Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Content And Role Of Web Sites In Public Relations Of Religious Congregations, Jerlen Young Nelson

Dissertations

This study presents an analysis of the content of Web sites belonging to local religious congregations. The study included a quantitative content analysis of the Web sites of 120 local congregations, which represented 12 different religious organizations. These religious organizations were all members of the Religious Communicators Council organization. Results of the study emphasized the basic content and functions of the Web sites. Overall, this study found that 43.3% of the Web sites were used for informational purposes only. For example, a few of the most prevalent variables on the Web sites were the general contact information, staff information, e-mail …

Jewish Museums - A Multi-Cultural Destination Sharing Jewish Art And Traditions With A Diverse Audience, Jennifer B. Markovitz

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

As American society becomes more diverse, issues of ethnic self· consciousness are increasingly prevalent. This can be witnessed by the national expansion and development of ethnic museums. At least twenty-five museums representing different ethnicities are located in New York City alone. These museums reach out to their own constituency as a celebration of heritage and culture. In an effort to educate others and foster a greater understanding and appreciation of their culture, they also reach out to a diverse multi-cultural audience. Following suit, Jewish museums attract a diverse audience representing a variety of religions and ethnicities. Jewish Museums - A …

'Purification Of Memory': The Ritual Acknowledgement Of Social Sin And The Penitential Celebration, Corran T. Pike

Theses

The Sacrament of Penance in the Australian Catholic Church is experiencing a pastoral decline. Concurrently, in the secular world, increasingly people are demanding and experiencing rituals of communal apology for social sin. Secular communal apologies (and rituals of forgiveness) appear to be speaking to people in a way that existing liturgical rituals in the church are not. There are no communal rituals for the acknowledgement of social sin currently included in the Rite of Penance. This is a lacuna in the church’s ritual complex that needs to be addressed. This dissertation will analyse several recent communal apologies for social sin …

An Investigation Of The Reliability And Validity Of The Caperton Forgiveness Styles Inventory, Duane Caperton

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research was an investigation into the process of forgiveness. The analysis of qualitative interviews with nearly 100 participants suggested four different approaches, or styles, of forgiving and non-forgiving. The Intrapersonal style describes people who forgive other people by focusing on their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. The Interpersonal style describes people who forgive other people by focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the offending persons. The Easy Going style describes the people who never forgive anyone because they rarely or never feel offended and consequently rarely or never feel the need to forgive others. The Grudge Holder …

Finding Life: An Organic Model Of Renewal For Existing Churches, Thomas E. Rester Jr.

Doctor of Ministry

Statistics reveal most existing mainline churches are small, declining, and unable to minister effectively in their current environment. Rising stress is the result for these congregations. For mission and ministry to continue in many of these places, the stress must become an opportunity to release a deeper organic understanding of identity and ministry within the fluid postmodern context.

Chapter 2 presents biblical materials from the book of Acts. Focusing on Acts 15, we discover that in a moment of fil"eat stress and confusion, the church was able to e change and evolve to find new life in the midst of …

Transforming Inmate Character Within A Correctional Setting By Experiencing Spiritual Formation Through The Conventional Relationship With God, Ron D. Borden

Doctor of Ministry

Historically, the correctional system was concerned with locking up criminals and keeping them off the streets. Society's safety was, and still is, of primary importance. Unfortunately, most felons complete their sentencing and are released back into the community with the same belief systems and character traits that brought them to prison. Christian programming within the correctional setting is succeeding only at changing surface behavior, not genuine character transformation. This results in recidivism rates that are identical to those of non-Christian imnates. In order to address this problem, I propose that spiritual formation focused upon a covenantal relationship with Jesus Christ …

Adolescent Religiosity, Religious Affiliation, And Premarital Predictors Of Marital Quality And Stability, Stacey Macarthur

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The influence of religiosity in adolescence on several variables that have been shown to be predictors of marital quality and stability was examined using a nationally representative sample of 3,151 youth, aged 13 to 17 years, from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). Religiosity was defined to incorporate multiple characteristics including religious beliefs, attitudes, participation, experiences, and identities. The effect of religious affiliation and religiosity was also examined for seven premarital predictors, which included relationship with parents, ideal age for marriage, right and wrong, academic achievement, sexual behavior, attitude toward cohabitation, and attitude toward divorce. Data were collected …

The Structure Of The Gospel Of Mark: Revisiting The Implications Of Repetition And Characterization, Gregory Michael

