Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Charge The Cockpit Or Die: An Anatomy Of Fear-Driven Political Rhetoric In American Conservatism, Daniel Hostetter

Senior Honors Theses

Subthreshold negative emotions have superseded conscious reason as the initial and strongest motivators of political behavior. Political neuroscience uses the concepts of negativity bias and terror management theory to explore why fear-driven rhetoric plays such an outsized role in determining human political actions. These mechanisms of human anthropology are explored by competing explanations from biblical and evolutionary scholars who attempt to understand their contribution to human vulnerabilities to fear. When these mechanisms are observed in fear-driven political rhetoric, three common characteristics emerge: exaggerated threat, tribal combat, and religious apocalypse, which provide a new framework for explaining how modern populist leaders …

Taking Dominion To End Dominion: The Mennonite Influence On The End Of Russian Serfdom, H. Michael Shultz Jr.

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Serfdom in Russia was abolished in 1861, only 76 years after the first Mennonites were invited into Russia by Catherine II. By examining the lifestyle of the Mennonites who settled in the agriculturally productive “New Russia” (modern-day Ukraine), as well as the impact that the Mennonites had on the Imperial family, peasantry, and government, it is evident that the Mennonites played a recognizable role in bringing about the abolition of serfdom across the empire.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: A Classical Critique, Michael W. Cunningham

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

In 2005, American sociologist Christian Smith coined the term “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” in his book, Soul Searching, The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. At the time, this phenomenon was heralded as a new “religion” for emerging generations, yet it ascribes to no formal text, deity, or doctrine. It serves as a self-focused compilation of secular philosophy, politics, culture, and spirituality flavored with fragments from popular religions. While there is no formal MTD doctrine, there are five affirmations: (1) A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on Earth, (2) God wants …

Finding The Historical Church: A Pursuit In Futility, Tyler Skywalker

Senior Honors Theses

Many Protestants today have been disenchanted with Protestantism due to the great degree of denominationalism which is rife within the tradition. This disenchantment has led some Protestants to explore the Catholic and Orthodox churches, because of their apparent historicity. Within modern Christianity, a claim to be the historical church can be a powerful apologetic for several denominations. However, because of the influence of various factors, political and otherwise, no modern church can accurately claim to be the historical church. Consequently, Christians ought to look to Scripture as the sole authoritative source of doctrine and use church structures similar to the …

The Intersection Of Consumerism And The View Of The Christian Church In American Evangelicalism, Nathaniel Mumau

Senior Honors Theses

American Evangelicalism is a religious category that describes a wide variety of Christian denominations and their churches in the United States of America. Church attendance overall has declined, and rates of church membership have plummeted even faster. At the heart of this issue is a misunderstanding of the role the local church is meant to play in the lives of Christians. In modern American society, consumerism is essential to every part of living and thus has confounded the view of the church in the lives of evangelical Christians. The church is viewed as a product to be experienced and at …

In Defense Of Conciliar Christology, Jesse G. Alker

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

Pawl, Timothy. In Defense of Conciliar Christology: A Philosophical Essay (Oxford Studies In Analytic Theology). Oxford University Press. 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0198765929. 288 pages. $120.00.

The Ecclesiastical Role Of Women During The Reformation, Emily Thomas

Senior Honors Theses

Women have held various positions of authority in the church. During the Protestant Reformation (1517-1600), women grew in religious influence through breaks with cold traditionalism, offering greater interpretive power to women. Through an examination of literature from both primary and secondary sources, views concerning the scope and depth of women’s expositional authority will be discussed, with specific analyses on Marie Dentire, Argula von Grumbach, and Anna Zwingli. The conclusion follows that the source and role of women’s authority in the church realm varied between Catholicism and Protestantism. The former provides respect of femininity given its emphasis on the Virgin Mary, …

Palestinian Evangelical Christian Music In Bethlehem, Israel/Palestine, Abby Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Often the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is portrayed as Jewish vs. Muslim, Hebrew vs. Arab. There is little room in the international dialogue for minorities such as Arab Christians. Though Palestinians have a rich culture of Arabic musical and poetic heritage, they are unable to produce their own new songs. In this study I interviewed three members of Immanuel Evangelical Church on their experiences and opinions on local Christian worship. The findings show that Palestinian Christians may feel unable to write worship music because of a prevalent feeling of inadequacy and a lack of musical training. I propose several …

