This course is intended to introduce learners to the core questions of Christian theology, and to explore some of the answers that Christian thinkers have proposed for those questions over the centuries. Together, we’ll explore what these theological issues mean for us, and how they can affect the way we live our lives.
ORGANIZATION OF COURSE
UNIT ONE: How do we know what we know about God?
UNIT TWO: Who is God?
UNIT THREE: How does God relate to us?
UNIT FOUR: How do we live together with God?
- 4-week blended (synchronous and asynchronous) course
- 2-3 hours/week engagement
- Independent Study: reading, watching, listening, and writing
- Online text-based discussion (asynchronous)
- 4 live web conversations (one per week)(synchronous)
This is the third course of the Fundamentals of Faith Series; it can be taken by itself or as part of the six-course series.
REQUIRED TEXT
- Thomas, Owen C. and Ellen K. Wondra. Introduction to Theology. New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2002.
About the Author
Timothy Maness
I am fascinated by how we as people decide what we believe and why, and by how we relate our beliefs to what we perceive, what we learn, and what we do. All too often, narrow-minded people both outside the Church and inside it have cast Christianity as the enemy of scientific progress or even of knowledge in general, when our culture’s knowledge-producing institutions and our faith have much to offer each other. I have a good deal of scholarly experience in reaching across that unnecessary divide.
Teaching has always been my favorite part of being an academic, and I’ve had the privilege of serving as a teacher in several different contexts. I have been a teaching assistant for courses ranging from Boston University’s undergraduate level Introduction to Religion course to Stephen Prothero’s Death and Immortality, planning lessons and fostering student conversations for discussion sections, going over course material with students one on one, and grading and giving feedback on student writing. I have been a writing instructor in BU’s Core program, helping students to learn how to construct and articulate academic arguments. While teaching physics to high schoolers, I learned a lot about encouraging students to have more faith in their own academic abilities than cultural constraints had allowed.
A Ph.D. graduate from Boston University’s Department of Religion, Tim is turning his dissertation, “Redeeming Time: Special Relativity, Flowing Time, and Religious Thought,” into a book.