04/20/08

Study guide 3

The exam will be worth 80 points and cover material in Study Guides 1 and 2 also

Some Important Terms and Concepts

Be able to give an example of each of the following along with a brief characterization and application to the study of religion or spirituality

Dorothy Day

Archbishop Oscar Romero

Rigoberta Menchú

Elijah Muhammad

Martin Luther King, Jr

Paulo Freire

Winona LaDuke

Fannie Lou Hamer

Aldo Leopold

Thinking like a mountain

Father Francis Kline (O.C.S.O)

Dogmatic and Interpretive traditions

Gullah

Mystical activists

Prophetic leadership

The Confessing Church

Nation of Islam

Marginality (sensu DeYoung and Donnelley)

Here are some items/questions:

1) What were the major criticisms of each of the four commentators on Frans de Waal and how did he answer them?

2) How would you evaluate the evidence for the roots of morality in other species? Does this pose a problem for traditional modern religions? Should it? Comment

3) What is a world view immersed in the margins? Discuss the various riffs on this theme in Living Faith and also include Kline and Leopold.

4) Fontana evaluates a series of studies on the value of religion on health and longevity. Know the major conclusions AND their limitations, including some that Fontana does not discuss.

5) What can be the negative consequences of religiosity, as postulated by Freud and others? How does Fontana handle the issue? Be able to come up with an experiment to try to settle the controversy.

6) What are the social costs of religion in terms of war, intolerance, etc.? Do you agree or disagree with Fontana’s relatively bland conclusions.

7) How do mystical activists develop a code of ethics? Use not only the three persons discussed in the book but others. Why would you, or would you not, include these well-known people in the mystical activist camp? (Choose three from Oral Roberts, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, Jerry Falwell)

8) Know the basic biographies of Bonhoefer, Malcolm X, and Aung San Suu Kyi and how they tried to apply their religious/spiritual commitments to changing their societies. Were their differing approaches derived from their religious traditions? Are there parallels to the religious prophets and leaders of the past? If so, be able to discuss some examples. Could the three people have developed the same way if they were in one of the other three religious traditions?

9) Do you think that Living Faith author DeYoung would consider Leopold and/or Kline as mystical activists, revolutionaries, or prophets in the same way he treats the people he discusses? Why or why not/

10) Compare how Fontana and de Waal use the term reconciliation focusing on similarities and differences.

11) Is aiding the environment on the same moral/religious/spiritual plane as traditional social/political action focused on aiding people only? Defend your answer with facts and logic.

12) Is Leopold’s dying ‘fierce green fire’ a vision comparable or different from St. Theresa’s and which is more relevant to us today? Discuss.

13) Be able to create and interpret the Venn diagram that Donnelley described. Is it useful to you in understanding the various psychological roles that religion/spirituality, in all their diversity, play in human lives? Explain

14) How has your understanding of religion been affected, if at all, by what you have encountered this semester. Have you altered any of your attitudes, beliefs, or behavior toward religion, spirituality, and science throughout this semester based on the class, readings, outside assignment opportunities, etc.? If so explain how; if not, why not? What were the most influential/inspiring/depressing experiences?