RELS 131_ Reflection 2 Christianity - Rachel Hickey

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Reflection 2: Christianity Rachel Hickey 20425091 RELS 131 World Religions Dr. Amarnath Amarasingam November 17th, 2023

The second reflection for this course is based on Christianity. I was not very excited to go into this unit due to my past with this religion. I grew up within the Catholic church and attended Catholic schools all of elementary and high school. Growing up gay and attending church every Sunday with an openly homophobic priest turned me away from the religion completely. This was my main reason for leaving the church, but discovering the horrors the church has committed has only solidified my decision. Looking past my personal feelings about the church, I tried to keep an open mind in learning about Christianity through an academic lens. This unit has opened my eyes to interesting aspects of Christianity like the Enlightenment Quest, Martin Luther’s theology, and how the Church has responded to the Scientific Revolution. Beginning with the Enlightenment Quest, I thoroughly enjoyed the guest speaker presentation done by Richard Ascough. My favourite part about the presentation would be his explanation of the Enlightenment Quest which focuses on “Jesus of History vs. Christ of Faith.” (Week 5 - Christianity, slide 6) The Enlightenment Quest sought to find “historical verification for faith” and look for facts behind the gospel stories. (Week 5 - Christianity, slide 6) Ascough explained the theories of four Enlightenment thinkers, Hermann Reimars, Friedrich Schleiermacher, David Friedrich Strauss, and Albert Schweitzer. Reimars' theory I found particularly interesting. He believed that “Jesus’ disciples stole his body in the temple and made up the story of his resurrection to get Jews to rebel against the Romans.” (Week 5 - Christianity, slide 7) He claimed that the Disciples rewrote his story with the expectation of the end of the world and that Matthew made up that the guards were guarding the tomb to deal with the rumors of the disciples stealing Jesus’ body. (Week 5 - Christianity, slide 7) Ascough also gave us a demonstration on the blackboard of how there were discrepancies within the Gospels' stories. He explained that in Matthew’s gospel, John the Baptist was taken into custody at the same time he

was supposedly baptizing Jesus in the river of Jordan. I have never heard anyone explain theories that have discredited Christianity. It was a big change for me since I had only ever been taught about the positives of the religion and was taught that Christianity was reality. I thoroughly enjoyed this guest presentation, his enthusiasm and content kept me engaged. I was thoroughly surprised as to how much I enjoyed this presentation, regardless of my thoughts on Christianity. In terms of Martin Luther, one thing that stood out to me would be the three pillars of his theology. In the first pillar, “Justification by Grace Through Faith Alone” Luther states that humans are incapable of sin and that no good deed is good enough to receive the perfect reward. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 10) He believed that self-love should and will always trump God-love as well as that God gives us his righteousness first and saves us based on that. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 10) I align with Luther’s interpretation of Christianity rather than Catholicism. I find that prioritizing self-love and worth over one's love for God is important in living a life where you are truly happy with yourself. In his third pillar, Luther states that all Christians are part of the body of Christ, every baptized Christian has the Holy Spirit, and that every Christian has an active role in the Church. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 11) This perspective views all Christians as one and dismantles forms of hierarchy within the belief. I think this is an equal and beautiful way to view members of the Christian faith. Luther’s pillars gave me a new perspective on Christianity and provided me with a different way of viewing the religion, one that is more positive than my view coming into the unit. Lastly, the way the Church responded to the Scientific Revolution was shocking to me. In the medieval world, many ideas were structured around Christian belief. An example of this would be the belief that humans were the special creation of God and that the Earth was the center of the universe. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 24) This was soon challenged by famous

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scientists such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo. Aristotle’s theory that the earth was geocentric was created to serve theological goals presented by Christianity. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 25) This was then challenged by Nicolaus Copernicus and his theory that the sun was the center of the universe, heliocentric. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 25) Nicolaus knew that this could get him in trouble with the Pope, so he dedicated his finding to him. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 25) While Nicolaus was spared from prosecution Galileo did not serve the same fate. Galileo was one of the most prominent figures in the Scientific Revolution. His work led the Pope to condemn him and instruct him to stop teaching it. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 27) With Galileo disregarding the Pope’s request, the Inquisition condemned him, and was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. (Week 6 - Christianity, slide 27) How the church reacted to the revolution was distasteful in my opinion. These revolutions led to mass changes in our world, changes that have created the society we have today. I believe it was selfish for the Church to try and get rid of these advancements just because they did not align with the Christian views. In conclusion, this unit was different from what I was expecting. My experience of learning about Christianity from an academic perspective in high school has been completely different from what I have learned in this course. It has shown me that in high school, I was learning about Christianity theologically and not truly academically. Even though I have spent the majority of my life surrounded by this faith, I still learned many new things which changed my perspective on the religion. I did enjoy this unit even though I have strong personal feelings against the religion. I look forward to continuing to learn more about various different religions.

Bibliography Amarnath Amarasingam, October 19, 2023, Week 6 - Christianity, [PowerPoint presentation], https://onq.queensu.ca/d2l/le/content/829777/viewContent/5091225/View Richard Ascough, October 5, 2023, Week 5 - Christianity, [PowerPoint presentation], https://onq.queensu.ca/d2l/le/content/829777/viewContent/5062968/View