Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Marshlands And Monasteries: The Impact Of Weapon Deposition On Medieval British Christianity, Maia Lippay

Young Historians Conference

This paper, using proven archeological evidence, time-specific literature, and references on monastic life, local tradition, and social concepts of mythology, draws a clear connection between the prevalent European Iron Age practice of ritual votive and weapon deposition into bodies of water and the state of Christianity in middle ages Great Britain. The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire, particularly the Witham Valley, is featured heavily for its high concentration of deposition and monastic sites in a verifiably close distance of each other. The paper explores the possibility that the existence of these pre-Christian ritual sites remained relevant throughout the Roman period through …

The Mitre And Crown: The Relationship Between The Church And Crown In Norman-Angevin England, 1066-1215, Isaac Copeland

Honors Theses

From the Norman invasion in 1066 to Magna Carta in 1215, the balance of power between the Mitre and the Crown in Norman- Angevin England shifted from being defined through personal relationships to being defined by charters. This shift occurred due to a cycle of conflict and cooperation between Church and Crown, and during the periods of peace, kings, archbishops, and popes created models that delineated boundaries of power between the Church and the Crown. Over a century and a half, four functioning models emerged: the Crown-led Personal model created by William the Conqueror and Archbishop Lanfranc from 1066-1089, the …

“No Place Is So Dear To My Childhood”: Evangelicalism, Nostalgia, And The History Of An American Hymn, Christopher D. Cantwell

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article tracks the surprising history of a love ballad about a lost sweetheart that went on to become a celebrated gospel hymn about the rural roots of America's greatness. Titled “The Little Brown Church,” but sometimes called “The Church in the Wildwood,” the song's evolution speaks to the ways in which nostalgia became central to the social and religious imagination of those American Protestants call themselves “evangelicals.” Though it first appeared in college songbooks after its publication in 1865, “The Little Brown Church” eventually became a favorite of evangelists, revivalists, and other gospel singers at the dawn of the …

The Fight Against The Threat Of Witchcraft And Paganism In Anglo-Saxon England, Russell I. Knapp

Lux et Fides: A Journal for Undergraduate Christian Scholars

Unlike the general assumption that England was completely Christianized after Augustine’s mission to the island, witchcraft and paganism thrived all throughout the Christian period of Anglo-Saxon history. Sources condemning witchcraft and paganism increased during the Danish raids in the mid-ninth century and beyond due to an increased sense of a perceived threat of paganism. King Alfred himself reacted to this threat by doing everything he could to strengthen his people in their Christian beliefs through education reform and his law code. The Church battled against the perceived threat through penitentials–which they used to discourage pagan practices. Lay-people fought against …

Wildfire & Sacred Flame: Enthusiasm In American Revivalism 1734-1944, Randy Lee Darnell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The First and Second Great Awakenings were momentous events in American history. The developments that occurred from these movements forever influenced religion in the United States. Many participants in these revivals either witnessed or took part in an emotional religious experience often dubbed “enthusiasm,” which critics dismissed as fanaticism or the work of the devil. Advocates averred that these behaviors were genuine experiences brought about by the Holy Spirit. What can be demonstrated by the historical sources left behind from America’s great revivals is a continuity of this religious behavior from the First Great Awakening to revivals in the early …

The Forgotten Disciples: The Faithful Witness Of Women In Early Christianity, Jessica C. Hughes

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

At its earliest, Christianity is a religion of respect and dignity for women. This paper examines the experience and contributions of women to Christianity, beginning at the time of Christ and continuing to through to approximately 300 A.D., or shortly before the Nicene Creed was developed. This paper demonstrates the way the church, from the outset, has largely relied on the contributions and gifts of women in order to fulfill its mission. This paper then applies this historic context to the American church in issues of life and gender, concluding that it is the recognition and partnership with women, not …

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.

Dream Visions As A Safe Space For Purgatorial Speculation, Tucker Douglass

History Class Publications

People have believed in something like purgatory for thousands of years. Their specific ideas reflect their cultural environments and their personal feelings about the human condition. By looking at the dream vision genre over the past 2,000 years we may get a better idea of the development of the doctrine of purgatory and, with it, how people have understood themselves in history.