Manumission In Virginia: The Anti-Slavery Legacy Of John Lynch, Stephen A. Langeland

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

This paper is in no way an apology for the institution of slavery in any form. In fact, it is a reiteration of Biblical doctrine and natural rights philosophy that posit all humans are created equal. The institution of slavery knew few bounds throughout recorded history and was as ubiquitous and durable as the activities of marriage or warfare, practiced by every culture and religion (Drescher 2009, 7-8, 12-39). Negro slavery specifically was an institution in all colonies of the New World at some point in history (Davis 1969, vii). The morality of slavery was an unquestioned fact of life …

Arabic Christian Theology: A Contemporary Global Evangelical Perspective, Sherene N. Khouri

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

Andrea Zaki Stephanous, Arabic Christian Theology: A Contemporary Global Evangelical Perspective, Zondervan, 2019 (ISBN 978-0-310-32026-5), 493 pp. $34.99.

Unity In Christ: An Annotated Bibliography, Kelly E. Budd, Madison S. Schmidt

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

A review of the recent book publications related to the spring theme, "Unity in Christ." We include the following titles.

• Alma, Hans et al. Moral and Spiritual Leadership in an Age of Plural Moralities.
• Anatolios, Khaled. Deification through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation.
• Barrett, Matthew. Canon, Covenant and Christology: Rethinking Jesus and the Scriptures of Israel.
• Beck, William David and Mike Licona. Raised on the Third Day: Defending the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus.
• Chia, Edmund Kee-Fook. Confucianism and Christianity: Interreligious Dialogue on the Theology of Mission.
• Emerson, Matthew Y. He …

Book Review: Lori D. Ginzberg. Women And The Work Of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, And Class In The Nineteenth-Century United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990., Merritt A. Morgan

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Lori D. Ginzberg's 1990 work, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States, focuses on the ideas and socially benevolent practices of Protestant women of the prosperous middle and upper-middle-class during the 1820s to the 1880s in the northeast region of the United States. The author analyzes how contemporaries affirmed these values in women's benevolent work, which also promoted their status and brought about significant social changes in American culture.

John Eliot: A Successful Application Of Missiological Methodology, Brent Meyers

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

For many seventeenth-century explorers and settlers arriving in the “New World,” new and exciting opportunities arose not only for building new lives for themselves, but also to spread their Christian faith. John Eliot, a Puritan missionary from Widford, Hertfordshire, England, engaged in conversion efforts among the Amerindians of New England, employing "missiological methodology," or proselytizing the natives while simultaneously subjugating them to European cultural norms. His work, while mixed in its effects, anticipated many aspects of modern missionary movements.

The Rp Church And The 1918 Pandemic Over A Century Later, Congregations Are Being Affected In Similar Ways, Nathaniel Pockras

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Quarantine. Wearing a mask. Keeping safer at home. Pandemic. No public worship. Closing and reopening. Many of us think of these far more often than we did a year ago, since we have never experienced anything comparable to COVID-19. But many of us have heard about the great Spanish Flu pandemic at the end of World War I, and we know that a lot of these concepts were important then.

Wherein To Catch The Conscience Of The Queen: Dystopian Politics In Elizabethan Drama, Helen Fielding

Senior Honors Theses

Though established English history portrays Elizabeth I (1533-1603) as uniting England under the new Protestant religion, recent historical evidence reveals that extensive counter-currents still existed. This thesis examines how the politico-religious beliefs of Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights manifest themselves in their drama, particularly through imagery and allusions. It draws especially from Frances Yates to assert that imagery of white magic, Christian Cabala, and alchemy in these dramatists’ works refers to the pure imperial reform movement of Elizabeth’s reign, and also from Clare Asquith to illuminate a reading of Shakespeare as a playwright who encoded in his plays a Catholic message …

The Distortion Of The Trinity: An Investigation Of The Trinity As Evidenced In The Teachings Of Three Major Religions, Laken Hendron

