Your presentation on a controversial issue (2-3 people) Due either June 21 or June 25

In this assignment, you will present a balanced look at an issue in the bible that is controversial to people today. Your job will be to present the issue from three perspectives:

1. A summary of Christian perspectives on this issue--always also realizing that Christians disagree among themselves about fundamental issues in the bible. (ReligiousTolerance.org calls traditional Christian approaches conservative and less tradiitional religious approaches liberal, but I like to avoid the association with politics).
2. The perspective of scholars about the intentions of the authors who wrote the text.
3. Non-traditional readings of the text by theologians, scientists, philosophers, or others.

You are responsible for finding textual support for each perspective based from various translations of the bible as well as from articles written on these issues. You can use web sites to compare translations, and you can use the site religioustolerance.org to get a grounding in the various perspectives. However, the rest of your support should be from print articles from reputable journals, not web sites.

How I will grade you: You should attempt to present multiple, conflicting points of view without clearly siding with any of them (think of this as an objective report, not an argumentative presentation). You should show how biblical support is used for each point of view). The presentation should take between 10 and 20 minutes.

I will grade you on

• Your balanced approach
• your use of evidence for opposing viewpoints, which should be cited, and should mostly not come from web sites.
• Your accuratecitation of that evidence
• Your spelling and mechanics
• Your ability to speak to, not read to, your audience
• Your use of visual aids to make the presentation interesting

Issues (Note that I would like you to stay away from abortion, which is not mentioned in the bible). Please choose from one of the issues below. The web site religioustolerance.org has a good overview of many sides of each question, but is meant only as a starting place to help you locate the biblical passages most relevant to your presentation. Your presentation should go beyond this web site, and you should not feel compelled to adopt the site's point of view on any subject.

• Capital Punishment:
  • Overview of the different viewpoints on this issue
  • What the Hebrew scriptures say about execution
  • What the New Testament says about execution
  • Translating the sixth commandment
• The afterlife and salvation:
• Biblical passages about the afterlife
• Different doctrinal positions on the afterlife
• Salvation
• Purgatory
• Creation vs. Evolution:
  • The two Genesis Creation stories
  • Genesis vs. Evolution
  • Other biblical references to creation
  • Biblical and Babylonian creation stories
  • How traditional and non-traditional Christians interpret creation stories
• Satan and demons (see also The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagals)
• Gay marriage, homosexuality, and transgender issues
  • Types of marriage in the bible
  • The bible and same-sex marriage
    • The "clobber passages" and how to read them
  • Bible passages that can be associated with the topic of gender identity
  • Bibliography: Wink, Walter: Homosexuality and Christian Faith and Mark Jordan, Authorizing Marriage? (pro gay marriage); Broken or Blessed: Two Evangelical Views (balanced); Laycock, David et al. Same Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty (looks at the conflicts between free religion and laws for or against gay marriage); O'Leary, One Man, One Woman: a Catholic's Guide to Defending Marriage (against Gay Marriage).
• Genocide and Religious difference
  • God's genocides
  • Approaches to reilgious difference in the bible
    • Intolerance
    • Tolerance (Note that Isaiah 2:4 quotes the Micah passage as well)