Topic: Referring to the works of representative writers from the period of the fourth to the sixth century, survey the developments in liturgy in this period.

Those running the course gave me a high distinction.

The task was to “choose two patristic writers who made a significant contribution to early Christianity. What introduction to Christianity does the writing of each author prvide? Compare their works in respect of language and thelogy. Assess their likely effectiveness in preaching Chrustianity to pagans or expounding belief to fellow Christian. How radical was the Christian message for the society of the Roman Empire?”

Quite a lot of assistance there, but also a lot for 2000 words.

I did this unit on the Church Fathers at ACU back in second semester 2005. I suppose the current equivalent there now is THCT313.

I was already 44 years old and working as a GP and as a Medical Advisor at DVA, so I should have been busy enough without all this going on.

The course was co-ordinated by Bronwen Neil. She now works at Macquarie University and has had a most impressive academic career.

The text was How to Read the Church Fathers by Adalbert Hamman, which was out of print so we were given a link to download a copy from the library. I’m pretty sure I have got a real copy somewhere – I must look for it.

We were given the usual extensive lecture notes for twelve modules and a bibliography. This was still prior to any real time online contact so, while everything was done on line, it was all written work. There was a discussion board and participation on that amounted to 20% of the assessment, which was filled out with two 2000 word assignments.

The Modules were:

1 The Birth of Christian Literature

2 The Apologists and the Meeting of Faith and Culture

3 Irenaeus and the Development of Heresy

4 Alexandrian Christianity

5 African Christianity and a Balance Sheet of the Church to this Point

6 The Conversion of Constantine

7 Factors and Figures within Fourth Century Christianity

8 The Christian Latin West and its Literature

9 Augustine’s Impact on the Christian World

10 The Christian Church After Theodosius

11 Issues Facing the Fifth Centruy Church

12 The End of the Ancient World: Gregory the Great

Unusually, I have many of my submissions to the discussion board.

We had a choice of Reconciliation, Anointing, Marriage or Orders as a sacrament to write about.

Having chosen Anointing, an obvious pick for a medical doctor, my question was:

Comment on the theology of Anointing in the light of developments in sacramental theology, liturgical change, historical events, and current issues.

They gave me a HD for the unit and rereading the essay I am pretty happy with it.

This blog is so that I can put together what memories of I have of my prolonged hobby of higher education. However, with packing and moving over the years, I have lost some of the material that would make this more interesting for me. I have made a point of finding out more about lecturers with whom I had little contact, but in this case I can’t find who they were and memory fails me. Considering that this was a course run in semester two 2005, it is remarkable that ACU has erased all memory of it from their site. This is a pity, as this was a very well presented course that was very useful to my outlook on the Church. It also meant that later on when I did my Grad Cert in Liturgy, I only needed three units and so was the first ever graduate from that course. It was assessed with a single assignment of 4000 words worth 90%, so I assume the other 10% was from participation in the discussion board.

The modules were:

Sacramentality

Sacrament as symbol

Jesus as sacrament of encounter

Church as sacramental symbol

History of the Sacraments

Church teaching on the sacraments

Sacraments of Initiation (2 modules)

The Eucharist

There were exercises for each module with prompts for a discussion board. This was still the era of online study without online tutorials, so recourse was had to recommended readings and the discussion board.

I found a few responses for the discussion board that I kept.

This was the final assignment for this subject and I had a ball dragging in elements from my old Medieval English studies. I got a high distinction for this course, and rarely dropped below that for the rest of my higher education.

I enjoyed doing this immensely and was happy with the essay. It was suggested I submit it to the Australian e-Journal of Theology where it was accepted and published. Years later I discovered all the student contributions had been removed, which was extremely unprofessional. Now I can’t find any of it anywhere, which is just hopeless. I suspect when those who championed it retired, it was conveniently deleted. It may have been too radical and an embarrassment to the ACU as it became more conservative.

(7/10/23 It is indeed absent from ACU, but I found the issue with student contributions intact at Trove.

https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20051019041044/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/37047/20051019-0000/dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/aejt_5/Madden.htm

After the debacle of first semester 2004, I ploughed on the with the MA degree at ACU, doing Dr Margaret Hannan’s course. “A Synoptic Gospel” in second semester. This time Luke was chosen as the Gospel and I had a much better time just doing New Testament studies – it was harder to piss people off.

Dr Margaret Hannan was, I think, in charge of the theology department at one point. I also think she was Sister Margaret Hannan sgs as well, although I wouldn’t have known that at the time. I do remember she was very encouraging about my work, which was a bit of a change. As far as I can figure out she would have retired not too long after taking this course and it looks like she died in 2013, from the small amount information available on the internet.

The content of the unit was:

1&2 Introducing the Gospel of Luke

3 The Infancy Narratives : Annunciations

4 The Birth of Jesus

5 Preparation for Public Ministry

6 The Galilean Ministry of Jesus

7 The Journey to Jerusalem

8 The Parables in Luke

9 Jesus in the Temple

10 The Passion Begins

11 The Crucifixion

12 The Easter Narratives

The set text was Luke Timothy Johnson’s “The Gospel of Luke”, which I still have. Brendan Byrne’s “The Hospitality of God” was a recommendation that I also purchased and used.

We given the lecture notes and a lot of additional readings to assist us. The course was assessed by two 40% assignments, 10% for contributions to the discussion board and two more short discussions pieces worth another 10%.

I found some samples of what I was submitting to the discussion board. This was a contribution about the Prologue:

Luke and Women:

John the Baptist:

I think this was my first formal discussion submission, I actually referred to Mark Coleridge of all people:

The second contribution was this one:

I appeared to be having fun.

This was due week 13:

“Ethical behaviour is more about human inter-relationships than the observance of religious precepts or laws. It is possible to be a moral person without recourse to religion, faith or theology. However, a religious person will be influenced by their faith commitment in their moral observance.”
Discuss the above statement in relation to the religions studied within this course unit. What moral teaching can be attributed to each religion, and what can be attributed to universally binding precepts that define non-religious human morality? Can you give examples of similarities and differences or unique characteristics in moral observance demanded by each of the religions studied?

I do have a few notes from the marker saying that the essay lacked clarity and relied on unsubstantiated comments. Some parts he thought satisfactory but rudimentary. I think that is a conceded pass.

This was due in week seven, but I’m pretty sure we got no feedback about anything until the end of the semester as I don’t think anyone was actually running the course.

Rereading my assignment now it is somewhat disorganised but essentially right. It was also, I suspect, a nasty poke in the eye to many Catholics, and while I can find no sign of actual feedback I suspect it was poorly received.

Assignment 1:
In overviewing the articles and web links suggested for this course, can you highlight the positive and negative dimensions of both the inclusivist and exclusivist approach to the study of religious pluralism. Focusing on the development of religious thought and practice in contemporary Australia, how would you identify and address some the problem issues (both ethical and religious) that emerge within a multi-faith Australia and how could we use the insight gained from our understanding of other faith and belief systems?