Christianity Socratic Seminar I
Directions: Contained in the IB command prompts below are eight ideas related to Christianity from the Second Temple era to today. Six of these eight command prompts will appear for discussion in our Socratic Seminar. However, since the class will be split into two groups, each of you will only be speaking about three of these, though you must prepare for all eight [insert a Doran-esque maniacal, gloating laugh here #schadenfreude] J. While you can root you information in anything we have discussed, you must make direct and specific reference to the texts assigned for the Socratic Seminar to receive a high mark on this 50-point culminating assessment. The texts, with page number from The Norton Anthology of World Religion vol. 2, are:
from Isaiah (pp. 793-797);
from Luke (pp. 816-818);
from The Apology of St. Justin the Martyr (pp. 859-862);
from The Martyrdom of Polycarp (pp. 882-885);
from On the Lord’s Prayer by Thomas Aquinas (pp. 1009-1014);
from Paradisio by Dante Aligheri (pp. 1040-1043);
from Institutes of the Christian Religion by Calvin (pp. 1104-1107);
from The Pilgrims Progress by Bunyan (pp. 1150-1152);
from What is Christianity? by Harnack (pp. 1176-1179);
“Journey of the Magi” by Eliot (pp. 1266-1267);
from The Four Loves by Lewis (pp. 1313-1316)
Prepare for the following command prompts on this assessment:
· Examine and evaluate the idea and importance of a Messianic age in relationship to Christianity and Judaism. Compare and contrast the ideas within the two religions and their relationship to Jesus of Nazareth.
· Analyze the importance of parables within the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. To what extent does this method impact the religious experience for Christians?
· Discuss the importance and role of early Christian martyrs in the development of the religion.
· Examine and evaluate Thomas Aquinas’ detailed exegesis of the Lord’s Prayer. Contrast it with the original ideas of early Christians from Jesus to the end of the Patristic Era.
· Dante Alighieri, John Bunyan, TS Eliot, and CS Lewis are all fiction writers who used their literary voices to further the ideas within Christianity. Compare and contrast how using fiction and literature to inform Christianity impacts the experience and understanding amongst its followers.
· Discuss Christianity’s understanding of eschatology and the afterlife considering how these ideas both manifested themselves and evolved over time. Consider their implications and beliefs today as well.
· To what extent is Harnack’s attempt to understand modern Christianity a major separation from the doctrine and beliefs of most Christians? Evaluate his need and ability to “protest” within the religion.
· Discuss the following quote, “For the dream of following our end, the thing we were made for, in a Heaven of purely human love could not be true unless our whole Faith were wrong. We were made for God…. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not understand what we were loving.” (C.S. Lewis, “The Four Loves”).