The Kendal Education Committee’s February 2021 Course will be “The Impact of Religion on Human Society”.
Religion has influenced society since prehistoric times. Once human society formed, humans wondered about the unseen, thus was born religion. Since then, religion has provided the foundation of societies’ legal bases and influenced their cultures, politics, economies, and much else - including even music.
This course will examine the three Abrahamic traditions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and three East Asian traditions Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. The focus will be on the foundational aspects of these traditions, their development over time, and their impact on the societies that adopted them.
To give these traditions societal relevance, the interplay of revelation, scripture, hierarchy, historical development, power relationships, and interaction with others will be examined in their respective contexts. The speakers will highlight different aspects of their topics, but there will be an overarching theme that connects these religious traditions, namely, the impact of religion on human society.
Our faculty consists of Lisa Holsberg, a Ph.D. candidate in Fordham University’s religious studies department; Jean-Marc Oppenheim, Ph.D., specialist on the Middle East; and Jan W. Alexander, a journalist and former professor of Asian Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY.
Lectures:
February 2: Ms. Holsberg - Christianity from the time of Jesus to the present, with emphasis on diverse Christian traditions, spirituality, mysticism, and hymns.
February 9: Ms. Alexander - Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and their respective impact on contemporary Chinese culture and politics.
Feb. 16: Dr. Oppenheim - Islam from the Prophet to the present, with emphasis on the political impact of Islam in the modern world. (In this lecture, the emphasis on the modern period will provide current or contemporary dimension.)
Feb. 23: Dr. Oppenheim - Judaism in the modern period, from the 18th century to the present.
All lectures run from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm via Zoom. For information and enrollment, please contact Fran Kelly