Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Mysteries Of The Gothic, Addison Duvall

CMC Senior Theses

By examining the histories of the Notre-Dame and Chartres cathedrals, I will consider three academic schools of thought regarding the high Gothic Cathedrals: the balanced and rational feat of engineering, the communal and social rituals that bond humans to this space, and the iconographic manifestation of the supernatural. Functionalist engineering paradoxically lays at the heart of these cathedrals' capacity to open the human consciousness to the sacred by using recurrent symbolic patterns from nature, music and mathematics to create divine ratios that transport us. Integrated into these larger architectural designs the repeating visual patterns exalting both biblical and supernatural icons …

The Dynamic Relationship Between Young Spanish Catholics And The Church, Caroline Cox

CMC Senior Theses

Research Question: How is the commitment of Spaniards to Catholicism changing with younger generations? And why is this relevant given Spain’s deep roots with the religion?

The Catholic Church and Spain have been highly involved with each other for centuries. It is possible that the Church’s controversies and conservative values are distancing young members from pursuing a stronger relationship with their faith. I predicted that more young Spanish Catholics’ commitment to the Church was wavering because of three potential reasons: increased security and education, child sex abuse scandals involving clergymen, and the institution’s outdated attitudes. I conducted a study …

La Modernité Tunisienne Dévoilée : Une Étude Autour De La Femme Célibataire, Madison Wagner

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explains recent accounts of discrimination and cutbacks in reproductive health spaces in Tunisia. Complicating dominant analyses, which attribute these events to the post-revolution political atmosphere which has allowed the proliferation of islamic extremism, I interpret these instances as a manifestation of a deeply rooted stigma against sexually active single women. I trace this stigma’s inception to the contradictory way that Habib Bourguiba conceptualized modernity after independence, and the responsibility he assigned to Tunisian women to embody that modernity. This responsibility remains salient today, and is putting Tunisian women in an increasingly untenable and vulnerable position.

After independence, Bourguiba …

The Homecoming Of The Negro Spirit: Black Spiritual Intelligence As A Structural Form Of Intelligence, Quincy Brown

CMC Senior Theses

In Is Spirituality an Intelligence? Motivation, Cognition, and the concern of Psychology of Ultimate Concern, Robert Emmons develops a case for spirituality as a form of intelligence. His thesis claims that spiritual intelligence is a “set of capacities and abilities that enable people to solve problems and attain goals in their everyday lives”: “the capacity for transcendence; the ability to enter into heightened spiritual states of consciousness; the ability to invest everyday activities, events, and relationships with a sense of the sacred; the ability to utilize spiritual resources to solve problems in living; and the capacity to engage …

The Two Conversions Of John Newton: Politics & Christianity In The British Abolitionist Movement, Megan Keller

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis interrogated the relationship between abolition and the evangelical revival in Britain through the life of John Newton. Newton, though not representative of every abolitionist, was a vital figure in the movement. His influence on Hannah More and William Wilberforce along with his contributions to the Parliamentary hearings made him a key aspect of its success. How he came to fulfill that role was a long and complex journey, both in terms of his religion and his understanding of slavery. He began his life under the spiritual direction of his pious, Dissenting mother, became an atheist by nineteen, and …

Mobile People, Mobile God: Mobile Societies, Monotheism, And The Effects Of Ecological Landscapes On The Development Of Ancient Religions, Edward Surman

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Despite the wealth of scholarship concerning the origins of religious beliefs, practices, and cultures, there has been little consideration of the impact of ecological landscapes on the development of ancient religions. Although the influence of the natural environment is considered among the variables in explaining the development of various economic, political, and other social systems throughout history, there is a specific gap concerning its impact on the origins of religious systems. The argument which is taken up in this writing is the correlation between agriculturally marginal landscape and the development of monotheism. Specifically that the religions of the ancient Iranians …

Tracing Islamic Extremist Ideologies: The Historical Journey Of Jihad From The Late Antique Period To The 21st Century, Nikhil Kanade

CMC Senior Theses

Popular interpretations and academic scholarship tends to emphasize the relationship between jihad, military action, and communal violence. These reinforce a sense that violence is inherent to Islam. Investigations into the contexts where jihad has been deployed highlight how its use is often a call for unity believed to be necessary for political goals. Therefore, in order to deconstruct this belief, this thesis tackles instead the relationship between textual interpretations and historical actions, and how these varied across specific moments in time. The case studies examined range from the initial evolution of a theory of jihad in the late antique world, …