William Everett Ferguson Papers, 1941-2014, William Everett Ferguson

Center for Restoration Studies Archives, Manuscripts and Personal Papers Finding Aids

Finding aid for the William Everett Ferguson Papers, 1941-2014.

Remembering The Church In The Wildwood: The Archival Processing And Digitization Of The Martinsville Baptist Church Collection, Allison N. Grimes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Martinsville Baptist Church was founded in 1912 in a rural farming community on State Highway 7 in eastern Nacogdoches County. The church was founded during a revival being held in the community of Martinsville and has been in continuous operation ever since. The church grew throughout its lifetime, reaching record attendance and membership numbers between 1950 and 1980. Since the early 2000s, church attendance and membership has been in decline. This thesis outlines the history of Martinsville Baptist Church and explains conservation measures taken during the archival processing and digitization of records in the Martinsville Baptist Church Collection.

Saints And Sainthood Around The Baltic Sea: Identity, Literacy, And Communication In The Middle Ages, Carsten Selch Jensen

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume addresses the history of saints and sainthood in the Middle Ages in the Baltic Region with a special focus on the cult of saints in Russia, Prussia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia (more commonly referred to in the Middle Ages as Livonia). The articles cover a wide range of topics, for example the introduction of foreign (and "old") saints into new regions, the creation of new local cults of saints in newly Christianized regions, the role of the cult of saints in the creation of political and lay identities, the adaption of the cult of saints in …

The Temple Character Of Early Christianity, Matthew Higdon

Graduate Theses

I will argue that early Christianity more or less comprehensively envisioned itself, across varying traditions, to be a human-temple community, or a series of such communities; and that this word picture, this symbol, to a certain extent ordered their social life and aspirations. I propose three interlocking aspects to this priestly sociology. First, there is the element of unity. From the beginning, the temple model promoted unity, and it became particularly important later among very disparate groups of people within the church Second, the cultic motif generated a fresh kind of priestly ethics appropriate to the self-understanding of the movement. …

Tracing Paintings In Napoleonic Italy: Archival Records And The Spatial And Contextual Displacement Of Artworks, Nora Gietz

Artl@s Bulletin

Using a Venetian case study from the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, this article demonstrates how archival research enables us to trace the spatial life of artworks. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic policy of the suppression of religious corporations, followed by the appropriation of their patrimony, as well as the widespread looting of artworks, led to the centralisation of patrimony in newly established museums in the capitals of the Empire and its satellite kingdoms. This made the geographical and contextual displacement, transnationalisation, and change in the value of artworks inevitable.

Tapestry Of Russian Christianity: Studies In History And Culture, Jennifer B. Spock, Editor, Nickolas Lupinin, Editor, Donald Ostrowski, Editor

EKU Faculty and Staff Books Gallery

Tapestry of Russian Christianity: Studies in History and Culture. Nickolas Lupinin, Donald Ostrowski and Jennifer B. Spock, eds. Columbus, Ohio: Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures and the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies, The Ohio State University, 2016.

An Unbroken Chain: The History Of Coats Baptist Church, 1910-2010, Ronnie Faulkner

Ronnie W. Faulkner

This book is a history of Coats (N.C.) Baptist Church written by an academic historian. Founded in 1910 by James Archibald Campbell, the principal of Buies Creek Academy, along with 48 devout citizens, the church grew by 2010 to over one-thousand. From the beginning, the Coats church was intimately connected with the civic, educational, and religious life of the community. Lay leaders in the church were inevitably leaders in the local government and schools. Pastor Campbell, an orthodox believer in “old time religion,” infused the people with what he called “the plain and simple truths of the Bible.” In the …

[Book Review Of] American Protestant Theology: A Historical Sketch, By Luigi Giussani, Denis Kaiser

