The Never Ending Arts Degree

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?

I took this course first semester 2004. My recollection is that I was working part time as a GP and part time as the Senior Medical Adviser to the treatment section of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs in Queensland. I was playing music for my local Catholic Church and busy with four children, although my wife, who was working part time as a GP was lifting a heavier load there.

I only got a pass for this course, which was likely due to the lousy essays I presented. The other problem with the course is that at some point the lecturer was taken off supervising the course and did not mark the assignments. The lecturer was Yuri Josef Koszarycz PhD who taught at ACU from 1975 to 2010 and I have no idea why he didn’t continue to look after the course. I suspect he may have been more sympathetic to what I produced than the the staff member who actually did the marking. He went on to have a major interest in bioethics:

 … specifically in the interface between bioethics, theology and christian philosophy as they relate to ethical decision making in relation to biomedical technology.

https://www.eubios.info/GBNads.htm

The course materials were extensive notes with reading lists and links with 12 modules:

1 A Brief Overview of Ethics

2 Religious Pluralism

3 Challenges to Faith Traditions

4 Christianity

5 Judaism

6 Islam

7 Hinduism

8 Buddhism

9 Confucianism / Taoism

10 Australian Aboriginal Religion

11 The Sunburnt Soul – Christianity in Search of an Australian Identity

12 Spirituality: A Never Ending Quest for Meaning.

Good stuff and it was most broadening.

I found a response to an article that we had to submit – not assessment. It has my usual overconfident tone.

I didn’t think it had and this essay is sounds a little angry and hectoring. I use Cupitt a lot.

Coghlan gave me a distinction for the course, which was nice of him considering the tone of the essays.

It may be considered ratbaggery at a catholic university to submit an essay that basically says that miracles don’t exist and if they did they would disprove the existence of God. This essay has an odd snarky tone and uses some medical examples that I seem to recall the marker didn’t completely grasp. In other words an ill considered effort. I had the gall to submit this to the in house journal, I believe, where it was ignored, and rightly so.

My semester two subject in 2003 was Issues in Philosophy of Religion. The lecturer was Peter Coghlan BA (Uni Melb) MEd (Monash) who had been teaching philosophy since 1974. It looks like he was still teaching at least to 2007 and the subject appears to have ceased being offered in 2013. There are some publications here and some others at ACU. Here is an article he wrote for the Age. I never met the lecturer, since this was all online, and I pretty sure I had no idea he had nearly 30 years of teaching experience at the time.

The aims were to introduce us “to some of the basic philosophical issues posed by religious belief”, looking at the rationality of religious belief and the concept of God. Philosophy in general hurts my brain, but I was a big Don Cupitt fan, so it was worth a go.

The modules covered:

• The Ontological Argument
• The Cosmological Argument
• The Design Argument
• Religious Experience
• Objections to Religious Beliefs
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Morality
• The Concept of God
• Religious Language
• Some Radical Alternatives
• Revelation
• Religious Diversity

That was a lot of material and the notes were extensive with well chosen readings supplied for each module. Despite being online, being 2003, it was still all text based. There were two assignments worth 40% and 60% of the assessment, with suggested activities for each module that were not for assessment.

The risk for me with these topics was to succumb to being a ratbag radical upsetting people at a catholic university.

So most of the assessment was one large assignment. I’m not sure every lecturer would have appreciated my take on the subject of Resurrection, but Dr Hall was impressed enough to give me a high distinction.

O rereading it I am impressed with my own argument for a change and happy enough with my efforts back then. Then again with my background in New Testament studies I should have been up to the task by then.