OK, I’ll admit that it’s a little unfair to include 1,000 years of church history into one week of class, when we spent the first 6 weeks on, like, 200 years of history. But the Middle Ages had debates about angelology and the extent of a “free” will–things that are, no doubt, interesting, but less important for this class and its objectives.

We will spend some time in the Middle Ages, though, with Anselm’s Satisfaction atonement theory and Medieval art. Shawnee Daniels-Sykes gets us started with an explication and critique of Anselm’s atonement theory as deeply embedded in a Eurocentric view. She ends her piece with a really lovely constructive Christology in light of Black liberation and Womanist theologies.

Then we dive into Anselm’s words from Cur deus homo (Why God Became Man). Maybe when you read this you, too, will have that old youth group song in your head (sorry for the earworm; consider this a trigger warning!): “He came from heaven to earth to show the way, from the earth to the Cross, my debt to pay…” [Insert hand motions.]

Then we leap ahead to the Reformation with Preston Hill’s thoughtful take on John Calvin and a “post-traumatic faith.”

Then we end our time in this millennia with an introduction and critique of Wolfgang Pannenberg and his modern Christology (a “theology from below”) by Edward P. Antonio. He will help us transition into modern thought next week with Karl Barth and James Cone!

P.S. When I was designing the course syllabus, I 💯 thought of this week in the SpongeBob narrator voice: 1,000 years later!