Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Interfaith Sex Education, Bailey Lewis

Honors College

Sacred Sexuality explores the intersections of religion and sexuality. I worked with Dr. Birthisel, Director of the Wilson Center, and Kate Dawson, co-facilitator of the sex education class, to survey the sex education class participants on how the experience has been for them. I surveyed the sex education class participants after the class to analyze their opinions of the sex education class, interfaith dialogue, and how their spirituality or religious perspectives inform their beliefs around sexuality. Overall, the sex education class was highly recommended and gave an interesting look into how faith and sexuality interact. While the sex education class …

History’S Pathologists: Oswald Spengler, Jacques Barzun, John Lukacs And The Dying Of The West, Michael A. Flannery

UAB Libraries Professional Work

No abstract provided.

Mysterizing Religion, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

A mystery of faith is a truth of religion that escapes human understanding. The mysteries of religion are not truths that human beings happen not to know, or truths that they could know with sufficient study and application, but instead truths that they cannot know in the nature of things. In the Letter to the Colossians, St. Paul writes that as a Christian apostle, his holy office is to “bring to completion for you the word of God, the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.” Note that Paul does not say that his task is to make …

American Religion: A Study Of Religious Change From The 1920s Through 1970s, Alexander R. Marks-Katz

Masters Theses

Religion in America persisted along traditional Christian lines until the 1870s. It was then that theological liberalism gained significant headway. The Gilded Age and Progressive Era were still infused with revivals and preachers but there was a growing contingent that challenged the fundamentals of Christian belief. Sometimes this contingent supported revivals but promoted social causes and brought unorthodox biblical interpretations. At other times, they challenged traditional Christianity altogether. By the Great Depression, American culture had undergone such a tremendous amount of change that, faced with adversity, the bottom of religion fell out. Fewer people attended services and contributed funds. More …

Mediation Of The Religion-Prejudice Link, Aaron R. Dustin

Honors College

Although religious teachings typically recommend prosocial behavior, religiosity is reliably linked to prejudice. This paradoxical relationship raises the question: what is it about religion that might lead to prejudice despite religion’s apparent drive for prosociality? The answer may lie with religious fundamentalism, a particularly rigid way of holding one’s religious beliefs as the single deepest and most certain source of truth. We propose that religious fundamentalism mediates the relationship between religiosity and prejudice. We also seek to explore the influence of three facets of inflexible thinking (belief rigidity, dualism, and inviolacy) on the relationship between religious fundamentalism and prejudice.

We …

The Origins Of Religious Disbelief: A Dual Inheritance Approach, Will M. Gervais, Maxine B. Najle, Nava Caluori

Psychology Graduate Research

Widespread religious disbelief represents a key testing ground for theories of religion. We evaluated the predictions of three prominent theoretical approaches—secularization, cognitive byproduct, and dual inheritance—in a nationally representative (United States, N = 1,417) data set with preregistered analyses and found considerable support for the dual inheritance perspective. Of key predictors of religious disbelief, witnessing fewer credible cultural cues of religious commitment was the most potent, β = .28, followed distantly by reflective cognitive style, β = .13, and less advanced mentalizing, β = .05. Low cultural exposure predicted about 90% higher odds of atheism than did peak cognitive reflection, …

Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Adults’ Experiences With Supportive Religious Groups, Rachel Grossman

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative research study was designed to explore lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) young adults’ views about how being a member of supportive and affirming religious places of worship and social groups influenced their self-acceptance, as well as their ability to integrate their religious and sexual minority identities. In this study, six in-person interviews were completed with participants who (a) were 18-24 years old; (b) identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual; (c) were members of supportive Jewish and Christian religious groups; and (d) identified as cisgender. The data from the interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis to tell cohesive stories …

Deep Doctrine And Passionate Proclamation: How Understanding The Relationship Between God's Sovereignty And Evangelism Increases Evangelistic Zeal, Christopher Lee Verser