The Chimerae Of Their Age:Twelfth Century Cistercian Engagement Beyond Monastic Walls, Daniel J. Martin

Pomona Senior Theses

One of the great paradoxes of the medieval period is the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1225), in which monks of the Cistercian Order took an active and violent role in campaigning against the heretics of the Languedoc. Why, and how, did this order officially devoted to prayer and contemplation become one of the prime orchestrators of one of medieval Europe’s most gruesome affairs? This thesis seeks to answer that question, not by looking at the crusading Cistercians themselves, but at their predecessor Bernard of Clairvaux, who—I will argue—made the Albigensian Crusade possible by making it permissible for monks to intervene in the …

Covenant Nation: The Politics Of Grace In Early American Literature, Justin M. Scott-Coe

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The argument of this dissertation is that a critical reading of the concept of "covenant" in early American writings is instrumental to understanding the paradoxes in the American political concepts of freedom and equality. Following Slavoj Zizek's theoretical approach to theology, I trace the covenant concept in early American literature from the theological expressions and disputes in Puritan Massachusetts through Jonathan Edwards's Freedom of Will and the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, showing how the covenant theology of colonial New England dispersed into more "secular" forms of what may be called an American political theology. The first chapter provides an …

Authoring Authority: The Apostle Paul And The Prophet Joseph Smith--A Critical Comparison Of Texts And Power In The Generation Of Religious Community, Alonzo Huntsman

CGU Theses & Dissertations

. . . believe in God, believe also in me . . . --John 14.1

"Authoring Authority" analyzes the ways texts function to generate social cohesion while at the same time advancing the power interests of their authors. The study is a comparative, critical, and interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary excavation of the religion-making efforts of the first-century Christian Apostle Paul and the nineteenth-century Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.

This comparison defamiliarizes and recharacterizes the heroes and origin-stories of the dominant (and my own) tradition to force important questions about scholarly perspectives, interests and deferences (protection, exceptionalization), self-reflexivity, and politics. The project's critical orientation deploys …

Didn’T My Lord Deliver Daniel? An’ Why Not Every Man? Black Theodicy In The Antebellum United States And The Problem Of The Demonic God, Emma Norman

Pitzer Senior Theses

Introduction Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel? An' Why Not Every Man: Black Theodicy in the Antebellum United States and the Problem of the Demonic God is an ambitious attempt to construct a coherent narrative that spans many centuries and connect numerous historical persons and figures in recent scholarship. I set out to understand how an enslaved person could have faith in the goodness of god despite their oppressed condition. I learned that most enslaved Africans first encountered Christianity when they became the “property” of Christians. Then, in a revolutionarily creative move, the Black community re-signified Christianity from a religious system …

The Foundations And Early Development Of Mormon Mission Theory, David Golding

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to answer a fundamental question facing missiologists and historians of Mormonism: given their sustained preoccupation with converting others to Mormonism and their thriving tradition of missionary work, how do Mormons conceive of their mission? By focusing on the theoretical frame in which Mormon missionaries imagined the non-Mormon world, prepared for missionary engagement, and derived their expectations for their mission work, this study aims to illuminate the development of Mormon missionary activities and explain the processes by which Mormons fashioned for themselves a missional character. Beginning with Joseph Smith and the emergence of his missional thought and ending …

Calvin And Conciliation, Alexander S. Haines

CMC Senior Theses

The popular conception of John Calvin today is as a divisive figure within Christianity, who vehemently opposed some beliefs while demanding rigid acceptance of others. In this thesis, I intend to investigate the accuracy of that conception by exploring how Calvin approached ecumenicalism theologically and practically. This will cover Calvin's understanding of the Church, his cooperation and disagreements with other Christians, and evaluate what Calvin might contribute to an ecclesiology useful for the Church today. Calvin has gained a poor reputation in modern times both for participation in historical events, including the execution of Servetus, and also for the association …

The Sanctified ‘Adultress’ And Her Circumstantial Clause: Bathsheba’S Bath And Self-Consecration In 2 Samuel 11, J. D'Ror Chankin-Gould, Derek Hutchinson, David H. Jackson, Tyler D. Mayfield, Leah Rediger Schulte, Tammi J. Schneider, E. Winkelman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Bathsheba's actions in 2 Sam. 11.2-4 identify crucial aspects of her character. Past commentators interpret these words in connection with menstrual purification, stressing the certain paternity of David's adulterine child. This article demonstrates that the participles rōheset and mitqaddesšet and the noun mittum'ātāh do not denote menstrual cleansing. Bathsheba's washing is an innocent bath. She is the only individual human to self-sanctify, placing her in the company of the Israelite deity. The syntax of the verse necessitates that her action of self-sanctifying occurs simultaneously as David lies with her. The three focal terms highlight the important legitimacy of Bathsheba before …

