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First Assignment: Contextualizing a Theologian

The decision to frame class presentations around individual theologians was in part intended to avoid duplication of lecture material, but it may also serve as a reminder that even the most erudite of scholars are men and women of their time, whose entire life experience - including the years preceding conversion - informs what they do and are (you have only to read St. Augustine's Confessions for this to become apparent). The goal is not for you to attempt summarize everything a theologian said and wrote but to provide a window on their life experience and on the theology that he or she fashioned. The presentation should last between five and ten minutes and address the subject's personal history, the wider social and cultural context, and one or two of their more significant contributions to theological understanding. A presentation dealing with St. Augustine, for example, would include in the personal history, the influence of his mother Monica, his experience of Manic
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Third Assignment: Equipping Churchgoers to Introduce the Christian Faith

Resources for others (1,000 words) A written rationale / commentary (1,500 words) Write a 1,000 word outline for a 3 x 1 hour course that would equip churchgoers to introduce the Christian faith to enquirers. You will need to include (though not necessarily by simply equating the three bullets with the three sessions):          something on the foundations and development of Christianity;         aspects of key Christian beliefs;         an indication of what might be distinctive about the life of a Christian today. Your rationale/commentary should present clearly the reasons for:          your choice of material to be covered (and perhaps not covered);          the delivery methods you have selected. Advice This is the reflective practice element of the module, drawing both upon material presented in class and outside reading. It is intended to contextualize the nuts and bolts of church history in a form that promotes both spiritual growth an
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Schisms Old and New

Schism is worse than heresy. Such has been the received wisdom from the Church Fathers onwards, yet schism has been a part of the Church’s modus operandi since well before the Reformation. At its heart is a debate over what constitutes adiaphora (things indifferent) in the life of the Church. What follows is a reflection on one of those moments in a peculiarly Anglican context – in the British Isles in the early 21st Century. For these purposes, it matters not what position you take on the appropriateness of ecclesial separation. Whether you view it as unjustified, understandable but unnecessary, or defensible, it constitutes a likely reality. Such a phenomenon is not new; rather, it is part and parcel of the Anglican experience.   On June 30, 2017, the Anglican Church in North America – an ecclesial body that the Anglican Communion Secretary General recently stressed was not a province of the Anglican Communion though in ecumenical relationship with many of its component provin
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