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Modern
Challenges to Christianity Professor
Randall Smith Office:
206 Hughes House rsmith@stthom.edu I. Course
Description
and Objectives:
It may help
to begin by thinking of Karol Wojtyla as a man who
grew up very fast. The traumatic events that
shaped his early life [Nazi occupation, the death
of his parents, Soviet occupation, et al.] could have led him to
conclude that human existence is irrational, even
absurd. Wojtyla came to a different
conclusion. Beginning with his late teenage
years under the Nazi Occupation, he gradually came
to the conviction that the crisis of the modern
world was first of all a crisis of ideas, a crisis in the very
idea of the human person. History was driven
by culture and the ideas that formed
cultures. Ideas had consequences. And
if the idea of the human person
that dominated a culture was flawed, one of two
things would happen. Either that culture
would give birth to destructive aspirations, or it
would be incapable of realizing its fondest hopes,
even if it expressed them in the most nobly
humanistic terms. ...
Through thousands of hours in the confessional, in
hundreds of seminars, books, lectures, and articles,
and throughout a pontificate that has addressed
virtually every major issue on the human agenda, his
fundamental conviction has remained constant: the
horrors of late twentieth-century life, whether
Nazi, communist, racist, nationalist, or utilitarian
in expression, are the product of defective concepts
of the human person. The modern
age prides itself on its humanism and declares
freedom its noblest aspiration. Though Karol
Wojtyla shares both the pride and the aspiration,
he believes that neither contemporary humanism nor
the freedom it seeks has been given a secure
foundation. And the cracks in the
foundations are not of interest to philosophers
only; they are life-and-death matters for
millions. For a humanism that cannot give an
adequate account of its most cherished value,
freedom, becomes self-cannibalizing. Freedom
decays into license; anarchy threatens; and in the
face of that anarchy a host of devils, each
promising security amid the chaos, is set loose –
demons like the supremacy of race (Hitler) or
class (Marx), the messianic lure of utopian
politics (Lenin), chapter after bloody chapter,
the butcher’s bull always lengthened by humanity’s
increasing technological accomplishments. What do
you think? Is history,
particularly recent history, as Pope John Paul II
seemed to think, “driven by culture and the ideas
that form cultures”? That
is a worthwhile question – one you should be
considering seriously during the course of the
semester. It is not
self-evident. But let
me just say right off, in the interests of full
disclosure, that this principle – about the
importance of culture and the ideas that form
culture, especially the idea of the human person –
is one of the key underlying principles that will
inform our work in this course. You may find during
the course of the semester that you disagree with
this basic principle. That’s
fine. But at least you
understand where I’m coming from.
Everyone has basic presuppositions he or she
brings to any study or analysis.
Everyone. At
least I’ve been honest and open and up-front about
mine.
But there is something more that needs to be
said. Saying that “culture” is a driving force in
history and society may or may not be true, but it
certainly begs another important question: namely,
what do we mean by “culture” (at least as we’re
using the term in this course)?
People may mean a lot of things when they use
the word “culture”: it may be thought to have
something to do with the language people speak, the
sort of art they make, or the sort of tools they
leave behind. What I
will mean when I use the term “culture” in this
course has been captured nicely by Harvard
sociologist Daniel Bell, who defines culture as
follows: I would define culture as the modalities of
response by sentient men to the core questions
that confront all human groups in the
consciousness of existence: how one meets death,
the meaning of tragedy, the nature of obligation,
the character of love – these recurrent questions which are, I
believe, cultural universals, to be found in all
societies where men have become conscious of the
finiteness of existence. ... Culture, thus, is
always a ricorso. Men may expand
their technical powers. Nature may be
mastered by scientific knowledge. There may
be progress in the instrumental realms. But
the existential questions remain. The
answers may vary – and do ... But the questions
always recur. The starting point in
understanding culture is not human nature (as in
Greek thought), nor human history (as in Hegel and
Marx), but the human predicament: the fact that
man is ‘thrown’ into the world (who asked to be
born?) And in the growing knowledge of that
situation becomes aware of some answers – the
received residues of culture – and gropes his way
back to the questions to test the meanings for
himself. I take this paragraph to be
offering not only a good description, but
also good advice. Understanding culture is a
good way of coming to “know ourselves.” Our first
step is to become aware of the received residues
of culture, after which we must grope our
way back to the questions to test the meanings for
ourselves.
