Today I'm beginning the 4th lap of the HDS series on "World Religions Through Their Scriptures", and it's the one I've been most interested in: Islam. We began with a general overview of the methods for studying culture and scripture, followed by studies of the Christian Bible and the scriptures of Buddhism.
Obviously, most of the material on the Bible was a familiar review. Even much of the Buddhist material is comfortable, with concepts like "karma", "yoga", and "mindfulness" breaking out into western culture.
I expect the material on Muslim cultures, Islam, and the Quran (Koran) to be fascinating for two reasons. First, it is a journey into a great unknown. Second, there have been many barriers built up through misunderstanding and misinformation over years of sometimes violent conflict. Clearing away misunderstandings in order to get at the useful and fascinating realities underneath will be a challenge.
This is a FREE course offered by Harvard Divinity School through it "edX" system for "Massive Open Online Courses". You can find the introduction and information for this series of courses here:
Religious Literacy - Traditions Through Their Scriptures
It's self-paced, which is a good thing since I was three weeks late getting into the Christianity program. (It was running at the same time as the last Cursillo weekend). There are two lessons presented each week, for a total of 8 or 9 for each of the 7 courses overall.
I'll probably have a few posts on this particular course over the next month.
No comments:
Post a Comment