Dr Casey was kind enough to give me a high distinction for this course. I’m not sure everyone at a Catholic University would be so indulgent.

Rereading this rather breathless rush of an essay, there is my usual challenge to orthodoxy, but still little I would disagree with.

I had got to my last year of my MA (Theol) at ACU by 2006 and first semester meant some real work in the field of, surprise, theology.

The course was run by Dr. Damien Casey, who I believe is still a theology lecturer at ACU and is based in Canberra. With his interest in pluralism, he must have had an interesting time as the catholic academic world in Australia became less open minded. By the way if you see an interesting article in his publications that was published in the AEJT, don’t bother looking for it at ACU, as the whole journal appears to have been disappeared. Luckily, it is archived at TROVE.

He gave as five modules:

1 Theological method

2 The Christological Process

3 Salvation

4 Incarnation: Contemporary discussions

5 The Trinity and Christian Life

We are still in 2006 in the era prior to online tutorials, so we received his excellent course modules, supplied recommended readings and suggested texts. In other words we did a lot of reading. Much use in those days was made discussion boards and participation in that was 30% of the mark.

I have no record that I can find of my participation, but as I got a good mark I must have got involved.

The rest of the assessment was a single research essay.

I note that I was also running CaFE program at St Edwards, Daisy Hill that semester. The fellowship – I remember wine and cheese being prominent – was great. I wasn’t a fan of some of the program material. Like Alpha, the suggestion was that we had answers. Years later I ran the much better course, “Living the Questions” that suggested otherwise but it wasn’t an issue – which should be a no brainer for a church of ritual and mystery. We indeed had a most indulgent priest at the time.