Theology 105

Test 2 Take-home Component

• Application: Use knowledge to make judgments, solve problems, make decisions, and create your own positions.
• Integration: Make comparisons between different positions introduced in our course, make connections across different academic disciplines, and relate course materials to your own experience.

Assignment description

The take home component of Test 3 follows the same format as the first and second exam. Think of the various claims made in Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 by the author of our text, Kate McCarthy, in “Interfaith Encounters in America.”

For this take-home exam: Which one of McCarthy’s claims most strikes you as especially right, or especially problematic, in trying to understand the complexities of Interfaith Leadership and Theology? Why do you agree, or disagree? Please focus only on Chapters 3, 4 and/or 5. How does the McCarthy text help you understand, or problematize, the material we are covering in class?

Write an essay in which you take a position of your own, agreeing or disagreeing with this claim, and in which you formulate, organize, develop and advance a single clear thesis of your own, based on clearly formulated criteria.Your essay should be well developed with examples and evidence. Your position should be coherent. Be explicit in stating the criteria you are employing in order to argue for the strength of your position. In developing your argument, take into account an alternative perspective (a position, imagined or real, that would disagree with yours), give it a fair hearing, and then show how you would respond to it—all as a way to give more support to your own position.Give your paper a compelling, insightful title.

In developing your thesis, you may draw upon and make use of other readings from this course or another course, current or past events, or a critical analysis of your own lived experience.However, what’s key is that you are making an argument of your own, in relation to the claim under consideration, and not simply summarizing your experience or summarizing what other texts say—including Kate McCarthy.Clearly define terms, e.g., what do you mean by the term “x,” “y,” or “z.” Your own sophisticated academic voice should be in control throughout this essay.

Assignment logistics and particulars

• The essay should be not less than 1000 but not more than 1200 words in length, double-spaced with one-inch margins and 12-point font.
• In defending your thesis, your essay must engage all the reading sources for the semester. For example, your essay must include reference to: (i) one or more of the interfaith videos, (ii) one or more of the short readings, and (iii) one or more of the section(s) from “Interfaith Encounters in America.”
• Your essay must be free from errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation and mechanics.