Sentencia-Estatuto De Toledo, 1449, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

This text, from Toledo in 1449, is the earliest known reference to Jewish blood, as opposed to Jewish beliefs and rituals (judaizing), being held against Christian conversos in Spain. The underlying issue seems to have been fears on the part of the "old Christian" ruling class in Toledo that their power was threatened by the rise of the "new Christians," the descendants of Jewish converts to Christianity who, for the most part, had been forcibly baptized during the infamous progroms of 1391.

Life Of St. Zita Of Lucca, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Zita (c. 1218-78) is a rare example of a servant saint. She spent her entire adult life in the service of the Fatinelli family of Lucca. Like other saints of low birth (cf Isidro of Madrid), she distinguished herself by embracing her humble profession, seeing it as a God-given means of penance. She was finally canonized in 1698, her cause championed by descendants of the Fatinellis who employed her.

The Life Of San Isidro Of Madrid, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

This anonymous Life of Isidro of Madrid (d. pre-1192) represents a rare medieval effort to justify the sanctification of a non-noble layman, in this case, a tenant farmer. Note how the author does this, in part, by depicting Isidro as a man who made a virtue out of the curse inflicted on Adam ("You will earn your bread from the labor of your hands and the sweat of your brow," Genesis 3:19) by embracing the life of an agricultural laborer. Isidro was canonized in 1622, along with Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila, and Philip Neri. Shortly thereafter, Isidro …

Convivencia And The “Ornament Of The World”, Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The “Southeast Medieval Association” keynote address that Wolf gave at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina in October 2007. Convivencia is a historical term used to describe the “coexistence” of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities in medieval Spain and by extension the interaction, exchange, and acculturation fostered by such proximity. It first emerged as the by-product of a famous debate between Américo Castro and Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz that dominated Spanish historical scholarship during the Franco years. Since then convivencia has taken on a life of its own, fueled in part by increased interest in multi-culturalism on the one hand and rising …

Foreword To Old Ship Of Zion, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Walter F. Pitts died July 20, 1991. I did not know him personally; I came to know only a part of him through the manuscript-obviously an important part of his life-that has been transformed into the book now before the reader. If that which is created is in the image of its creator, I suspect that had I met Walter Pitts I probably would have liked him very much; I know I would have been impressed by him, and would have learned a great deal from him.

At first, when I was asked by Oxford University Press to review Pitts's …

Ascetic Behavior And Color-Ful Language: Stories About Ethiopian Moses, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The characterization of the fouth-century Black (Ethiopian) monk named Moses in late ancient Christian hagiographie narratives opens wide a window not only onto particular understandings of, and propaganda about, ascetic piety and religious orientations to the world, but also ancient (non-black) Christian sensitivies to racial/color differences. Four ancient sources— Palladius' Lausiac History, Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History, the anonymous Apophthegmata Patrum, and Acta Sanctorum—are analyzed on the basis of a recent translation.

Book Review: "Radical Christianity: A Reading Of Recovery" By Christopher Rowland, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Christopher Rowland, Lecturer in Divinity, Dean and Fellow of Jesus College, University of Cambridge, has written a fascinating and provocative book. Although drawing upon years of research on Christian origins, especially on apocalypticism in Judaism and early Christianity, this book goes far beyond antiquarian exegetical interests and questions. It is a most interesting attempt to determine the origins, then chart and account for major developments in the course of one type of Christian ethic and orientation-a type of "radical Christianity" rooted in apocalypticism.

Book Review: "Paul And The Torah" By Lloyd Gaston, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Paul and the Torah is the mature work of a well-known Canadian (Vancouver) biblical scholar in an important area of religious scholarship. The book is a collection of previously published essays having to do with Paul and his teachings regarding the relationship between the Jewish law and the Gentile Christianity of which he was pioneer. The essays, written over a period of at least a decade and arranged in chronological order, are remarkable for their coherence and consistency, and are a tribute to the author's powerful grasp and clear articulation of the materials and some very knotty issues and questions. …