Details for Christian Thought and Culture

This unit provides the basis for a reflective approach to culture, its analysis and discussion, with regard to Christian perspectives.  

The unit Christian Thought and Culture is part of the subject area Christian Ethics and is offered as a part of the following Awards: Master of Arts (Christian Studies) (Alphacrucis College (NSW Dept. of Education)).

Unit Content

Curriculum Objective

At completion students should have:

1. a contextualising understanding of the ways that Christians across the ages have approached culture, and inculturation;
2. a critical understanding of the sources of culture and theories about culture;
3. a reflective appreciation of the student’s own position in their culture;
the critical ability to form integrations out of engagements between the student’s theological understanding and emerging cultural trends. 

Subject Content

1. Christianized thinking; thinking ‘Christianly’; and the Christian who thinks: What is ‘Christian thought’?
2. Christianity and its neighbours: Flows of thought and Practice
3. Models of Culture and inculturation (Boas, Levi-Strauss, Geertz, Niebuhr, Bohanan, etc)
4. Materializing the Spirit and the Word: Part I – Models of Christian praxis through the ages; Part II – Images and Forms through the ages; Part III – Interactions in Culture, Economics, and Politics
5. ‘The Christian in the world’ – Christian understandings of vocation
6. Case studies of Christian thought and Culture;
Modes of integration/ incarnation in a post-everything age 

Assessment Methods

Critical review, case study, essay.

Prescribed Text

• Reading list provided in unit outline

Representative References

Barber, John. The road from Eden: studies in Christianity and culture, Bethesda, MD: Academica Press, 2008.

Bowes, Kimberly Diane. Private worship, public values, and religious change in late antiquity. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Brown, Delwin, S.G. Davaney, and K. Tanner. Converging on Culture: Theologians in Dialogue with Cultural Analysis and Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Corey, Elizabeth Campbell. Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics and Politics. Columbia, MO.: University of Missouri Press,  2006.

Deardorff  II, Donald, and John White. The image of God in the human body: essays on Christianity and sports. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.

Fox, Zeni, and Regina Bechtle. Called and chosen: toward a spirituality for lay leaders. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005.

Hall, John R., Mary Jo Neitz, and Marshall Battani. Sociology on Culture. London: Routledge, 2003.

Hankins, Barry. Francis Schaeffer and the shaping of Evangelical America. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2008.