Digital Commons Network^™

Appropriating Balance: Reversing The Imbalance For Indigenous Women Through Spirituality, Candra Krisch

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Churches Of Christ, Spiritual Formation, And The Liturgical Christian Calendar, Wes Horn

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

For many Christian traditions, participation in the liturgical year does not seem remarkable; in fact, it is second nature being the form, or liturgy, through which congregational members grew up practicing their faith. However, for those Christian traditions, like the Churches of Christ, who have avoided the liturgical year, the inclusion of liturgical practices is a substantial deviation in worship theology, practice, and comfort.

This article recounts one congregation’s journey through the liturgical calendar as a test case for a Doctor of Ministry project. The thesis questioned whether the introduction of the liturgical Christian calendar into the worship life of …

Tempering Romance, Katherine R. Larson

Criticism

The Fabulous Dark Cloister: Romance in England after the Reformation by Tiffany Jo Werth. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. Pp. 248, 8 illustrations. $65.00 cloth.

Cesarean Section And Religious Hierarchies In Fifteenth- Century Europe, Isobel Mouat

The Great Lakes Journal of Undergraduate History

Cesarean section in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century was entangled in a web of legal, political, religious, medical, and ideological tensions. An act of desperation to save the child after the mother died, the procedure was embedded in the popular imagination and imbued with symbolic power. While it was promoted by the Catholic Church to save the souls of the infants through baptism, Jewish communities viewed the procedure with wariness due to its perceived unnaturalness. The coupling of divergent religious views on the procedure, a strained religious environment, and changes in the occupational landscape of obstetrics resulted in …

Preaching About Pipes And Praise: Lutheran Organ Sermons Of The Seventeenth Century, Joyce L. Irwin

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The seventeenth century was a grand era for organ building, and as new organs were installed in Lutheran churches in Germany, there were services of dedication at which a sermon was preached to explain the theological basis for using organ music in worship and to extol the value of instrumental worship for the praise of God. In some respects these sermons were all alike: scriptural passages, predominantly from the Old Testament, were cited to remind the congregation of ancient musical practices; opponents of church organs from Zwingli through Calvin to Voetius and Grossgebauer were chastised as misguided or worse; the …

The Reformation Of Preaching: Transformations Of Worship Soundscapes In Early Modern Germany And Switzerland, Barbara Pitkin

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The evangelical sermon was the Protestant Reformation’s central ritual event and the catalyst for a host of other changes, ranging from the abolition of the Mass to acts of violent iconoclasm. In promoting the sermon, reformers in Germany and Switzerland were in continuity with trends in medieval preaching, but at the same time the new centrality given to the preached word fundamentally altered the worship experience, particularly the aural experience. The present investigation traces the contours of the preaching landscape in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, outlines the innovations in sermonizing in Reformation Switzerland and Germany, and, by …

Knowledge Is Power: The Political Influence Of The Chanter Social Circle At The University Of Paris (1200-1215), Andrew X. Fleming

Anthós

The faculty of theology within the medieval University of Paris formed a major node within the social network of thirteenth-century Europe. Through an analysis of papal and university statutes concerning the development of a defined understanding of heresy, an overview of the historiographic methodologies traditionally used in studying such a topic, and a prosopographically-based analysis of the actions taken by Pope Innocent III and a small circle of theologians at Paris, we hope to come to a more clarified understanding of the political motivations which drove academic and papal reform within the thirteenth century. More specifically, this study aims to …

The Beautiful Mystery: Examining Jonathan Edwards’ View Of Marriage, Russell J. Allen

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

In contemporary evangelical circles, Jonathan Edwards has gained wide popularity for his theological writings and vital role in the First Great Awakening. However, despite these often romanticized views, Edwards nonetheless stood in the midst of an eighteenth century society that began to develop new norms for sexual practice and new legal guidelines to support them. In order to combat what he saw to be a decaying moral culture, Edwards took a strong stance on marital issues, often to the displeasure of his congregation. What lay behind these convictions was a deep theological understanding of the sanctity of marriage. These views, …