The problem is that “culture” (in this sense)
is an awfully big term; it can cover a lot of
things. So we’ll have
to narrow our focus a bit. In
the context of this course, we will be asking two
key questions. The first is this: What challenges does
contemporary American culture pose for those who
wish to hold and profess the Christian faith?
But let me be clear about this before we move
on. By claiming that something poses a “challenge”
to the Christian faith, we need not conclude from
this fact alone that the phenomenon or its
ramifications are all necessarily bad.
Tests and classes are meant to “challenge”
students; that often makes them painful, but it
doesn’t always make them bad. Something
can be “challenging” to you because it involves pain
and suffering, such as the loss of a parent, the
failure to get a job or acceptance or perhaps
rejection by one’s boyfriend or girlfriend. No one would wish such
“challenges” on anyone. And yet we all know that it
is in dealing with such challenges that one is made
stronger and one’s horizon of concerns is made
larger. Similarly,
believing Christians need not see the challenges
posed by contemporary culture to their faith in a
totally negative light. Understanding
and dealing with such challenges may well help to
make one’s faith stronger and one’s
conception of God larger and more appropriate to
God’s infinite dignity.
Having said that, I would also propose to the
class that the message of the Gospel – indeed,
Christ Himself – has always been, and indeed will
continue to be, “a sign of contradiction” to the
world. As the blind
prophet Simeon foretells to Mary upon encountering
the Christ child: “Behold, this child is set for the
fall and the rising of many ... and will be a sign
of contradiction.” As
St. Paul himself says: “What we preach is a scandal
to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks.” Christians would do well
to take that statement seriously and think deeply
about what it would mean to become a “scandal” to
others and to allow oneself to look a fool, at least
in the eyes of “the world.” Is
Christ a sign of contradiction for you? Is the Church and the
Christian faith an uncomfortable burden to carry?
Pope John Paul II, for one, was often called
“a sign of contradiction” during his life. George Weigel calls him
that, for example, in his biography of the pope.
“John Paul II is frequently perceived in conflicting
terms,” claims Weigel, “because he is, in fact, a
sign of contradiction. His
life, his convictions, and his teaching pose an
unmistakable challenge to his times, to which he
seems in many other respects so well-attuned.”
Ironically, the Pope’s first book (published in
Poland long before he became pope) was in fact
entitled A Sign of Contradiction.
But what would it mean to be a “sign of
contradiction” to the reigning culture? Might not such an idea
turn our first question on its head.
Remember, our first question was: “How does
modern culture pose a challenge to Christianity?”
Weigel suggests, on the contrary, that the Christian
convictions of the Pope John Paul II posed “an
unmistakable challenge to his times.” Do you see the difference? Certainly modern culture
poses unmistakable challenges to traditional
Christian conviction. But by the same token, we
might at least consider the possibility that the
tradition of Christian conviction contains within it
several key insights into the human condition (those
“responses by sentient men to the core questions
that confront all human groups in the consciousness
of existence” of which Daniel Bell speaks) that can
challenge the relative success or failure of our
contemporary cultural environment.
If the road to self-understanding involves
becoming aware of the answers culture gives to the
recurring questions of meaning and then testing them
for oneself, that will be no less true for modern
culture as it is for Christian conviction. Indeed, it may be more
important to become aware of the presuppositions of
modern culture and test them since, as
presuppositions, they so often go unnoticed and thus
unquestioned. It’s can
be very instructive for students to discover that
not everyone everywhere has always thought about the
world, life, love, and the nature of obligation in
just the same way we do currently among the educated
classes in the United States. Along with our first
question, then, we might also ask a second one, just
as valid, namely: How might Christianity pose
a challenge to modern culture?
So, to sum up, our goal in this course is the
goal we are called to by Pope John Paul II in Fides
et Ratio: an increased self-understanding and
a more profound awareness of the fundamental
questions that challenge all human persons. The means to this end in
this course will involve an analysis of the roots of
the modern world view and repeated reflection on two
key questions: A) Reading and Reflection
This is a theology course, and theology has
traditionally been defined as “faith seeking
understanding.” The
means to our goal of an increased "understanding of
faith" will involve both reading and reflection.
Reading assignments are posted on the course web
site. Please be
forewarned that there is a substantial amount of
reading for this course; but then again, that only
makes sense, given that this is a college course. You’re paying for quality,
right? Here’s where you
get it. Quality means
we challenge you to accomplish more than you ever
thought possible before you came here.
The amount of reading is not impossible, but
it’s also not a lazy afternoon’s walk in the park. It’s meant to challenge
you (in line with the topic of the course).
