Studying the Historical Jesus Through Service

Service learning pedagogy often assumes a variety of forms when connected with classroom teaching. Through a creative use of service learning pedagogy, the author constructs learning designs that foster student engagement with course content and prompts interrelated connections between the subjects and their own service learning experiences. The author highlights the importance of setting a context for service learning through creating activities linked to learning goals, integrating service learning components with classroom teaching methods, and proactively engaging student apathy, resistance, and faith perspectives through specific assignments that combine experience, analysis, and subject matter. The course described in this essay directly contributed to the author\u27s receiving the 2004 Fortress Press Award for Undergraduate Teaching

Unworldly friendship, the Epistle of Straw reconsidered

grantor: University of St. Michael's CollegeThis dissertation examines the presence and purpose of language and concepts associated with the ancient ideal of friendship within the epistle of James, and pays specific attention to how the friendship ideal is used within the letter's rhetorical strategies. A survey of friendship within a variety of contexts is initially provided in order to illustrate the precedents for some of James' language and ideas related to this topos. Next, the justification for studying James as a rhetorically sophisticated letter is set forth, followed by an examination of the rhetorical nature of three sections of James in which the language and ideas of friendship appear. It is argued that James presents an image of God as a true friend, and uses the notion of friendship with God to motivate the audience to various forms of ethical behaviour. In particular, Jas 4:4 is understood to be a saying of Jesus recast in the language of friendship, functioning in the letter as theological proof that the demands of Jesus, God and the author of the letter are identical. We then ask what type of rhetorical situation the use of friendship language could address. By the first century it was common for patrons and clients to mask their relationship as one of friendship, despite the fact that they did not manifest any of the ideals of friendship. James objects to this sham by deliberately describing God as the true friend and benefactor, in contrast to the wealthy. Such a juxtaposition of friend and patron forces the audience to see that liaisons with the rich are nothing in contrast to friendship with God. The rhetorical situation thus includes the exigence of patronage, which James wants the audience to resist. Patronage appears to have been a problem for early Christian churches in Rome, and given the parallels between James, I Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas, it is possible that James' audience included a community in Rome, although the origin of the letter was likely Palestine.Ph.D

The Letter of Jude and Graeco-Roman Invective

Many have attempted to identify the opponents in Jude and have addressed the manner in which the author characterises this group. Moreover, scholars have expended considerable energy on the analysis and explication of Jude’s rhetorical structure and style, and there is wide consensus that as a text, Jude is a sophisticated letter. However, less work has attended to the evaluation of Jude within the tradition of Graeco-Roman invective. In comparing verses from Jude to some examples from such literature, we find similar themes. In particular, the letter of Jude and some Graeco-Roman moralists engage in a particular tactic to undermine, even destroy, the character of their opponents. They both present them as effeminates, which, although a stereotype, is one of the worst insults a writer or orator could wage against an adversary. This article argues that Jude engages in such character assassination, invoking effeminacy in the manner that he describes his opponents’ behaviour, and placing them in a long line of debauched and condemned figures from ages past