Tuesday/Thursday 3:00-4:15                                    Stephen B. Boyd
Wingate 206                                                            Wingate 207
Office Hours: Tuesday 4:15-5:15                              extension: 5458
                                                                                e-mail: boyd@wfu.edu

A study of selected radical movements in the Christian tradition and their relation to contemporary issues.

REQUIREMENTS

Written: There are three types of written assignments:

1. Reading Journal: you are to keep a journal (spiral-bound notebook) in which you summarize the major theses or arguments of each assigned chapter, treatise, or article, as well as some of your own houghts about them. For example, do you agree, disagree, find something particularly interesting or important for our class discussions or your project? These will be turned in at mid-term and at the end of the semester.

2. 2 Short papers (3-5 pages): this will be based on one of your oral presentations. Develop a thesis about the importance of the reading you presented and summarize the author's major arguments, as well as the major points that emerged in the discussion.

3. Long paper (12-15 pages): Choose an aspect of one of the movements that we have studied this semester and write a research paper in which you deal with at least one primary text and five to ten secondary sources. I will arrange a conference with you later in the semester to help you refine a topic.

Oral: There are two types of oral assignments:

1. 2 Brief (10 minute) presentations of the major theses
            and implications of one of the assigned readings.
2. A (15 minute) presentation on your project and final paper.

Graduate Students: In addition to these requirements, those taking the course for graduate credit will be expected to: 1. schedule additional meetings with the instructor to confer about the relation of the course to the thesis project; 2. develop a bibliography of primary and secondary materials related to the topic of your research paper; and 3. write a 20-25 page research paper.

Evaluation

         Journal 25%
        Oral Presentations 10%
        Class Participation 10%
        Papers: Short 10%,10%
        Long 35%

Required Texts:

Dietrich Bonhoffer, Letters and Papers From Prison (Letters)
Feodor Dostoevsky, The Grand inquisitor (Inquisitor)
Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (Gospels)
Howard Thurman, The Luminous Darkness (Darkness)
George H. Williams, ed., Spiritual Writers and Anabaptist Writers (Writers)

Schedule:

January         15        Introduction

            I. Methods

                    20         Farley, "The Fragility of Knowledge" (xerox)
                    22         Kay, "Oppression and Its Internalization" (xerox)

           II. Early Christian Radicals: Gnostics

                    27         Pagels, Gospels, chs. 1-2
                    29         Primary Text, TBA (xerox)
February        3         Pagels, Gospels, chs. 3-4
                      5         Primary Text, TBA (xerox)
                    10         Pagels, Gospels, 5-6
                    12         Primary Text, TBA (xerox)
 
            III. Reformation Radicals

                    17         Magisterial Reformation: Luther and His Legacy (lecture)
                    19         Revolutionaries: M?ntzer, “Sermon Before the Princes” Writers,
                    24         Spiritualists: Denck, "Whether God is the Cause of Evil" Writers
                    26         Anabaptists: Grebel, “Letter to M?ntzer” Writers
March            3         Sattler, "Schleitheim Confession" (xerox); "Martyrdom" Writers
                      5         Quakers: Margaret Fell, "Women’s Speaking Justified" (xerox)
                                        Spring Break

           IV. Modern "Post-Constantinian" Christians