Louis Henry Ziemer: A Journey Of Faith, Melissa Gibbs

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

This article seeks to present the importance of studying lesser known leaders in American Evangelicalism by looking into the life, conversion, and ministry of Dr. Louis Henry Ziemer. Not only was his ministry as a Christian Missionary Alliance pastor extensive, but his life and conversion story highlight some of the most controversial and highly debated issues regarding salvation. Ziemer served as a pastor in the Lutheran church for many years, before he was placed on trial for heresy. As a result, Ziemer left the Lutheran church and joined the Christian Missionary Alliance. Through the examination of Ziemer's conversion and ministry …

Leo The Great On The Supremacy Of The Bishop Of Rome, Denis Kaiser

Andrews University Seminary Student Journal

Pope Leo the Great built his rationale for the supreme authority of the bishop of Rome on an existing tradition, yet with his additions he developed a theoretical rationale for later papal claims to absolute and supreme power in the ecclesiastical and secular realms. Previous bishops and church leaders had laid increasing stress on the unique role of the Apostle Peter as the founder of the Roman churches and episcopacy, the significance of the Roman bishop as Peter’s successor, and the apostolic significance of the city and episcopacy of Rome. Yet Leo’s rationale for the absolute control and power of …

Future Views Of The Past: Models Of The Development Of The Early Church, John Reeve

Andrews University Seminary Student Journal

Models of historiography often drive the theological understanding of persons and periods in Christian history. This article evaluates eight different models of the early church period and then suggests a model that is appropriate for use in a Seventh-day Adventist Seminary. The first three models evaluated are general views of the early church by Irenaeus of Lyon, Walter Bauer and Martin Luther. Models four through eight are views found within Seventh-day Adventism, though some of them are not unique to Adventism. The ninth model, proposed by the author, is expressed colloquially for the sake of simplicity and memorability: The good …

Rosaries, Disease, And Storehouse Keys: Jesuit Conversion Efforts In Seventeenth-Century Acadia, Heather Sanford

Maine History

Throughout the seventeenth century, contests over medicinal orthodoxy between American Indians and Jesuit missionaries revealed the limits of compromise and communicated the values that determined the extent of their cooperation. When French Jesuits arrived in Acadia in 1611, they became witnesses to an epidemic that eventually eliminated an overwhelming majority of the Native population. Publicly proclaiming their desire to save souls, the priests converted disease into an evangelical tool. They began to use healing to persuade Wabanakis of the grace, power, and superiority of the Christian god. This article focuses on the convergence of spirituality and healing in Wabanaki and …

Late Medieval Mediterranean Apocalypticism: Joachimist Ideas In Ramon Llull’S Crusade Treatises, Michael Sanders

The Hilltop Review

The thirteenth century witnessed dramatic changes that transformed the medieval world and remain important today. The violent changes caused by the War of the Sicilian Vespers and Spiritual Franciscan movement popularized the apocalyptic ideas of the twelfth-century Italian abbot, Joachim of Fiore. The abbot's historical paradigms of biblical history influenced many southern Europeans, including the medieval mystic, missionary, and philosopher Ramon Llull (c. 1232-1316). Llull dedicated his life to converting the world to Catholic Christianity using a variety of means, including evangelical missions, Neoplatonic philosophy, and crusades. Llull's crusade treatises, the Tractatus de modo convertendi infideles (1292), Liber de fine …

Identity Lost And Found, Adrienne Jones

Consensus

No abstract provided.

