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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture I've come late into the discussion, and in fact rarely get to teach medieval religion - but I do teach 2 weeks (!) on Christianity in a survey course on world religions. In this I reiterate that "catholic" and "protestant" as understood today are terms that are just plain irrelevant before the 16th century. My family tree has 3 branches: eastern vs western after the first millennium, and protestant vs catholic half way through the second one. It doesn't hurt to point out that the intellectual centers at which most early theology was developed were at the eastern end of the meditteranean and greek speaking (though for a purely medieval course this might not be relevant.) when discussing the cult of saints, sacraments, purgatory, etc. (which are extremely important in a comparative course like this one) I point out 1) dates they develop (when known) and 2) that the veneration of saints is not "catholic", but rather characterizes all of Christianity, for most of its history, EXCEPT for Protestants, who only appear on the scene rather late. And when we do hit the reformation (or sacraments) students are encouraged to contribute from their own denominations, and there is considerable variety even among the protestants. Meg -----Original Message----- From: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Bill East Sent: 7. maí 2004 13:06 To: Cormack, Margaret Jean Subject: Re: teaching medieval religion medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > A number of members of this list are clearly practising Catholics - > how > difficult is it to achieve objectivity when teaching the development > and history of > Catholocism? I don't know that I've ever managed to be truly objective; but then, looking back on my education, I can think of very few subjects that I have been taught by truly objective teachers. Certainly not history; all my history teachers have had some definite point of view, whether for example Charles I or Cromwell was a Good Thing. Certainly not English; my teachers have had decided opinions about whether or not, for example, Milton was a great poet. And I don't think this much mattered, so long as I was given the space to think the matter through for myself and take a different approach if I saw fit. I would try to extend the same courtesy to students of religion, without pretending to be personally neutral. After all, no person of even moderate intelligence would suppose that a Catholic priest would have no opinions about religious matters. Bill. ===== ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html