THEO3741: Faith and the Experience of War: Byzantium and Eastern Orthodoxy

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• To enable students to assess the critical interplay between Christian faith and the historical and experienced reality of military conflict;
• To enable students to assess the ways the Bible and the churches have been used (or have chosen) to justify and condemn conflict, and to console those caught up within it;
• To offer students the opportunity to engage in an informed and critical manner with the major theological voices that have emerged out of the conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries.

• "In disarming Peter, Christ unbelted every soldier," so wrote Tertullian of Carthage (160-225 AD), the first Latin writer of Christian theology. Despite the Gospel-like simplicity of his directive, however, theologians since the earliest days of recorded church history have continued to debate what the appropriate attitude of a believer should be to the questions of war and peace. In this module, students will be able to engage first hand with the thinking on faith and the experience of war from the earliest times of recorded Christian history, right down to the modern day.
• To approach to this longstanding tradition will be selective and the module will adopt a theological perspective. The focus will be on the study of primary theological sources in the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly through the lens of the modern concept of moral injury as experienced by combatants. Students will grapple with the challenges the idea of moral injury itself poses to classical theological expression and engage the work of Christian theologians on conceptions of sin, resurrection and hope in the aftermath of conflict.
• To demonstrate how theological discourse about war often has to contend and engage public perception of war, students will also examine war films as a lens to the way in which ideas about war, sacrifice, honor and service are culturally conditioned and formed through media and popular narrative.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• In-depth knowledge of a series of selected key primary theological texts and of their contexts;
• Critical understanding of the concept of moral injury as experienced by combatants and others affected by war.

Subject-specific Skills:

• An ability to engage key texts, historical, theological, biblical, and philosophical with critical depth;
• Advanced skills in the application of historical methods.

Key Skills:

• Skills in structuring and presenting evidence-based arguments in concise form, both orally and in writing.
• Skills in analysis and concise, contextualised comment on selected texts.
• Skills in independent researching, thinking and working.
• Skills in public presentation.

• Lectures convey information and exemplify an approach to the subject-matter, enabling students to develop a clear understanding of the subject and to improve their skills in listening and in evaluating information.
• Viewing films together and discussing them will enable students to engage with the experiential and at times visceral and emotive presentation of war to the public and evaluate its impact on perceptions of war and cultural values.
• Examinations assess subject-specific knowledge and understanding, along with student skills in the structured presentation of information in written form under time constraints.
• Summative essays assess subject-specific knowledge and understanding, along with student skills in the acquisition of information through reading and research, and in the structured presentation of information in written form.
• Oral presentations assess students skill in research and public presentation.

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