Faculty Publications

Many scholars in the field of American religious and theological history may never have heard the name of Luigi Giussani (1922-2005) because he spent most of his life in his home country Italy, his proficiency in English was limited to reading literacy, and the majority of his writings were not concerned with American religious history anyway. Giussani was a Catholic priest, theologian, high school teacher, professor, and founder of the international movement Comunione e Liberazione. He was closely acquainted with Pope John Paul II and the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. His influence on Italian and European religious life and culture …

0796: Shirley Foster Streeby Mathews Collection, 1939-2003, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

The bulk of the collection contains newspaper clippings that Mrs. Mathews collected over the years about her former students. There are also a few dozen photographs, along with wedding invitations, school pageants and programs, commencements, handwritten and typed correspondence, reunion correspondence, Greenline newsletters (a publication for Marshall University alumni), church programs, funeral/death announcements and holiday cards. Most of the photos are identified on the back.

From Individual Salvation To Social Salvation: Why Evangelist B. Fay Mills Changed His Revival Message, Constance P. Murray

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Rev. B. Fay Mills was a popular, late nineteenth century Protestant evangelist whose fame approached that of the eminent Gospel preacher, Dwight L. Moody. Preaching to audiences in large urban settings, Mills’ revivals captured headlines and significant column space as he preached sermons of individual salvation from sin from the perspective of Christian orthodoxy. Yet, just as he was reaching the very top of the field of itinerant evangelists, he changed his message to reflect his growing interest in and association with the Social Gospel movement. This thesis investigates the reasons for his shift in theological viewpoint and public proclamations. …

For God And Country: Baptist General Conference Attitudes Toward World War Ii, Taylor Ferda

History Student Works

On the afternoon of February 23, 1943, amidst the gathering of professors, pastors, and students, the inauguration ceremony of Professor Henry Conrad Wingblade as the second president of Bethel Institute was held at the school's chapel. In his acceptance address entitled, "Bethel and the World of Tomorrow," Wingblade reflected on the Institute's role in a global war that seemed to be spiraling out of control: "Nor should we forget just now that Bethel men and women are sharing in the crucial tasks and burdens which face our country and the world today-increasingly in the places of spiritual power as chaplains, …

We Know No North, No South, No East, No West: Mormon Interpretations Of The Civil War, 1861-1865, Richard Bennett

Faculty Publications

While peace reigns in Utah, civil war, with all its horrors, prevails among those who earnestly desired to see the soil of these valleys crimsoned with the blood of the Saints, and, if we are mistaken in the signs of the times, before the conflict between the North and South shall have ended, all they unitedly desired to see meted out to the Mormons, will be poured out without measure upon those who have initiated the war of extermination, and are now carrying it on with all the energy they severally possess. So read the lead editorial in the Salt …

0760: Camp Creek Church Of Christ Register And Record, 1920-1950, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

A church record book for the Camp Creek Church of Christ located in the vicinity of East Lynn, West Virginia. The record book contains membership rosters, birth, death, and marriage information as well as financial information related to the congregation. Additional loose (un-numbered) register pages and correspondence are also included.

Mr. Tabor has created two digital copies of the Register book that are included. He also wrote a brief history (annotated) of the Camp Creek Church of Christ and compiled an index of the Christian and surnames of the congregation members. The history is boxed with the register, and the …

0757: First Presbyterian Church [Huntington, Wv] Records, 1839-1990, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

The First Presbyterian Church of Huntington Archives contain material dating back to the early nineteenth century, with the bulk of the items dating from between the 1880s and the 1990s. The collection consists primarily of 'Minutes of Session,' which relate to official church business; 'Bulletins,' which give information about church sermons, calendars, and events; and 'Church Groups,' which provide information on the social structure and individuals within the Church. There are extensive financial records pertaining to the church, as well as membership rosters for many Church groups, and some marriage/baptism registers. Also included are a few "histories" written by Church …

Pronounced Clean, Comfortable, And Good Looking: The Passage Of Mormon Immigrants Through The Port Of Philadelphia, Fred E. Woods