“Servants, Obey Your Masters”: Southern Representations Of The Religious Lives Of Slaves, Lindsey K.D. Wedow

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

This paper focuses on how representations of the religious lives of slaves, specifically their abilities to comprehend the Bible and flourish spiritually, became an issue that not only propelled the North and South toward the Civil War, but also perpetuated the conflict. Using original documents from the collections housed at Chicago’s Newberry Library, predominantly sermons written by proslavery ministers as well as documents published by missionary organizations, this paper explores the fierce defense of the institution of slavery mounted by proslavery Christians. Specifically, this paper’s interest is in how the representation of slaves by proslavery evangelical Christians as incapable of …

Gettysburg College Journal Of The Civil War Era 2015

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

The Movie Mogul, Moses And Muslims: Islamic Elements In Cecil B. Demille’S The Ten Commandments (1956), Michael D. Calabria Ofm

Journal of Religion & Film

Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, has come to define the genre of the biblical epic. It has earned a permanent place in American culture due to its annual airing on television during the Easter and Passover holidays. Most viewers are unaware, however, that DeMille had sought to make a film that would appeal to Jews, Christians and Muslims at a time when their common Abrahamic ancestry had yet to be articulated, and interreligious dialogue was all but unheard of. To this end, Henry Noerdlinger, DeMille’s researcher for the film, consulted the Qur’an, and screenwriters incorporated Islamic …

An Evil Threat To Marriage, Children And The Future: Queer Theory, "The Passion Of The Christ," And Evangelical Political Rhetoric, Richard Wolff

Journal of Religion & Film

This article employs queer theory to analyze Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ (2004) for its portrayal of queer characters (Satan and Herod) in contrast with non-queer (Pilate and Claudia, Seraphia, Simon the Cyrene, and Mary, Christ’s mother), and how it depicts the former as evil and the latter as good. In particular, these contrasts involve self-indulgent or predatory sexual expression versus a healthy marital relationship, and evil versus loving influences over children, who represent hope for the future. Finally, the article looks at the film’s heavy marketing to American evangelicals and how the symbolic representations in the …

Catholic Labor Education And The Association Of Catholic Trade Unionists. Instructing Workers To Christianize The Workplace, Paul Lubienecki Ph.D.

Journal of Catholic Education

This article analyzes the effect of the American Catholic Church, through its program of specialized labor education, on the growth and development of organized labor in the twentieth century. With the proclamation of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, he requested that the Church complete the work began by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 with his landmark social encyclical Rerum Novarum.

However, the American interpretation and utilization of the social encyclicals varied from their intended European meaning. The cumulative effect of these two encyclicals was support for the workers’ rights to organize and create Christian labor associations. From …

The Monroe Fordham Regional History Center, Chris Root

The Exposition

This article is a brief history and synopsis of the Monroe Fordham Regional History Center at SUNY Buffalo State. The center opened in 2002, but much of the collection is from the projects of Dr. Monroe Fordham over the course of his career.

Expanding Christianity Or Safeguarding Trade? The Role Of The Missionary For Dutch Colonial Expansion In 17th Century Formosa, Tessa Huging

Undergraduate Research Journal

This essay will explore these extraordinary circumstances. What role did the clergy play in the Dutch colonial intervention on Formosa? How and for what purposes did the VOC employ missionaries? In order to answer these questions, I will especially look at the interaction between the ecclesiastical staff and the VOC-government. This paper will frame the interactions between the Formosan native populations, the Dutch clergymen and the colonial government as a complex political microcosm that was characterised by several conflicts of interest. It suggests that the dual function of the clergy, both as missionaries and civil servants, was a powerful stimulant …

Higher Education Under The Islamic Republic: The Case Of The Baha’Is, Mina Yazdani

Journal of Educational Controversy

This article explores the Islamic Republic of Iran’s campaign to deny Baha’is, members of Iran's largest religious minority, access to higher education. It outlines the contours of this campaign: in the early 1980s, the newly established Islamic government began dismissing Baha’i students from universities; later and up to the early 2000s, it forbid them from even participating in the nation-wide university entrance exam; finally, in order to divert growing international attention from its campaign, it began admitting a small number of Baha’i students into universities, though in more recent years, it has expelled the majority of these students before they …