In order to encourage serious, analytic
reading of the assigned texts, there will be an
"executive summary" of the day's readings due at the
beginning of each class. If
you miss the class or forget your "executive
summary," you get a zero. There
are no late submissions. Businesses are
increasingly pleading with us not to send them
graduates who are not prepared for the world of
work. If you miss a meeting or show up
without the executive summary you were assigned,
you get fired. It's time to grow up if you
haven't already.
B) Exams
You will also be asked to demonstrate your
knowledge of the course material on two major
exams: a mid-term and a comprehensive
final exam (note the adjective “comprehensive”).
These will be essay exams with questions on both the
reading and the in-class lecture and discussion.
C) Writing Assignments:
First, the good news: there will not be a
large research paper for this course.
The daily "executive summaries" that you will
be doing will be sufficient writing for the
semester. It's worthwhile noting, moreover,
that doing these "executive summaries" is
undoubtedly the best way to prepare for the exams. III. Grading:
Please note that your final
grade will be calculated according to the following
formula: Mid-Term Exam: 25 % Final Exam: 35 % Daily Executive
Summaries: 20% Class Participation: 20 %
Please note as well that I
assign letter grades based upon the following
standard scale: A
95-100 A- 90-94 B+ 88-89 B
83-87 B- 80-82 C+ 78-79 C
73-77 C- 70-72 D+ 68-69 D
63-67 D- 60-62 F
Anything below 60 IV. My Policy on
Attendance:
I will take attendance daily at the beginning
of each class. If you are late, it is your
responsibility to see me after class to make sure
you are marked present (but late). If you haven’t
informed me of your presence, then you didn’t
attend.
Please be forewarned that more than three
absences will result in a decrease of one‑third of a
letter grade. Further absences will result in
further proportionate decreases.
After six absences, you will be excused from
further attendance in an official way (by which I
mean, you'll suffer the academic equivalent of being
fired).
Please also take note that I make no
distinction between “excused” and “un‑excused”
absences. You may
excuse yourself for whatever reason you deem
important enough to miss class. I realize that there
are certainly times when attending class is not the
most important thing in your life.
On the other hand, since you are enrolled,
attending class is not unimportant if you are to get
the educational benefit for which you are paying. Three absences, therefore,
seems about right. V. Required Readings: All
the readings for this course can be found in a large
spiral-bound Reader that must be purchased at
Reprint copy shop. Their
address is 2035 SW Freeway @ Shepherd.
Their phone number is 713‑522‑9299.
It's a good idea to call before you go. VI. Some Important Comments Concerning Your
Participation in the Class:
A) On Class Etiquette:
It
should go without saying (but let me say it
anyway) that respect for your fellow students in
the class demands the following: 2. Once you have arrived and class has begun, please don’t leave the classroom unless there is a dire physical necessity. Buying a coke or making a phone call is not a dire physical necessity. 3. In this class, you are permitted to bring food, drink, or any other legal stimulants to keep you awake and alert during the class period. But please keep slurping and gurgling to a minimum. And above all, please, clean up your own mess before you leave. The University’s hard-working janitorial staff should not have to clean up after lazy, slovenly students. 4. All cell phones and pagers must be turned off (or you will be turned out). 5. That means no text messaging on your cell phone during class. If you have something to say, say it out loud to everyone. 6. NB: It has also come to my attention that many students use their computers not to take notes during class, as they should, but to surf the web or check e-mail. This distracts other students greatly. Therefore, because of the many abuses that I have seen and others have mentioned to me, no computers will be allowed in this class. You’ll have to take notes the old-fashioned way: with a pen or pencil. 7. Bottom line: All electronic devices must be turned off and stowed for the duration of the class. Seat backs and tray tables must also be in their upright and locked position. Students
will take note, I hope, that this is a rather large
class – something that makes discussion more
difficult, or at the very least, much more unwieldy.
While it is this instructor's view that learning
should be an active process on the part of the
students, he does not, unfortunately, determine
class size. In short, we're screwed.
The result of all this is that I will have to
do a lot of lecturing. Students should be prepared,
therefore, to take part in this type of class for
the most part. On
the other hand, please believe that I am always open
to earnest and serious questions. So although I tend
to plunge through material rather madly, please be
assured that I do welcome your questions and
comments. One
caveat, however: This is a big class, and we do have
to keep things moving along, so I can't necessarily
call on everyone every time. I have found in the
past with classes this size that discussions often
tend to veer wildly off into other interesting,
though perhaps only tangentially related, topics.
