Official Course Description:  MCCCD Approval: 6-23-2009
REL248  2009 Fall – 2011 Summer II	LEC  3.0 Credit(s)  3.0 Period(s)  3.0 Load  Acad
Religion, Peace and Violence
Exploration of the understandings and attitudes toward peace, war and violence in religious traditions from the pre-historical to the present. Includes consideration of a variety of religious scripture traditions, theological and philosophical reflections, and religious symbolism. Prerequisites: None.

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MCCCD Official Course Competencies:
REL248  2009 Fall – 2011 Summer II	Religion, Peace and Violence

 

1.         Define and explain the concepts “violence,” “war,” “peace,” “non-violence,” and “non-resistance.” (I)

2.         Summarize the various attitudes of religious traditions toward government. (II)

3.         Specify key issues in the variety of scripture traditions relevant to the issues of war, violence and peace. (III, IV)

4.         Describe various religious alternatives to war and violence. (II, V, VI)

5.         Compare and critique various just war theories and analyze their application throughout history. (VI)

6.         Extrapolate the concepts “violence” and “peace” to issues of justice, law and order. (VII)

 

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MCCCD Official Course Outline:
REL248  2009 Fall – 2011 Summer II	Religion, Peace and Violence

 

I.          Definitions of Violence, War and Peace

            A.        Personal violence (physical, psychological, indirect)

            B.        Internal state violence (police actions, capital punishment)

            C.        External state violence (military, economic, cultural)

            D.        Revolutionary violence (assassination, “freedom fighters” and “terrorists”)

            E.         Nonviolence, pacifism, non-resistance

            F.         Peace as absence of war; peace as reconciliation

II.        Religious Perspectives on Government

            A.        H. Richard Niebuhr’s five-fold model

            B.        The New Testament: Romans 13 and Revelation 13

            C.        The Hebrew Bible: 1 Samuel 7 and the Covenant with David

            D.        Expectations of caste and dharma in Hinduism

III.       Violence and Warfare in the Scriptural Traditions

            A.        Enuma Elish

            B.        The Laws of Manu

            C.        The Hebrew Bible

            D.        The Bhagavad-Gita

            E.         New Testament: The Revelation

            F.         The Essenes’ War of the Children of Darkness

            G.        References to Battle and jihad in the Qur’an

IV.       Peace in the Scriptural Traditions

            A.        Isaiah’s Peaceable Kingdom

            B.        The Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew

C.        The Renewal of the earth in the Book of Revelation

D.        The Dhammapada

E.         The Bodhisattva Vow

V.        The Development of Pacifism

A.        Jainism

            B.        Pre-constantininian Christianity

            C.        Christian and Buddhist monasticism as the rejection of violence

            D.        Cathars, Waldensians, and Taborites

            E.         Francis of Assisi

            F.         Quakers, Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren

            G.        Mohandas Gandhi and satyagraha

            H.        Martin Luther King Jr. and civil disobedience

            I.          “Engaged Buddhism”

VI.       Just War Theories

            A.        Cicero

            B.        Augustine of Hippo

            C.        Thomas Aquinas

            D.        The Neo-confucian state

VII.     Violence as an instrument of justice and/or order

            A.        Tribal retribution and penal systems

            B.        Religious views of capital punishment

            C.        Revolution and terrorism