Master of Sacred Theology Thesis

The search for a distinctive and coherent structure to the Gospel of Mark has long been a challenge for scholarship. While denying redaction and narrative criticism's slavish adherence to their methodology, this thesis utilizes repetition and characterization to assess the matter of Markan structure. Key points of repetition addressed within the text are repetition of words and phrases, forms, and thematic items. The discussion of words and phrases highlight: θάλασσα, πάλιν, εἰς π̍εραν, ἐν τ̂ηὁσ̂ω, and Jewish leaders. The forms addressed are call narratives, exorcisms, and passion predictions. The thesis presents six key repeated thematic elements: geopolitical locations, the senses …

A Comprehensive Retreat Program For High School Youth Ministry Students, Julie Therese Krug

Pastoral Institute

My pastoral project will encompass five retreats that I will work on in collaboration with a team of young adult volunteers and approximately 20 high school juniors and seniors. The "retreat season" will begin with a leadership retreat in September 2007, two Confirmation retreats (December 2007 and March 2008), a freshmen lock-in retreat (January 2008), and a junior high retreat (March 2008). The team will meet weekly for 8 weeks prior to a retreat, at times working on retreats simultaneously, to plan and prepare. The team's tasks will include leading ice breakers, small discussion groups, large group activities, praise and …

The Shrine Of Our Lady Of Ephesus: A Study Of The Personas Of Mary As Lived Religion, Heather Abraham

Religious Studies Theses

In Pure Lust, Mary Daly claims that the Virgin Mary is an “image of total subservience, the dethroned and sapped Goddess who was converted into a vessel.” Daly perceives Mary primarily through Christian scripture and other orthodox texts, ignoring her role as part of a religion lived and experienced outside of Church doctrine and dogma. This thesis explores how Mary is perceived and utilized by the laity, as opposed to the theological Mary, by specifically looking at how the Virgin Mary is imagined and experienced at the Our Lady of Ephesus Shrine in Western Turkey. Utilizing Robert Orsi’s lived religion …

The Significance Of Jesus' Healing Miracles: A Study Of Their Role In The Synoptic Gospels And Their Importance To Early Christianity, John Morgan Cadenhead

Religious Studies Theses

This essay examines the healing miracles of Jesus as described by the Synoptic Gospels and posits that the appeal of the Synoptics over non-canonical texts can partially be found in the former’s focus on these physical healing miracles. The essay argues that the idea that one can be healed of physical pain through faith is a varied theme in the Synoptics and a strong motivator to bring an interest in early Christianity, especially during a time of persecution. Further, this essay considers Gnostic Gospels and their relative lack of healing miracles to expand upon a theory put forth by Elaine …

Wiccan Marriage And American Marriage Law: Interactions, Jeanelle Marie Carda

Religious Studies Theses

This project considers the ways in which Wiccan marriage and American marriage law interact with each other. The thesis examines certain aspects of the history of 20th-century American marriage law, the concurrent development of contemporary marriage ritual in Wicca, developing problems in this area, and possible solutions. In particular, the project focuses on the recognition of religious groups and their officials as they are authorized by state and federal law to perform marriages and how this process has affected Wiccan ritual.

The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints Enters Albania, 1992-1999, Nathan D. Pali

Theses and Dissertations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entered Albania in 1992. Albania was a unique and difficult place to establish the LDS Church. Under the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha religion was systematically eliminated from Albania and replaced with atheism. Additionally, missionaries were twice evacuated in the first decade in the country and the Book of Mormon was not available in Albanian until 1999. Despite these setbacks the LDS Church grew at a steady rate in Albania due to native Albanian interest and individual attention by missionaries.

The Making Of An Image: The Narrative Form Of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, Katherine Amanda Milby

Religious Studies Theses

This thesis explores the meaning and significance of the form of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah. It asks the questions: What are the possible reasons for Ibn Ishaq choosing a narrative form for this biography of Muhammad? What does a narrative format grant the text? Are there historical factors which could have influenced the decision? What other influences affected the text? Finally, what are the implications of Ibn Ishaq’s decision to use a narrative form? Taking into consideration narrative theory, the historical setting, and textual evidence, the thesis argues that Ibn Ishaq chose the format most likely to control the …

Communicating For Influence: Christian Proclamation From The Margins, Brian A. Ross

Doctor of Ministry

It is my opinion that North American Christianity needs to re-consider how it communicates to young adults about following after the person of Jesus Christ. The Church should seek to understand the present cultural milieu and the implications of influencing from below. Established Christianity formerly held a position of prestige and relative power. Due to cultural and epistemological shifts this is no longer the situation. The message of Christ is still relevant in the new millennium, but the standard approaches to communicating and thus influencing others in this new world are at times no longer relevant. Much of organized Christianity …

Resisting And Transforming: Pastoral Theology And Care Of Korean Military Wives, Bocheol Chang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Korean military wives have been symbolized as "dirty," "nothing," and "evil" by Koreans, Korean Americans, and their American families. They also experience same level of oppression and discrimination within Korean American congregations. In Korea, the women suffered poverty, sexual violence, and Confucian gender discrimination. They have also experienced racial and sexual oppression, intercultural familial conflicts and violence, and identity crisis in America. All of those experiences are caused the sense of not belonging of Korean military wives.

