Religion and Violence (links)
(3 semester hours, RECU 65033/85033/95033)
Spring 2019, Brite Divinity School, Moore 309, Wednesday, 1:00-3:30

Instructor: Charles Bellinger c.bellinger@tcu.edu 817-257-7668

syllabus: http://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/rel-viol2019syllabus.htm

Schedule: (reading assignments should be completed by the date next to which they are listed) This syllabus represents current plans that are subject to change. Such changes, communicated by the instructor, are not unusual and should be expected.
	date	reading assignments	writing assignments
Week 1	Jan. 16	Sam Harris, http://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Harris_excerpts.htm Ernest Becker, excerpts from Escape from Evil http://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Becker_Escape.pdf
Week 2	Jan. 23	Alice Miller, excerpts from For Your Own Good https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Miller_FYOG.pdf Mark Juergensmeyer, excerpts from Terror in the Mind of God https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Juerg_Ch8.pdf C. Bellinger, review of Juerg., http://readingreligion.org/books/terror-mind-god-4th-ed Wm. Cavanaugh, "Does Religion Cause Violence?" http://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-sec/Cavanaugh-Does-Rel.htm Kenneth Burke, "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle" http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/442/txt/burke.pdf Bellinger, “Kenneth Burke and the Theory of Scapegoating” https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Kenneth_Burke_Scapegoating.pdf
Week 3	Jan. 30	Sherman Jackson, “Jihad and the Modern World,” https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Jackson_Jihad.pdf Matthew Wilkinson, excerpts from The Genealogy of Terror, 50-77, 201-209 https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Wilkinson_Ch3.pdf https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Wilkinson_Ch8.pdf Ruth Stein, excerpts from For Love of the Father, 21-37, 54-60, 143-147 http://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Stein.pdf	response so far
Week 4	Feb. 6	Minister’s Week, no class
Week 5	Feb. 13	Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, 33-105; (1-32 optional) excerpts from Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Peck.pdf A Very Short Life of SK https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/A_Very_Short_Life_of_SK.pdf
Week 6	Feb. 20	Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, 109-165 Bellinger, excerpt from The Genealogy of Violence https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/gen_viol.pdf excerpts from Works of Love https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/SK_WL.pdf	response to Kierkegaard
Week 7	Feb. 27	René Girard, The Girard Reader, 1-93 Petra Steinmair-Posel, “Original Sin, Grace, and Positive Mimesis” https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Petra_S-P_on_RG.pdf Charles Taylor, “Notes on the Sources of Violence: Perennial and Modern” https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Taylor.pdf
Week 8	March 6	René Girard, The Girard Reader, 97-193 James Alison, “Creation in Christ” https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Alison.pdf
Week 9	March 13	Spring Break, no class
Week 10	March 20	René Girard, The Girard Reader, 194-288 Glenn Hughes, “Balanced and Imbalanced Consciousness,” [summary of Eric Voegelin] https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Hughes_EV.pdf	response to Girard
Week 11	March 29	Jonathan Sacks, Not In God’s Name, 3-105 Simone Weil, “Human Personality” https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Weil.pdf
Week 12	April 3	Jonathan Sacks, Not In God’s Name, 107-175 Chantal Delsol, excerpts from The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Delsol.pdf
Week 13	April 10	Jonathan Sacks, Not In God’s Name, 177-268 Martin Buber, The Way of Man, According to the Teaching of Hasidism https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-sec/Buber.pdf	response to Sacks
Week 14	April 17	Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Bombing of Germany” http://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Niebuhr-bombing.pdf John Ford, “The Morality of Obliteration Bombing” http://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Ford-bombing.pdf read from p. 158 “As to obliteration …” to p. 162 “… gravely immoral.” Clough and Stiltner, Faith and Force, 1-107
Week 15	April 24	Clough and Stiltner, Faith and Force, 140-245	response to Faith and Force
Week 16	May 1	no class, reading week
Week 17	May 8 3pm		final paper, 10-12 pages