Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Now comes the long, slow end to the semester.....

My theology students always love the part of the semester (as much as they can really love theology!) that deals with God and creation. It mainly interests them to talk about free will and evolution and creation, and stuff like that. Now comes the most interesting (from my perspective) part of the semester that deals with the person and work of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit within the Church. From their perspective, it's boring. From their perspective, this just involves talk about abstract ideas like the composition of the person of Christ and atonement. It also is about a redemption that occurred apart from their own effort- which means that their own person agency doesn't enter into it. Things that don't involving their own choices or behavior don't interest them. I even showed them a clip from "Passion of the Christ" (the part in the garden, where Jesus crushes the serpent with his foot) to illustrate Irenaeus' idea of recapitulation and it didn't even remotely interest them.

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