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The gospel must be accurately communicated to a lost man for that individual to have the opportunity to be saved. It is the responsibility of Christians to be ambassadors of Christ and proclaim this gospel to all men. All Christians can grow in their zeal for evangelism. Many Christians have very little zeal for evangelism due to several reasons. This lack of evangelistic zeal can be increased by a robust understanding of the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and the relationship between God’s sovereignty and evangelism. In the Scripture, Christians are taught that doctrine directly affects behavior and action. The more …

Transgender People’S Reflections On Identity, Faith, And Christian Faith Communities In The U.S., Kristen Benson, Eli Westerfield, Bradley Van Eeden-Moorefield

Department of Family Science and Human Development Scholarship and Creative Works

Relational therapists have limited access to resources and information about transgender people’s faith beliefs and experiences in Christian communities of faith, which is largely absent from the professional literature. The purpose of this article is to examine the Christian religious and spiritual experiences of transgender people located in the U.S. Seven self-identified transgender people participated in in-depth interviews. Results of the study indicated that participants had various experiences in faith communities, with both supportive and discriminatory responses from others. The results also suggest that participants maintained their faith beliefs even when they experience rejection from faith communities. Moreover, participants reported …

Soteriology In Mainstream Monotheistic Religions: The Messiah Conundrum, Jay Fox

Masters Theses

For the promotion of the Gospel, this study seeks to examine Soteriology in Mainstream Monotheistic Religions: The Messiah Conundrum. This decidedly charged topic critically researches the philosophy of salvation doctrine, or soteriology, within major monotheistic religions. The highlighted problem is the Messiah conundrum, with critical research on each doctrine for epistemological significance of a savior and their beliefs surrounding salvation. This mystery of where, or who humans turn to for salvation, is vitally important when considering the principle of sufficient reason in today’s hermeneutic and apologetic circles. The purpose fueling this thesis is the resolute documenting of beliefs of major …

God And Mr. Lincoln, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

On the day in April 1837 that Abraham Lincoln rode into Springfield, Illinois, to set himself up professionally as a lawyer, the American republic was awash in religion. Lincoln, however, was neither swimming nor even bobbing in its current. “This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull business after all, at least it is so to me,” the uprooted state legislator and commercially bankrupt Lincoln wrote to Mary Owens on May 7th. “I am quite as lonesome here as [I] ever was anywhere in my life,” and in particular, “I’ve never been to church yet, nor probably shall …

“We Don't Talk About That Here": Teachers, Religion, Public Elementary Schools And The Embodiment Of Silence, A Binational United States And Israel Study, Tina Keller, Amy Camardese, Randa Abbas

Faculty Educator Scholarship

Globally religious diversity is on the rise yet the place of religion in public schools is often heatedly debated. This study examined the experiences of fifth graders in regards to religion in public schools in the United States and Israel. The juxtaposition of diverse countries and school settings opens the dialogue to examine how children and their teachers perceive the impact of religion while in school. The findings suggest that the impact of minority status, school curriculum, and the political and geographical contexts of schools impact the ways that religion is conceptualized in public elementary schools. In addition, the uniquenesses …

Consumers, Clergy, And Clinicians In Collaboration: Ongoing Implementation And Evaluation Of A Mental Wellness Program, Glen Milstein, Dennis Middel, Adriana Espinosa

Publications and Research

As a foundation of most cultures, with roots in persons’ early development, religion can be a source of hope as well as denigration. Some religious institutions have made attempts to help persons with mental health problems, and some mental health professionals have sought to engage religion resources. These programs have rarely been sustained. In 2008, the Mental Health Center of Denver (MHCD) developed a program to assess the utility of religion resources within mental health care. In response to positive feedback, MHCD appointed a director of Faith and Spiritual Wellness who facilitates community outreach to faith communities and spiritual integration …

Religion And Spirituality In Nevada, Josiah Kidwell, Michael Ian Borer

Social Health of Nevada Reports

Across the world, religion is integral to society insofar it shapes people’s thoughts, behaviors, and interactions. What exactly the term “religion” means, however, is far from clear-cut, as it continues to be a highly charged topic of discussion and debate, a subject that many hold dear and near to their hearts.