There is only one answer to this problem: Please
listen to your classmates (this is an absolute
requirement!), and try to respond to what's being
said. Above
all, you should be self‑aware enough to realize that
it as difficult for everyone else as it is for you
to make a point clearly and concisely in front of
thirty or so classmates. So please be patient with
yourself and with everyone else – especially the
people you consider to be annoyingly stupid. (Here’s a hint: They’re not.) My
experience from past classes suggests that while
students often find class discussions interesting,
they also find them a bit frustrating.
There is simply no way of discussing
important issues thoroughly in the kind of time we
spend in class. My
conviction is that education either goes on outside
of the classroom, or it does not go on at all. What
discussion in the classroom can do (at its best) is
merely pique your interest – “wet your appetite,” as
it were. The real
conversations must take place after you leave the
classroom: with your friends and family, late at
night in coffee shops or bars, over a glass of red
wine, good beer, or strong, dark coffee. Here the time is too short
and the surroundings are too sterile for real
philosophy to take place. But
we can at least begin the conversation. Please
be aware that I will often ask questions at random
during my lectures about the reading material. You
should be able to demonstrate some knowledge of the
text, or at least some ability to think about the
questions involved. If it is clear to everyone that
you have not done the reading at all, then don't be
surprised if this fact ends up being reflected in
your final grade. I
won’t necessarily say, out loud, in front of
everybody: “Well, I guess I can give you a big F for
class participation.” But
just keep in mind, that’s what will be happening. The
good news, however, is this: Regular
and prompt attendance, coupled with a good faith
effort to understand the text, can do wonders for
your grade. That 15%
for class participation is an easy A if you show up
on time and do the reading. C) On the Amount of Reading:
There will be plenty of reading for this
class, so please be prepared to do it.
This is an upper-level college course,
therefore it is entirely appropriate for me to
assign you upwards of 40 to 50 pages of reading
between class periods. That
is not a lot. You
simply have to pace yourself. If
you can read 20 pages per hour (with good
understanding and retention), then you will need two
hours or so to do the reading.
If you read much more slowly, then you need
longer. Budget your time accordingly.
Yes, I know you have other classes. They should be assigning
you plenty of reading as well.
For every class you take at this University,
you should expect to put in between two to three
hours of work for every hour you are in class. That’s a standard college
work load at good colleges across the country. (Note that I said at
“good” colleges, so please don’t tell me how your
friends at A&M spend half the time studying you
do and the rest of the time drinking with their frat
buddies or sorority sisters.)
I always read the comments students make on
their evaluations at the end of the semester, and I
take them all very seriously – except for this one:
“Too much reading!” Here’s
a hint: No, there’s
not. You have asked us
to teach you and prepare you to do first-rate work
in business or professional school.
And that is what I intend to do. I know how much reading
you should be able to do. If
you’re not interested in that sort of formation,
then you want another class. You need to be building
muscles for excellence as opposed to getting
yourself accustomed to mediocrity.
In any course you take at this University,
even if you are not particularly interested in the
subject matter of the course, you should still take
it as an occasion to develop the habit of excellence
rather than the habit of mediocrity.
Our successful students always – and I mean
this very sincerely – they always thank us
for having challenged them and, in particular, for
having forced them to read and write more than they
thought possible. But
in any worthwhile endeavor, the joy and freedom that
comes with attaining excellence demands work and
discipline on the front end.
Please note that you are responsible for all
the reading material, even though we will not
necessarily have time to cover it all in class. We will only cover
highlights and the more difficult sections in class. Class lecture and
discussion are merely parts of the process by which
you educate yourself. The
goal of a liberal arts education is to teach you how
to teach yourself. You
need to learn how to learn. There
is no way we can teach you everything you need to
know in four years. There
is no way we can cover all the relevant points about
the kind of important questions we will be covering
in fifty or sixty minutes. That is the work of a
lifetime. These four
years are meant to prepare you for a lifetime of
education. The end of
the class period is when the real learning begins.
Note also that there are a number of
different ways of running a class.
One way would be for the professor to step
back and merely facilitate a discussion between
students. This class is
too big for that. Another
way
would be for the professor to lecture in an orderly,
point-by-point fashion, using PowerPoint slides or
overhead projections. Some
professors come into a class with five points to
make, lay them out in order and are done. This method works with
material for which you don’t need to have much
context in order to “get” the points the speaker
wants to make. That
makes this method appropriate for communicating
discrete bits of information, but not as good, in my
view, for areas that require thinking. Ideas do not happen in
isolation; they arise in a context, and their full
truth can only be appreciated by understanding them
within that context.
