Double Duty

I like connections. I think it's interesting when something I've learned or stumbled across one place shows up somewhere else when I'm not expecting it. And then there are things that are similar enough to begin with that I almost expect to cross over at some point. Such were my classes today – two of them, anyway.

The funny thing about these two classes is that they take place in the same room on the same days, and sometimes the prof of one class will mention the other in passing, which I suppose comes from sharing the room. Between those two classes (and until my half semester classed finished, it was three), I spend a lot of time in that room.

I guess some points of concurrence are to be expected, since the first class is Church and Society and the second class is Christian Theology. Lately in Church and Society (or CMS for short, since it's from the Congregational and Ministry Studies department), we've been talking about the theological side of the church. Earlier in the semester it was more the sociological side. In Christian Theology (or religion for short, since it's from the Religion department), we've been talking about... theology. Surprise.

So today in religion we talked about ecclesiology, which is a big word that's short for the study of the church. I imagine you can see where this is going. Ecclesiology is pretty much what we talk about every day in CMS. I went to CMS today and we talked about sacraments, the culture of the church, the purpose of the church, a little about the visible and invisible church (spent a lot of time on that earlier in the semester) and other things. I went to religion today and we talked about sacraments, the purpose of the church, and the visible and invisible church, and other things.

I kind of feel like I went to the same class twice. The subject material is pretty interesting, so it was okay. Religion just felt a little repetitive, since we went over all these things in more depth in CMS. Part of me thinks I could've worked on my CMS research project instead. But that's not really a reason to skip class.

Connections are still cooler than less detailed repetition, though.