and post-Constantine authors with the issues of faith and military violence. It is here that we will uncover the roots of the nuanced approach which will become characteristic of the later Christian tradition which will evolve to articulate a doctrine of ‘just war’ in the West, but not in the East.
• To demonstrate how such a nuanced development took place, and what its consequences for the modern world are, the course will review the following topics: o Early Christians and the Roman army; warrior saints and the theology of the crusades; war and peace in modern Orthodoxy. Britain and the US in the mid nineteenth century, focusing on the Indian Uprising and the American Civil War (Religion and Rebellion), the First World War (The War to End Wars), and The Great Crusade (the Second World War).

Learning Outcomes

• Knowledge of the history of Christianity and of the relationship between Christianity and its social and cultural contexts.
• A knowledge of the underlying concepts and principles associated with the study of the history of Christianity, and an ability to evaluate and interpret these within the context of that area of study.

• Skill in the handling of primary texts and secondary sources, with an appreciation of the associated problems.

• Skills in the conducting of research.
• Skills in thinking theologically and historically.
• Skills in the structured presentation of information in written and oral form.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• TEACHING: This module will be taught in regular weekly classes of 2 hours each. Each class will include a lecture and a seminar section. The aim of this combined mode of teaching is to create a dialogical learning environment where students can engage, with suitable guidance, in advanced level discussions focused on key primary texts. The lecture section will convey information and exemplify an approach to the subject-matter. The seminar section will enhance subject-specific knowledge and understanding both through preparation and through interaction with students and staff, promoting awareness of different viewpoints and approaches.
• ASSESSMENT: Summative essays develop subject-specific knowledge and understanding, along with student skills in the acquisition of information through reading and research, and in the structured presentation of information in written form. Summative oral presentations develop subject-specific knowledge and understanding, along with student skills in the acquisition of information through reading and research, and in the structured presentation of information in oral form. The final year examination assesses subject-specific knowledge and understanding, along with student skills in the structured presentation of information in written form under time constraints.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

class exercises

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University