The process of acquiring this context may
feel at times as though we’re wandering the circles
around the center of the labyrinth.
We eventually reach the center, but the
process might make you wonder, “If our destination
was here, why did we walk in all those circles? Why didn’t we just walk in
a straight line and get to the point?” Because with
me, the journey is often as important as the
destination. I want
students to see the center from a number of
different angles, perspectives and points-of-view. I want them to begin to
see the connections between the ideas. And I want them to begin
to enter into a conversation: a conversation
not just with me or with the other students in the
class, but with a number of the greatest thinkers of
the past and present: a
conversation of interconnected ideas that is
meant to extend beyond the classroom and into their
everyday lives.
There is something else as well. Often in the process of
learning, it is good to become comfortable with
being uncomfortable; with not knowing exactly where
you’re going for a while; with struggling through
the twists and turns in order to find your way,
trusting that if you take the coaching and do the
work, the whole picture will eventually become
clear, in fact much clearer than if you had just
walked from Point A to Point B and said to yourself,
“There, now that’s done.”
There are many truths that require something
more than a five-point summary or that can’t be
captured in a sound-bite. Most
things worth knowing must be approached as you would
approach a great work of art. You
don’t just glance at it the way you glance at a stop
sign. Great works of art require time: time to walk
around them, to look at them from various angles, to
mull them over, and sometimes just to sit and be
in their presence, so that their truth and beauty
can overflow into you. So prepare yourselves to
listen, to take copious detailed notes, to engage
with the reading material, and enjoy the ride. VII. Movies Required for the Course:
My plan is to require the students to view
several movies during the course of the semester,
movies related to the content of the course. The movies are required,
and there will be test questions asking you to
relate the movies to the themes of the course. I will strive to make
these movies available on-line on the Blackboard
site.
Let me add just one more thing about the
movies. In the past,
when I have required movies, my experience has
always been the same. Students
complain more about having to watch the movies
outside of class than about any other thing. And yet, all of them,
without exception, have said after the semester was
over that they learned the most about the readings
from watching the movies. So
watch them.
VIII. Contacting Me:
My office phone number is (713) 942-5059, and
my e-mail address is Please
feel free to use either. I
must, however, warn you of the following. After literally dozens of
hours playing phone tag with people, I no longer
return phone calls. And
because like most people who have an e-mail account
in America, I am constantly being besieged by
literally hundreds of e-mail messages, I don’t
always return e-mail messages.
I’m
sorry about this, but information overload has
simply resulted in the break down of the electronic
communications systems at many businesses. There are executives in
major corporations who send automatic replies to
each and every e-mail message that reads: “If you
haven’t heard from me by the end of the day today,
you will have to try again, because I simply delete
all untouched e-mail messages at the end of each
business day.” Experts
estimate that businesses are losing as much as two
hours of productive work per person per day while
their employees are checking e-mail.
What does one do when the
technology fails? Revert
back to one of the classic, tried-and-true methods
of the past: namely, walk over and actually talk
to the person. It’s
not as though we live on separate continents. We are within a two- or
three-block radius of one another nearly every day. And you will be seeing me
in class at this time every Monday, Wednesday and
Friday. It’s not as
though I am unavailable, simply because you can’t
always get in touch with me instantly with the touch
of a button. So, you
may need to plan ahead. So, if you need to get in touch
with me, the best way is to make an appointment
after class, or come see me either in my office or
in Diedrich’s (try one place, then the other) during
my regular office hours. And
please, please, don’t get personally offended if I
don’t respond immediately to your e-mail message. It may be a technical
glitch (my system has on numerous occasions filtered
out student e-mails), or I may just be way behind in
checking e-mail. Either
way, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to keep
up with all the e-mail traffic.
So, for example, at different points in the
semester, I may have to declare a moratorium on
e-mail in order to be able to finish grading exams. IX. Finally:
Finally, please be assured I want you to do
well in this course, and I will do whatever I can to
see to it that you get the grade to which you
aspire. But for now,
don’t forget to: * Check the course web site at:
http://t4.stthom.edu/users/smith/modern_challenges * Be sure you can access the course
Blackboard site. * Read the syllabus and the assigned reading
for the next class. * Pick up a copy of the Reader over at
Reprint..
Most of all, a very warm welcome to you all! |