There seem to be just as many ways to define religion as there are groups and denominations that claim to hold the key to the “meaning of life” and even solve humanity’s woes. For many people, the word religion evokes shared ideas of church, gatherings, worship, prayer, music, traditions, …

Fostering Undergraduate Spiritual Growth Through Service-Learning, Michelle S. Barrett

Scholarship and Professional Writing from the J.D. Power Center

Scholars and educational leaders have expressed concern that higher education is not adequately meeting students’ desire for spiritual growth within an academic context. Prior studies have demonstrated a relationship between the pedagogical method of service-learning and spiritual development. This study analyzed the relationship between specific service-learning components and the occurrence of spiritual growth in an effort to better understand how such growth can be fostered within the curriculum. Findings indicated that spiritual growth occurred when students experienced significant challenge balanced with support. Challenge was initiated when students witnessed injustice while simultaneously being exposed to new, diverse perspectives in class. Support …

Religion And Well-Being: Differences By Identity And Practice, Marium H. Ibrahim

Psychology Honors Projects

Religion is often related to greater psychological well-being in college students (Burris et al., 2009). However, across studies, researchers have conceptualized “religion” in different ways. Despite the fact that religious identity and practice tend to be related, these aspects of religion may be differentially related to well-being (Lopez, Huynh & Fuligni, 2011). In addition, the relationship between religion and well-being may differ based on societal factors such as race and gender (Diener, Tay & Myers, 2011). In this study, 157 undergraduate students completed measures of religious identity, religious practice, public regard (the extent to which people feel that their race …

The Need For A Law Of Church And Market, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

This Essay uses Helfand and Richman’s fine article to raise the question of the law of church and market. In Part I, I argue that the question of religion’s proper relationship to the market is more than simply another aspect of the church-state debates. Rather, it is a topic deserving explicit reflection in its own right. In Part II, I argue that Helfand and Richman demonstrate the danger of creating the law of church and market by accident. Courts and legislators do this when they resolve questions religious commerce poses by applying legal theories developed without any thought for the …

Roosevelt, Boy Scouts, And The Formation Of Muscular Christian Character, Gordon J. Christen

Religious Studies Honors Projects

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many prominent Christians and political leaders saw a degenerative influence in industrializing America. For them, urban culture had eroded gender roles, personal strength, and moral fiber. So-called “Muscular Christians” prescribed physical exertion and wilderness experience to cure these ills. I argue that these values were embodied in idealized characters such as Theodore Roosevelt, Jesus, and the Boy Scout to give a form to cultural remedies. In the process, they became the terms upon which proper Americanism, and proper Christianity, were constructed.

Seeing And Not Believing: Concern For Visual Culture In The Humanist, Rick Clifton Moore

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

A recent study of a magazine distributed by a powerful conservative Christian group determined the organization showed strong concern for “visual culture.” The publication directed its readers on how to understand the seen world. The present study analyzes a periodical of an avowedly secular group to understand how they might manifest similar or different concerns. On the whole, the content of the magazine called The Humanist appears to indicate that visual culture is as important to agnostics as it is to theists.

The Reality Of Moral Imperatives In Liberal Religion, Howard Lesnick

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper uses a classic one-liner attributed to Dostoyoevski’s Ivan Karamozov, "Without God everything is permitted," to explore some differences between what I term traditional and liberal religion. The expansive connotations and implications of Ivan’s words are grounded in the historic association of wrongfulness and punishment, and in a reaction against the late modern challenge to the inexorability of that association, whether in liberal religion or in secular moral thought. The paper argues that, with its full import understood, Ivan’s claim begs critical questions of the meaning and source of compulsion and choice, and of knowledge and belief regarding the …

Faithful Non-Believers: Examining Ritual And Belief In A Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Clara M. Sciortino

Summer Research

No abstract provided.

