YOUTH INITIATIVE HIGH SCHOOL
Waldorf Initiative in Viroqua, Wisconsin, USA
COURSES AND CLASSES
Religion in the Modern World
Grades 09 and 11
4 December – 22 December 2006
Instructor: Lars Bergan
This class could also be called “Man’s Search For Meaning.” Religion claims
to answer life’s most fundamental questions, telling the believer how the
world began, how it will end, and how we should relate to our creator and
the universe. Over the past 200 years, religion has had much of its
authority usurped by science and belief in the preeminence of the physical
world. Evolution has replace the Garden of Eden in the minds of most
“educated” people, but, religion continues to flourish, in all of its
variety, as Mormons, Zionists, Wahabi Muslims, and other recently created
faiths grow in numbers and influence.
This class will have two very different aims. The first will be to
understand the nature of religious feeling and various expressions of
humanity’s reaching for the divine and transcendent. We will discuss
different religious traditions, both as social doctrine and mystical
revelation, and try to understand the implications of each body of beliefs.
We will discuss how we should live and how we will die. We will try to find
the truth.
Both religion and politics claim peace as their highest goal—religion
through personal conversion and politics through coercion and compromise.
Our second goal in this class will be to better understand the role of
religion in politics, from the creation of the state of Israel to the
American civil war and the attacks of September 11. We will look at the role
that the various religions assign to the priest and the king, and ask
ourselves if a true religion could ever be used to justify war. We will
study the writings and speeches of great religious peacemakers, such Mahatma
Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Why are we here?
How did we get here?
What happens after we die?
Are humans of nature or of God?
What is a sin?
Are women equal to men?
Does God care what we do?
Can a person die and rise from the dead?
Is it harder for rich people to get to heaven?
Are monks crazy?
Is salvation individual or communal?
Schedule
1. The role of religion in our world. Are religious and non-religious people
different? Why do people believe in God?
2. Overview of major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism,
Christianity, Islam.
3. Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel.
4. Jews in America. Guest speaker.
5. Modern Islam and the Rise of Wahabism.
6. Islamic guest speaker.
7. Gandhi, Indian independence, and the caste system
8. Buddhism in the West—Guest Speaker, David Beutler.
9. Teilhard du Chardin—scientist and Catholic
10. Guest speaker: M. Susan Bergan on women in the Catholic Church
11. Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King--Christian soldiers for peace
12. Joseph Smith and the Creation of Mormonism
13. Ecumenical panel discussion.
14. Transcendental Meditation and the Dancing Wu Li Masters
15. Science as religion. Do you believe in Prozac?