Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Installation Of The Human: Whiteness, Religion, And Racial Capitalism, Benjamin Robinson

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Over the past thirty to forty years, the academic study of religion has brought the category of religion into crisis, unveiling its Christian architecture and its formation as a settler-colonial category of European expansion. While the proliferation of research on the genealogy of religion has opened new and important vantages for study, we remain conflicted about what is at stake. In this dissertation, I argue that the modern-colonial construction of religion is organized by a racial-theological operation that categorically separates people into humans, subhumans, and nonhumans, by which the social, economic, and political inequalities of racial capitalism have been made …

Christian Political Economy And Economic Science: A Pathway For Interdisciplinary Dialogue, Nathan Mclellan

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers two intellectual impediments to interdisciplinary dialogue between Christian theologians, ethicists, and economists: scarcity and the status of economics as a wertfrei science. Using the landmark methodological work of Lionel Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economics Science, to frame the discussion, this dissertation seeks to remove these two intellectual impediments to interdisciplinary dialogue by considering three nested questions. They are:

(1) Is scarcity—as defined by Robbins—an accurate description of the world?

(2) If scarcity, as defined by Robbins, is an accurate description of the world, how is this to be justified theologically, and …

Believing Into Christ: Restoring The Relational Sense Of Belief As Constitutive Of The Christian Faith, Natalya Cherry

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

The beginning phrase of major Christian creeds, Cred(ere) in Deum literally means “to believe into God.” What has been lost in translation of this admittedly awkward construction is the relational sense of active and living belief, fit for the flourishing of human agents who relate to a living and active God. This loss occurred, despite Augustine’s describing this phrase as the culmination of Christian faith, distinct from credere Deo, “to believe God,”[1] and from credere Deum,[2] “to believe that God exists” (which today is taken to be the basic meaning of “believing in God”). Despite the resulting …

Opening Your Door And Dinner Table As Evangelism, Gary Alan Fox

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

With the decline of membership in most mainline denominational churches, can people with no religious affiliation, or who have left the church, or who want nothing to do with the church, enter into a relationship with God through community in small neighborhood groups meeting in homes? The problem for most mainline churches is that small groups are viewed as only being for short term Bible Study or information gathering. Yet, a life transforming encounter with God often happens through long-term small groups that are focused on relationship building and life stage support as the primary focus. It is in community …

Don't Call King A 'Civil Rights' Leader: Toward Abolishing Poverty And War By Correcting Our Fatally Inadequate Remembering Of Mlk Jr., Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Remembering Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—primarily as a domestic “civil rights” leader—is inadequate, and sometimes harmful. The term “civil rights” fails to embrace King’s abolitionist movements toward the global abolition of poverty and war. Moreover, King was a Baptist preacher called by God. He advanced an optimistic realism (including a “realistic pacifism”) that improves upon pessimistic-cynical versions of political realism. And King went beyond advancing “civil rights” to advancing economic justice, economic rights, and human rights. He prescribed adding a social and economic bill of rights to the US Constitution, plus full-employment supplemented by “guaranteed income,” …

Martin Luther King Jr. On Economy, Ecology, And Civilization: Toward A Mlk Jr-Inspired Ecotheology, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

This MLK Jr-inspired ecotheology [eco-theology] connects “economics,” “ecology,” and “ecological civilization” to the theological ethics of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Though we often remember King primarily as a domestic civil rights leader; attention to King’s book—Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967) reveals that he advanced a global ethics. King called for replacing recourse to war with nonviolent resistance to evil, and for abolishing poverty throughout “the world house.” He prescribed that we “civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” King was concerned with civilizing “the world house” (house …