Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Affect And Critique: Negative Dialectics And Massumi's Politics Of Affect, Heidi Ann Rhodes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Brian Massumi's concept of affect offers a model of change that relies on sensory-affective modes of resistance to neoliberal power relations. Influenced by Bergson's concepts of time and space, Massumi develops an account of perception as the capacity to entrain with ontological, affective flows of becoming before they are captured and reduced to quantifiable forms. This requires a radical reconfiguration of the body as a zone of indetermination between the virtual field of unformed potentialities and the realm of determined existence. I argue that affect theory cannot fulfill its promise to open new political possibilities without the negativity of critique …

"En El Poder Del Espíritu": A Qualitative Research Study On Social Ethics/Theology Among U.S. Latina/O Pentecostals, Néstor A. Gómez Morales

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Are most US Latina/o pentecostals concerned about sharing the gospel without having any interest in the reality of oppression, discrimination, and marginalization? Are they just dancing and singing in their temples, having ecstasies and emotional experiences while ignoring the poor and their social struggle? Many scholars see US Latina/o pentecostalism as a tradition with an anemic social ethic, one that lacks any significant interest in the needs of the poorest in society. However, new research on progressive pentecostals shows a different panorama. The theological perspectives and social ethics of a vast sector of US Latina/o churches have changed considerably since …

From "Most Useful Book" To Scriptura Non Grata: Canon, Ecclesiastical Constrictiveness, And The Loss Of The Shepherd Of Hermas In Early Christianity, Robert Donald Heaton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With its roots in the first century CE and claims to special revelation from various apparitions, the Shepherd of Hermas portended an alternative Christian trajectory to the prevailing Christocentrism. But some in the second, third, and fourth centuries also deemed it compatible with the synoptic Johannine-Pauline metanarrative for Christianity, such that prominent bishops Victorinus, Eusebius, and Athanasius labored to depict it outside the scriptures of the New Testament. While their data and other early patristic writings presage the Shepherd's frequent appearance among scholarship on the biblical canon, this often manifests as little more than a curiosity, absent a proper …

Reclaiming The Radical Economic Message Of Luke, David Dean Mimier King

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Of the four canonical gospels of the New Testament, the one most concerned with poverty, wealth, and the ethics of possession is Luke. It contains more economic material and a sharper message than do Mark, Matthew, or John. A centuries-long debate rages over just how revolutionary Luke’s message is. This dissertation employs redactional, literary, statistical, historical, and theological methodologies to recover Luke’s radical economic message, to place it in its ancient context, and to tease out its prophetic implications for today. It argues that Luke has a radical message of good news for the poor and a call for resistance …

Behind The Mask Of Morality: (E)Urochristian Bioethics And The Colonial-Racial Discourse, Jennifer L. Mccurdy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The discipline of bioethics is insufficient and ineffective in addressing the persistent issues of racism and racial inequalities in healthcare. A minority of bioethicists are indeed attentive to issues such as implicit bias, structural racism, power inequalities, and the social determinants of health. Yet, these efforts do not consider the colonial-racial discourse -- that racism is an instrument of eurochristian colonialism, and bioethics is a product of that same colonial worldview. Exposing mainstream bioethicists to the work of anti-colonial scholars and activists would provide bioethicists a framework through which they would be better equipped to address issues of race through: …

Exercising Obedience: John Cassian And The Creation Of Early Monastic Subjectivity, Joshua Daniel Schachterle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

John Cassian (360-435 CE) started his monastic career in Bethlehem. He later traveled to the Egyptian desert, living there as a monk, meeting the venerated Desert Fathers, and learning from them for about fifteen years. Much later, he would go to the region of Gaul to help establish a monastery there by writing monastic manuals, the Institutes and the Conferences. These seminal writings represent the first known attempt to bring the idealized monastic traditions from Egypt, long understood to be the cradle of monasticism, to the West.

In his Institutes, Cassian comments that "a monk ought by all …

Exploring The Lived Religious Experiences Of Gay And Lesbian Ordained Clergy In The United Methodist Church, Tracy Allen Temple

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United Methodist Church (UMC) as an institution has strict language against lesbian and gay people and against the ordination of the lesbian and gay people. Prior research has focused on how denominations and congregations discuss issues around sexuality, how attitudes have shifted around issues of sexuality, and how to provide spiritual care for the LGBTQ+ community. This qualitative study interviewed lesbian and gay ordained elders in the UMC to learn about their experiences of serving as clergy people in the UMC even though there are prohibitive statements in church documents. Firstly, the interviews revealed that the participants feel loved …

The Movement Of The Spirit: A Constructive Comparison Of Divine Grace In The Theologies Of Paul Tillich And John Wesley, Thomas Albert Barlow Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work is a constructive comparison of the ways in which the operations of divine grace resonate in the theologies of John Wesley and Paul Tillich. The primary questions which initially motivated this project: First, how does Tillich's concept of theonomy intersect Wesley's conceptions of the activity of grace? Second, how would those intersections serve to provide a renewed (or clarified) understanding of Wesley's framework of grace? How does Tillich's concept of theonomy, and his method of correlation, inform Wesley's understanding of the activity of grace in human culture? How might gleaned from this comparison inform the work of faith …

Critiquing Atomistic Individualism In Law: Rosenzweig's Beloved Soul As Open And Relational Subject, Lilith Zoe Cole

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Positioned as a critique of rights-based justice, this project critically rethinks the American system of law by rooting its failures in its philosophical anthropology of atomistic individualism grounded in Locke, and recommends replacing that anthropology with an anthropology inspired by Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption. In particular, the project explores how Rosenzweig's "beloved soul" invites us to understand human individuality as open and relational, which might help pivot the law away from its current myopic focus on rights-based justice and the often unjust zero-sum modality that rights-based justice produces. Rooting law in open and relational individuality rather than Lockean …