Masters Theses

The nature of the Trinity is a central and salvific doctrine within biblical Christianity. The divine nature of the person of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is pertinent to Christian teachings and a proper understanding of God is crucial to authentic worship and belief. Cults or heterodoxic religions, such as Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Oneness Pentecostalism have discounted, distorted or dismissed the Three-in-One doctrine of the Trinity, as found in classical Christian theism. These false doctrines can affect teachings about justification, sanctification, the role and work of the cross and an understanding of the nature of God. The …

Understanding Muhammad's Interaction With The Church, Devonte Narde

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

My research focuses on understanding Muhammad’s (the Islamic prophet) interaction with what he perceived to be the Christian church to find out why his understanding of Biblical narratives and theology is incorrect. With this information, Christians should reintroduce Christian scripture and theology to Muslims since Muhammad’s rejection of Christian doctrine is based on associating wrong texts as authoritative Christian teaching. The following questions that shape this research are: What possible sources did Muhammad use to learn about biblical narratives and themes? What did the first Muslims think about the canonical gospels of Jesus? How did early Muslims view the teachings …

A Study On The Influence Of Seasonal Feast Ministries On The Church Growth: The Case Of Seoul Shindo Church, In Hwan Kim

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study is to suggest an alternative method for church growth based on the seasonal feast ministry. The Korean church experienced a quantitative revival unprecedented in the world. Recently, however, the reality is that many Korean churches lost their lively dynamics as they failed to strive to meet, and consequently their members gradually decreased. In this context, the researcher emphasizes the importance of feast ministries as an alternative method for church growth, based on the idea that feasts found in the Bible were days that gathered people. For this, the researcher will investigate feasts found in the …

Setting The Record Straight, Nathaniel Pockras

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America has existed since the 18^th century, and the actions of its governing Synod are published in annual minutes, but the actions have never been recorded in a single catalogue. An organizational schema is proposed, improving on the schemata of similar catalogues for other Presbyterian denominations: actions are listed chronologically and assigned subject headings to facilitate the creation of a thesaurus. Inclusion criteria are specified, and the catalogue is described in a manner approachable without specialized training.

Developing A Strategic Model For Deacons As Servant Leaders Within New Church Plants, Christopher Webb

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The office of deacon is vital within the local church and often varies from one congregation to another. There are many misconceptions concerning the role and responsibilities of deacons. The Bible clearly defines deacons as those who function as servant leaders. The purpose of this project is to address the biblical, theoretical, practical and personal observations that will assist new church plants in equipping potential candidates for the office of deacon, as servant leaders. The project will address vital areas of deacon ministry that will include; discovering the history of deacon ministry, the biblical qualifications for a deacon, the relationship …

Nurturing Church As A Biblical Strategy To Recover A Healthy Church Within South Korean Churches, Jinwook Kang

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

There are many churches in South Korea, but not too many healthy churches. A healthy church should have a proof of early church from the Acts. It is impossible to be a healthy church only with a number of people, buildings, programs, and new church planting. The goal of this thesis is to suggest healthy biblical church using early church as a model and propose strategy. This study will first take a look at what is a healthy biblical church. A healthy biblical church is a nurturing church. Conventional church has a lot of nurturing programs, but this thesis compares …

A Study Of The Principles Of Missional Pastoral Leadership For South Korean Churches, Ilkeun Lee

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Since 2000, the Korean Church has increasingly lost public confidence. The reason for this is that pastors have focused on church growth. They have entirely missed the essence of missional ecclesiology. However, the church is generated from the mission of the triune God to redeem all creation. The church should not be identified as a building or a place but as the people of God who are to be sent into the world to participate in the mission of God. The purpose of this thesis project is to present the principles of missional pastoral leadership for an existing Korean church …

The Aging Process And How That Affects Judgement And Choices In Youth Ministry, Ricky Harris

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This thesis will explore the correlation between developmental life stages and how these stages affect student ministers’ approaches to ministry in southern Baptist churches. The rationale for this thesis is to help student ministers realize that longevity in their vein of ministry is achievable and also to provide a guide for how they may process aging in ministry. Search committees will be able to use this information while seeking to fill this staff position, considering the needs of their congregation and students. Books and journals will be reviewed for content on developmental life stage characteristics. Student ministers will be surveyed …