Natural Disasters And Comparative State-Formation And Nation-Building: Earthquakes In Argentina And Chile (1822-1939), Quinn Dauer

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Natural disasters in Argentina and Chile played a significant role in the state-formation and nation-building process (1822-1939). This dissertation explores state and society responses to earthquakes by studying public and private relief efforts reconstruction plans, crime and disorder, religious interpretations of catastrophes, national and transnational cultures of disaster, science and technology, and popular politics. Although Argentina and Chile share a political border and geological boundary, the two countries provide contrasting examples of state formation. Most disaster relief and reconstruction efforts emanated from the centralized Chilean state in Santiago. In Argentina, provincial officials made the majority of decisions in a catastrophe’s …

Faith As News: A Christian Clergy Perspective On News Media Coverage Of Religion, John Baker

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

Religion and the news media have had a long, contentious relationship. While the roots of American journalism lie in the particular theology and practices of Puritan New England, journalism’s clashes with authority, including the religious establishment, set it on its course to independence.

While the general public sees the news media as largely neutral toward religion, a significant segment of evangelical Christians see the news media as “unfriendly” toward them. This thesis suggests that group identification, as well as conservative political orientation, are prime factors shaping this perception of the new media.

Adviser: Carla Kimbrough

Religious Participation And Attitudes Towards Homosexual Marriage And Civil Unions, Amanda A. Patrick

Research Papers

This study examines how religious participation and progressive attitudes serve to shape opinions on same-sex marriage and civil unions. Although several investigations have been carried out on the issue of same-sex marriage and civil unions, mostly in the area of the influence of religious participation, attitudes however, have not been given much consideration. This study therefore expands the literature on the issue of same sex marriage and civil unions by looking at attitudes and beliefs such as: being open to new experiences, belief in doing social and religious good, belief in the attribution of choice in homosexuality, the belief that …

The Sociology Of Harriet Martineau In Eastern Life, Present And Past: The Foundations Of The Islamic Sociology Of Religion, Deborah A. Ruigh

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper is a critical analysis of Harriet Martineau’s philosophical stance and epistemological modes, her systematic sociological methodology, her use of this methodology, and her sociology of religion. How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838), Eastern Life, Present and Past (1848), and other relevant works will be used to examine Martineau’s evolving epistemological modes as well as her sociology of religion. How to Observe, Martineau’s treatise on systematic sociological methodology and cultural relativism, will serve as an exemplar for analysis of Martineau’s methodological practice as evidenced in Eastern Life. The research problem herein is three-fold: (1) to examine …

The Architecture Of The Profane, Dylan Forester

Architecture Senior Theses

"I contend that it is vital to understand this shift in the role of secularization in order to anticipate what the implications of such changes will be for an ever-growing secular-minded society in the future. Furthermore, it is my contention that this movement must be realized through a new nondenominational architecture - a spatial manifestation that provides a universal setting for both contemplative and spiritual action; a sanctuary that provokes the tension between singularity and multiplicity."

Toward A Meaning-Full Establishment Clause Neutrality, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

Religion And Spirituality In Nevada, Ariane G. Mitchum, Michael Ian Borer

Social Health of Nevada Reports

Across the world, religion is integral to society insofar it shapes people’s thoughts, behaviors, and interactions. What exactly the term “religion” means, however, is far from clear-cut, as it continues to be a highly charged topic of discussion and debate, a subject that many hold dear and near to their hearts.

Perguson, Dee Carl, Jr., 1921-2010 (Mss 8), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 8. Correspondence and diaries of Deel Carl Perguson, Jr., Horse Branch (Ohio County), Kentucky, and Seattle, Washington. Of interest are his letters written while serving in World War II in the United States, North Africa, and Italy, and his later memoirs of this period. Also of interest are diaries of his years as a student at Western Kentucky State Teachers College, 1939-1943. The collection also includes his recollections of growing up in Horse Branch in the 1920s and 1930s.

Phony Originalism And The Establishment Clause, Andrew M. Koppelman

Faculty Working Papers

The "originalist" interpretations of the Establishment Clause by Supreme Court Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas are remarkably indifferent to the original purposes of that clause. Their arguments are a remarkable congeries of historical error and outright misrepresentation. This is not necessarily a criticism of originalism per se. However, the abuse of originalist scholarship that these judges have practiced raises questions about what originalist scholars are actually accomplishing.