The sense of not belonging and desperation can be explained well by Andrew Sung Park's theology of han. The theology of han …

A Proposal For Creating A Master Of Divinity Specialization In Stewardship And An Ma In Stewardship And Development Program, John R. Frank

Doctor of Ministry

Critics and research indicate that inadequate leadership in stewardship education has led to inaccurate teaching, wrong attitudes, and a lack of generosity in the Christian church and parachurch ministries. This teaching has led tnany churches and parachurch organizations to etnphasize fundraising rather than the steward's spiritual journey and relationship with God. The dissertation addresses the need for a new look at stewardship, the theology of stewardship, and how stewardship is presented to the local church and parachurch.

The thesis of this project is that in order to itnprove stewardship in the Christian church, leadership must teach cotnprehensive, biblical stewardship with …

A Project To Foster Spiritual Formation In Online Classrooms, Robert Vaughan

Doctor of Ministry

Online programs are a growing phenomenon in adult education. Many Christian colleges and universities use this method to meet the educational needs of non-traditional students. A drawback of online education is the challenge to address the spiritual needs of students in a virtual environment. This project will propose an approach for fostering spiritual formation in asynchronous, adult online educational programs.

Section 2 will demonstrate the problem of fostering spiritual formation in online environments including the following issues: the demographics of the project, an organizational analysis of the project, and historical timelines of online adult education.

Section 3 will explore how …

Atonement In Hosea And The Prodigal Son: Relationality As Personhood And The Being Of God, Stephen Sherwood

Seminary Masters Theses

My project will provide a survey of traditional atonement metaphors, with a particular emphasis upon contrasting penal substitution with a covenantal relational understanding of the atonement, and will then posit that a covenantal relational approach is ideal for resonance with a postmodem audience.

I will seek to determine whether any single biblical metaphor or cluster of metaphors provides an interpretive matrix for all discussion of the atonement in a way that is both biblically faithful and conceptually accessible to a postmodem world. I contend that atonement discussions in typical evangelical contexts may be both biblically insufficient and culturally inadequate and …

Where Are The Twenty-Year-Olds? Tools For The Church To Connect And Retain A Generation, Lars Rood

Doctor of Ministry

A generation of young people are losing their connection to the church today. Research by the Barna Group shows that "61 % of students who were active in church during their teenage years disengaged during their twenties."1 Many churches struggle to adequately connect with and retain the twenty-something generation. This inability to connect stems from changing culture, technology, new worldviews, and a lack of formal training in institutes of higher education. Raised with the Internet, instant messaging, cell phones, and hundreds of television channels, this generation is undoubtedly well informed. Yet many churches no longer speak their language. I believe …

Religious Orientation And Religious Coping In Adolescents With And Without A Chronic Illness, Jacqueline Beine Brown

Dissertations

Religion plays an important role in most people's lives and can greatly affect how individuals cope and interpret stressful situations. However, very little is known about how adolescents incorporate religion into their lives (e.g., is it central or peripheral to their lives, do they utilize religious coping). Furthermore, given the additional stressors experienced by adolescents who have a chronic illness, it is likely their religious orientations and religious coping strategies are different from their healthy peers. Thus, the present study was designed to examine the constructs in both typically developing and chronically ill adolescents. Additional constructs of hope, general coping, …

Four Twentieth-Century Mass Ordinary Settings Surveyed Using The Dictates Of The Motu Proprio Of 1903 As A Stylistic Guide, Jonathan Candler Kilgore

Dissertations

In the first half of the twentieth century, major attempts at reform were occurring in music written for the Catholic Church. At the heart of this reform was the 1903 Motu Proprio of Pope St. Pius X. This document sought to bring clarity and focus to sacred music through limitation, as well as causing sacred music composers to make changes in their compositional methods. While still being modern, music had to conform to certain rules and regulations in order to be functional within the Catholic liturgy. The document also provided a great deal of detailed information regarding day-to-day occurrences within …

Treatment Of A Wife's Body In The Fiction Of Indian Sub-Continental Muslim Women Writers, Hafiza Nilofar Khan