Faculty Publications

We were pronounced clean, comfortable, and good looking. So wrote LDS voyage leader Matthias Cowley after arriving in Philadelphia with a company of foreign Saints in the mid-nineteenth century. At this time, Latter-day Saint European immigrants, obeying the call to come to Zion, were gathering to America by the thousands on the way to their Mormon Mecca in Salt Lake City. They were obeying the call to come to Zion. In 1852, the First Presidency issued the following counsel: "When a people, or individuals, hear the Gospel, obey its first principles, are baptized for the remission of sins, and receive …

The "Tabernacle Post Office" Petition For The Saints Of Kanesville, Iowa, Fred E. Woods, Maurine Carr Ward

Faculty Publications

As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. Thus spoke wise King Solomon a millennium before the birth of Christ. As America labored to give birth to a new nation, the United States Post Office Department was born when the Second Continental Congress met in 1775 at Philadelphia and agreed to appoint Benjamin Franklin as the country's first postmaster general. During the nineteenth century, America continued to grow in population as children were born and as immigrants crossed the Atlantic to the land of promise. This growth not only caused America to lengthen …

The 1853 Mormon Migration Through Keokuk, Fred E. Woods, Douglas Atterberg

Faculty Publications

In May 1853, William W. Belknap, who would later serve as a major general in the Civil War and as secretary of war to President Grant, wrote to his sister, Clara, about the Mormon emigrants who were outfitting in Keokuk, Iowa, that spring and summer: "Yesterday was Sunday and I wish you had been here to go up to the Mormon Camp with me. They had preaching at three stands in three languages--English, German, and Danish. They sing --especially the Danes--very sincerely and are perfectly enthusiastic. It is a strange, strange mystery and if you were here you'd be astonished. …

From Liverpool To Keokuk: The Mormon Maritime Migration Experience Of 1853, Fred E. Woods

Faculty Publications

In January, Fifty-three, we left our English home, Determined for the Gospel's sake, to Zion's land to come. Our family was very small, its members numbered three, Yet strong in faith of Israel's God, and full of hope were we. 'Twas not to us an easy task to bid old friends adieu, To take a long farewell of those who always had been true, To leave for aye, the cozy home we made but just before, And take a last fond look of things we should behold no more; The wind blew keen, as out we went into the cold …

0712: Creed Neff Papers, 1908-1915, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection consists of five photographs and one manuscript. The photographs depict school children and members of the Guyandotte Methodist Episcopal Church around 1908-1915 while the manuscript consists of a copy of a handwritten manuscript, author unknown, about life in Guyandotte.

To view materials from this collection that are digitized and available online, search the Creed Neff papers, 1908-1915 here.

How Long, Oh Lord, How Long? James E. Talmage And The Great War, Richard Bennett

Faculty Publications

What is it that is happening? A war greater in area and scale and more fearful in carnage, than any that has ever been since life on the round world began. Five months--no more--have passed since the first gun was fired, and already the list of men who were strong, healthy, capable, keen, five short months ago, and who are now stark in death, outnumbers anything of its kind in human history. And to reckon up the load of sheer blank sorrow in innumerable homes, and the actual but incidental war sufferings, short of death, or possibly worse than death, …

George H. Shriver Papers, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

Finding Aids

The collection consists of the professional and personal papers of Georgia Southern Professor Emeritus, George H. Shriver. Materials span from 1973 to 1997 and include correspondence, teaching materials, published articles, and manuscripts related to religion in the American South. Additional materials related to Shriver’s tennis coaching career for the Georgia Southern’s Lady Eagles Tennis team are also included.

Find this collection in the University Libraries' catalog.

Gathering To Nauvoo: Mormon Immigration 1840-46, Fred E. Woods

Faculty Publications

The gathering of the Mormon pioneers to Utah (commencing in 1847) has received extensive attention; however, the earlier LDS immigration to Nauvoo has not been adequately treated. This paper is the inspiring story of the British Saints who traveled to Nauvoo between June 1840 and February 1846. The international call to gather was received by the Prophet Joseph Smith during the second presentation of the Restored Church, less than six months after its organization in 1830.