In the curriculum alteration that’s coming up here at the University, the ministry track will have a first-year class with a component that draws on my work on meaning and practices, roughly the terrain I covered when I offered “Meaning and Ministry” as a course at Seabury. The only catch is that I’ll have only a third of a term in which to do it. Now, I’ll probably be contributing to other ministry courses into which I could weave subsequent materials — so if there’s material that follows from my premises, I can take care of that later.
The puzzle, though, is what the best, most economical way would be to make a convincing case for my semiotico-, hermeneutico-, ethico-theological understanding of “signifying practice.” I wil have a limited book budget — I oughtn’t to ask students to buy more than one book, two if they’re cheap. So: if I get, say, a three- or four-week crack at persuading my first-years to look at the world as I suggest (and thankfully, the other ministry faculty have indicated support for the premise), what among the kinds of thing I typically foist on students (such as the readings we discussed on the Beautiful Theology page) would win the most buy-in?