A Study On The Use Of Church Building Space On Sundays And Weekdays: The Case Of Yongin Jeil Church, Byeong Im

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The objective of this study is to propose alternatives for better utilizing church space. It aims to help the church space serve multiple purposes during weekdays in addition to Sundays, and meet the needs of both the local community and the next generation. In many places in South Korea, the church buildings are too big to deliver the pastoral philosophy and the spirit of the times. Consequently, the South Korean public oppose building large churches. Furthermore, the church buildings are typically used only during the weekends, an inefficient use of space for their size. In order to improve such use, …

A Church Planting Church In South Korea: A Case Study On Missional Outreach, Deokjong Bang

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Gallup Korea, in 2015, reported that 30% of people under 30 years old had stopped attending churches in South Korea during last ten years. The primary reasons that young people leave a church is secularization of growth-oriented churches represented by huge buildings, power-oriented pastors and lack of morality of Christians. Therefore, a new church model that will engage young people is required for Korean Christianity. The missional church movement can be an alternative model for churches in South Korea. That is because the movement pursues a small church, a non-power-oriented pastor, and real life as a disciple of Jesus. Based …

Five Practical Steps For Increasing Church Membership: A Case Study Of First Baptist Church Of Venice, Florida, Christopher Cornette

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Bible implores Christians to commit themselves to one another for spiritual growth and personal accountability. This valuable mandate is best recognized in the New Testament as the local church. Many church leaders do not aggressively seize the opportunity to engage church attenders in making the church membership commitment. This thesis project will analyze and investigate the church membership growth processes of ten churches in three different denominations. This author will interview in depth the senior staff members as it relates to their effectiveness in moving attenders to church members compared with First Baptist Church of Venice. This church has …

"Mistris Hutchinsons Double Weekly-Lecture": Puritan Assemblies And The Antinomian Controversy Of 1636-38, Courtney H. Forster

Senior Honors Theses

The Antinomian Controversy of 1636-38 was a complex religious conflict concerning politics and disruption of Puritan society. It began when the Massachusetts Bay colony split into religious factions within the Church at Boston. At the height of the controversy it seemed a majority of the congregation favored a grace-only means of salvation. Most in authoritative positions believed religious works were important to the societal foundation of a holy Puritan community. With the feared breakdown of society looming over them, they would prosecute and convict Anne Hutchinson for violating the cohesion of the colony. Hutchinson was a prominent woman in the …

Ad Fontes: Desiderius Erasmus’ Call For A Return To The Sources Of A Unified And Simple Christian Faith, Amanda Kieffer

The Kabod

Desiderius Erasmus’ humanism greatly shaped his view of Christianity. He developed a “philosophy of Christ” that led him to seek peaceful reforms from within the Church while attempting to maintain unity. He was a consummate scholar and inspiring figure of his time. Unfortunately, his interactions with Luther did not bring out the best in him, or in Luther for that matter, but there is still much to be learned by modern Christians from Erasmus’ views on reform that can be applied to the modern Church.

The Church Is Familial And Is Built On Spiritually Strong Families, Yat Lau

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Christ’s headship of the church has strong parallels to the husband’s headship of the family unit. As postmodernism, socio-economic factors, egalitarianism, globalization and shifts in the communicational processes drive inter-generational issues to greater heights, insidiously tear families apart—relationally, intellectually and spiritually. On the other hand, the church models the world through its discipleship programs, organization structures and has asserted itself as the spiritual head of the home. This paper will survey Christian young adults to identify key influences on their spiritual formation and family ministries the church provide to support families. The paper will provide a critique on family-equipping ministries …

The Study On The Problems Of The Current Korean Churches, Hai Lee

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Christianity in South Korean experienced unusually rapid growth for almost 100 years: The revival of church members, the growth of prayer, worship, and evangelism. However, current Korean churches face many problems that have stopped the growth, and actually put the Korean church in a decline. The problems, but are not limited to, are unethical aspects of pastor; including tax problem, huge church constructions, and loving materials. Korean churches should know why these kinds of problems occur and what the solutions are. There are many studies regarding the development of Korean churches but there are few studies examining the problems of …