God and World Politics

People’s beliefs about God have always played significant roles in determining the nature of world politics. Religion has had a particularly significant and changing impact on politics in many areas of the world since the end of the Cold War at the end of the last century. The growth of evangelical Christianity in the United States, and of Islam in the Middle East and Europe has been particularly notable in the past few decades, and has complicated world events.

We will read Sam Harris’ The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, and Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order to try to assess the importance of varying beliefs about God on the political landscape of the world, and upon the increasingly complex relationships among nations. We will discuss the impact of religion on terrorism and American foreign policy. The reading will be supplemented with documentary films about religion, including The Passion of the Christ, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, The Mormons, The Legacy of a Prophet, and The God Who Wasn’t There.

There will also be a substantial writing component of the program. We will continue to utilize The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing, by Michael Harvey, to facilitate instruction and practice in writing in private, public and academic contexts, this course helps students understand and successfully engage with college-level writing tasks.

We will concentrate this semester on the research process, culminating in one long research paper.

God and World Politics Spring Semester Learning Objectives:

1. Increase the student’s understanding of the core beliefs of some of the leading religions
2. Increase the student’s understanding of how the major religious belief systems affect contemporary global affairs.
3. Become more self-aware of the student’s beliefs about God and religion
4. Increase student’s ability to read, think, speak and write critically


Learning Experiences:
In conjunction with the readings assigned for the course, we will engage in both lecture/discussion classes (in which the instructor will direct the discussion) and seminars (in which the students will be expected to be prepared to participate as equals in the discussion). We will view and critically discuss a number of documentary and feature films that delve into the themes of the course. We will hold a number of writing workshops in which the instructor will work with each student, in group and individually, on the writing assignments for the class

I will also try to get the class involved in helping to create and maintain a blog, both to communicate quickly about ideas for the class, and to give students one more informal arena for writing. The blog is located at www.godandworldpolitics.blogspot.com. Consult it the evening before every class!

Required Texts and Materials:
Sam Harris, The End of Faith
Michael Harvey, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing
Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations