Objections to Christian Belief (CT9830Y)

Content

Christian beliefs and practices have been subjected to a variety of critiques of varying intensity over the centuries, especially in the modern period. Christian responses to these objections have themselves taken different forms: from apologetics, through to self-critical theological reflection. This unit critically evaluates a range of prominent objections by bringing Critical Theorists into interrogative conversation with theologians with a view to identifying certain overlapping concerns with the theological that may be conducive to ascertaining how to be appropriately theologically honest. After all, Sigmund Freud argued, people are not good at identifying the delusions they are shaped by. Topics may include: believing and acting in a pluralistic environment; deliberating on matters of the theological and violence where there is no agreement on a common good; the integrity of theological education; and the question of what constitutes human dignity under posthuman conditions.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

Either an UG level 1 AP or CT unit

Pedagogy

Mixed mode – Face-to-face, online, blended learning, flipped classrooms

Indicative Bibliography

• Adorno, Theodor and Horkheimer, Max. Towards a New Manifesto. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. London: Verso, 2011.
• Agamben, Giorgio. Creation and Anarchy: The Work of Art and the Religion of Capitalism. Translated by Adam Kotsko. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019.
• Arendt, Hannah. Essays in Understanding 1930-1954: Formation, Exile, and Totalitarianism. New York: Schocken Books, 1994.
  
• Brown, Wendy. In the Ruins: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
• Butler, Judith. The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind. London and New York: Verso, 2020.
• Cavanaugh, William T. The Uses of Idolatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.
• Fanon, Frantz. Black Skins, White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2008.
• Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. London: Penguin, 1984.
• Lash, Nicholas. The Beginning and the End of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• McDowell, John C. Theology and the Globalized Present: Feasting in the Presence of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019.
• Žižek, Slavoj. The Relevance of the Communist Manifesto. Cambridge and Medford: Polity, 2019.

Assessment