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Heimhenge, that was just the first word that popped into my head. Where I grew up, the local Catholic church had catechism classes for those students who attended public school and so didn't have religious instruction. It's not really a common, every day word, so I thought I'd give it a go.
Dogma 101--could be interesting! Don't know though. I'm a bit of a skeptic. *grin*
I started out as a religion major in college, with the idea that I would eventually have a career in Christianity somewhere, though at the time I had no clear idea in what specialty. Of course in the US a major in "religion" means the Christian religion. The courses I took were varied: classical Greek, philosophy, old and new Testaments, "comparative religions" (in which we studied what other religions believe), church history, things like that. Had I continued I would have also had to study more of the same plus Hebrew, exegesis, literary criticism, lots of things about the Bible of course, the writings of Christian and Jewish theologians throughout history, and no doubt tons of other subjects I'm forgetting just now.
I'm not sure what one term would have covered all those subjects. A man in that major was sometimes called a "divinity" student, or a "religion" major, or a "seminary" student (a seminary is a specialized college for such studies). Usually such a person was considering "going into the ministry", ie having a career in some field related to Christianity, ie as a pastor, an evangelist, a missionary etc. Are any of those what you're looking for, Rafee?
I checked all of those, but none, unfortunately, was what I was looking for. I just found RE( Religious Education) with the same definition, but what I was after was one word.
Maybe I have to go through the dictionary once to find it, what I have almost done before. But then, what's the point of being so seriously after a word which seems not to be used anymore? ( In school context I mean, or you had heard of it I assume).
Well, in its narrow sense it is related just to Christianity; besides, it's in fact a branch of Theology which is, I think, far from what students may learn at school or even at church ( it's a lot more specialized), even though the course may be named 'Theology'. Also, I consulted my dictionary and shamefully 'nope' was the result. 🙁
I would have guessed that "apologetics" was more general, as Heimhenge said. An "apology", in the old sense, is a logical defense; it has to do with reason and debate, not religion. But apparently it's been used to mean the defense of Christian doctrines so long that nowadays that's accepted as the normal definition, and the more general meaning is secondary.
There are several courses and topics associated with graduate study of the Christian faith. I associate these with seminary study, rather than with most undergraduate curricula, or secular study of religion: hermeneutics; ecclesiology; soteriology; homiletics; apologetics; haggiology; bibliology. Of course there is theology which is a much more specific topic in seminary than in common parlance.
Rafee: Yes, "ecclesiastic" relates to Christian churches. It's from Greek words meaning "called out", and originally meant "assembly" generally; but in the New Testament it's used most often (naturally) of assemblies of Christians, and nowadays that's the only meaning used in English that I'm aware of.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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