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This course focuses on the role played by religion, especially Christianity, in shaping our perspectives on the natural world and our place in it. As environmental crises multiply and their effects are felt across the planet, often by its most vulnerable inhabitants, students in this course will investigate whether religious beliefs are part of the problem, part of the solution, or both. The course will include studies of classic and contemporary texts, classroom discussions, out-of-class investigation (field work), and community-based learning opportunities.

After an introduction to the early Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds in which Christianity arose, the course surveys the New Testament gospels, the letters of Paul, the book of Revelation, and other early church literature. Writings will be studied in terms of their theological/moral perspectives, literary features, and historical settings. The course concludes with critical reflection on how the New Testament literature raises questions about how we think about Jesus as a historical figure, women in Christianity, encounters between Christians and Jews, and the character of global Christianity today.

From the very beginning, Jews have told stories as a way of making sense of God and the world. In this course, students will examine three-thousand years of Jewish storytelling, from ancient times to the present day, and through these stories gain insights into the historical and social context of the Jewish people, and the political and theological elements of the Jewish religion. Through this course, students will gain a knowledge of and appreciation for the vast narrative literature of the Jewish people and the many profound and funny stories found within it.

"If God is good, where does evil come from? If there is no God, where does goodness come from?" These questions form the basis of this course, which examines how theologians have grappled with the tension between God's goodness and the presence of evil and suffering in the world. Students will scrutinize "classic" responses to the problem of evil from the viewpoint of their most serious contemporary challengers: feminist theologians from both developed and "Two-Thirds World" countries, and post-Holocaust Jewish theologians.