For some “heresy” is a “dirty word”: it conjures images of people who have “gotten out of line” with ecclesiastical officials, leading to excommunication or being burned at the stake. Others think it simply means “false teaching” or that it doesn’t matter. However, heresy is far more theologically complicated, technical, and important than that. When looked at historically, heresy proves to have been the catalyst for orthodoxy; without certain heresies the Christian Church would have never arrived at certain foundational beliefs, e.g. Nicene-Constantinople Creed. The goals of this course are to: (1) provide theological definition of heresy and its relationship to the creation of orthodox; (2) identify those ancient–about a dozen–officially defined heresies and how to avoid “accidentally falling” into them; and (3) examine how “secularism” and “fundamentalism,” byproducts of the European Enlightenment, aka “modernity,” can be seen as the new “heresies,” that continue to plague the Western Christian Church yet also present an opportunity for a renewal of orthodoxy in today’s deeply divided Church and world.
Instructor: Prof. Greg Zuschlag, Ph.D.
Day/Time: Wednesdays, 5:00pm-6:15pm CT
Dates: September 3-November 5