Dissertations

Ismat Chughtai of India, Tehmina Durrani of Pakistan, and Selina Hossain of Bangladesh depict some of the sociological, religious and legal aspects of wife abuse that is a chronic, yet little discussed anathema in a Sub-Continental Muslim wife's life. "Treatment of the Wife's Body in the Fiction of Indian Sub-Continental Muslim Women Writers," examines the fiction and autobiographical works of these women writers who problematize the deeply ingrained traditional modes of domestic violence as perpetuated upon the minds and bodies of Sub-Continental Muslim wives. Chughtai, Hossain and Durrani identify culture specific practices such as child marriage, dowry, polygamy, honor crimes, …

Postmodern Trinitarian Philosophy: A Multiperspectival Approach, John Barry King Jr

Doctor of Ministry

To fulfill its missional imperative, the 21st Century, Western Church must engage a postmodem culture. To facilitate such engagement the following manuscript will relate Trinitarian theology to postmodem philosophy by using a Trinitarian grammar known as multiperspectivalism. In particular, multiperspectivalism will be used to integrate Trinitarian theology with the three loci of postmodem philosophy: non-foundational epistemology, socially constructive linguistics, and holistic relational ontology. As these various loci imply, postmodemism is characterized by a movement toward relationality in epistemology, linguistics, and ontology. It is precisely this emphasis on relationality that produces the resonance between postmodem philosophy and Trinitarian theology.

After outlining …

The Utilization Of Faith Development Theory And Faith Styles Perspective To Shape A Christian Education Program, Cathy Robbs Turner

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate characteristics of the faith development of members of the congregation of Oak View Methodist Church. The research evaluated the relationship between a person’s faith level and his/her participation in Christian education. Contributing to the body of faith development research, this research served as an extension of Fowler’s (1981) Faith Development Theory (FDT), as well as the Faith Styles Model (Streib, 2001; 2005), which is an advancement of FDT. In this mixed-method study the researcher also investigated whether there is a significant relationship between the Faith Development Interview (FDI), a qualitative measure of …

The Value Of Buddhist Responses To Issues Of Overpopulation, Overconsumption, And Environmental Degradation, James H. Hitchcock

Religious Studies Theses

As the global population continues to increase at an alarming rate, the world, as a whole, now faces the issue of overpopulation. If the world’s natural resource consumption and environmental pollution/destruction continue at their current pace, then the earth will eventually no longer be able to sustain all of its inhabitants. Social change is the only way to prevent this. The world’s religious traditions possess particular motivational qualities with respect to people’s worldviews and behaviors. All of the world’s religious traditions are responding, in some way, to overpopulation. Traditions in isolation, however, do not address the complexities of the current …

The Purpose Of The Pastoral Office As Taught By The Church Fathers, Augsburg Confession V, And The Contemporary Age, D Lee Cullen Jr.

Master of Sacred Theology Seminar Papers

This paper will seek to identify the basic understanding of those Church Fathers who spoke most directly to this topic, namely, Ignatius of Antioch, Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, and Gregory the Great. The rationale for the selection of these Fathers is twofold. Firstly, their proximity and place in what we identify as the era of the Early Church. Ignatius of Antioch stands closest to the Apostolic Age while Gregory the Great provides the other bookend, standing at the end of what is commonly accepted as the era of the Early Church. Secondly, this wall provide a reasonable expectation …

Nietzsche As Interpreter: Against The Religious And Secular Appropriations, John D. Rivenbark

Religious Studies Theses

Best known if not equally understood for having a madman proclaim the demise of God, Friedrich Nietzsche’s thought has served as a fecund resource for disparate groups advancing diverse agendas. This paper critically examines the phenomenon of invoking Nietzsche as the final word. This paper argues that, far from being a conversation-stopper, Nietzsche can be understood as enhancing dialogue, across disciplines and between groups such as philosophers and theologians more prone to militant rhetoric than fruitful dialogue. In order to validate this claim it will be necessary to examine in detail the two aspects of Nietzsche’s thought most often invoked …

Impact Of Fatawa El-Jihad On Users Of Islamonline.Net, Hanaa Ahmed Marie

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Qualitative Study Of Buddhist Informed Psychotherapists, Michael Sean Harris

Dissertations

The field of psychology has a history of distancing itself, if not outright dismissing, both religion and spirituality. In recent years, however, psychology has come to move more toward an embrace of religious and spiritual experience. Buddhism, often expressed as a philosophical system without regard to theistic or nontheistic underpinnings, has been integrated with psychological theory in recent scholarly literature. This dissertation is an exploratory study regarding howBuddhist psychological perspectives are applied in actual psychotherapeutic practice. A participant pool of ten psychotherapists who self-identified as utilizing Buddhism in their work was studied along a variety of dimensions. Demographic questionnaires, audiotaped …