• Undergraduate Courses

Courses are offered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Parkland College. 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Courses

The following credit courses are offered through UIUC’s Program for the Study of Religion and carry full university credit. For location and registration information, please check the UIUC Timetable. 

Introduction to Catholicism (RLST 127)

This course introduces the academic study of Catholicism through consideration of its historical, philosophical and theological foundations. It includes analysis of primary texts that form the basis of Catholic belief and practice and secondary critical texts from both an "insider" and an "outsider" perspective. 
Taught by Kenneth J. Howell, Ph.D.
Course Syllabus for Spring 2009
Course Reader

Modern Catholic Thought (RLST 447)

Traces the history of Catholicism in its interaction with the modern world from the sixteenth century to the present, concentrating on the uneasy relationships that Catholicism has sustained with the modern world. Prerequisite: RLST 127 or consent of instructor.   
Taught by Kenneth J. Howell, Ph.D.
Course Syllabus for Spring 2009

Parkland College Courses 

Introduction to Religion (REL 101)

This course is an interdisciplinary study of the nature of religion: the variety of religious beliefs, practices, and experiences, and religious issues common to all religions. 

Bible: The New Testament (REL 105)

An introduction to the origin, development, historical influence, and interpretation of the New Testament as a centerpiece of Western cultural and religious tradition and as an archeological and spiritual resource of Christianity in its various forms (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Coptic). Throughout the semester we will investigate the New Testament in terms of the following questions: what is the author asserting in these texts? Why has he chosen to assert these ideas in this manner and style? To whom is the author communicating and for what end and purpose? We will look at the texts of the New Testament as assertions of the beliefs of the authors and study how the claims of these texts relate to one another and how the authors understood them to relate to the assertions of the Old Testament. Finally, this course will explore how the content of the texts of the New Testament impacted the Christian community throughout time and motivated their doctrines and social actions.     
Taught by Shawn Reeves
Course Syllabus for Fall 2008