History Commons^™

After Vatican Ii: Renegotiating The Roles Of Women, Sexual Ethics, And Homosexuality In The Roman Catholic Church, Kenneth Brian Nauert Jr.

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Vatican II was one of the most seminal councils in Roman Catholic Church history, having far reaching effects on the universal institution.¹ One of the most important outcomes of Vatican II was not the reforming of orthopraxy, but the dialogue that developed regarding three specific issues – the transforming of women’s roles in Church life, Catholic sexual ethics, and the Church’s relationship with LGBTQ+ individuals.² The decades following Vatican II became a new era of religious dialogue among Catholic scholars and theologians, which established new discussions on women’s ordination, sexual ethics, and attitudes towards homosexuality in the contemporary …

The Southern Baptist Convention “Crisis” In Context: Southern Baptist Conservatism And The Rise Of The Religious Right, Austin R. Biggs

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, a minority conservative faction took over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). This project seeks to answer the questions of how a fringe minority within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination could undertake such a feat and why they chose to do so. The framework through which this work analyzes these questions is one of competing worldviews that emerged within the SBC in response to decades of societal shifts and denominational transformations in the post-World War II era. To place the events of the Southern Baptist “crisis” within this framework, this study seeks to …

Went Off To The Shakers: The First Converts Of South Union, William R. Black

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In 1807 the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (Shakers)
established a society near the Gasper River in Logan County, Kentucky. The society was soon named South Union, and it lasted until 1922, the longest-lasting Shaker community west of the Appalachians. Most of the first Shaker converts in Logan County had only a few years beforehand participated in a series of evangelical Presbyterian camp meetings known collectively as the Kentucky Revival, the Revival of 1800, or the Great Revival.Though Presbyterian revivalism and Shakerism shared certain characteristics (particularl millennialism and enthusiastic forms of worship), there were many differences between …

Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth And The Rise Of Popular Premillennialism In The 1970s, Cortney S. Basham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

How people think about the end of the world greatly affects how they live in the present. This thesis examines how popular American thought about “the end of the world” has been greatly affected by Hal Lindsey’s 1970 popular prophecy book The Late, Great Planet Earth. LGPE sold more copies than any other non-fiction book in the 1970s and greatly aided the mainstreaming of “end-times” ideas like the Antichrist, nuclear holocaust, the Rapture, and various other concepts connected with popular end-times thought. These ideas stem from a specific strain of late-nineteenth century Biblical interpretation known as dispensational premillennialism, which …

Protestant Nuns As Depictions Of Piety In Lutheran Funeral Sermons, Kathryn Dillinger

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Protestant nuns, Stiftsdamen, fulfilled a unique role in early modern Lutheran society. This papers focuses on the implied social roles and expected virtues of Protestant nuns [Stiftsdamen] in the works of male Lutheran pastors who supported Protestant theological positions that promoted marriage as the proper place for women, and yet who also praised unmarried female monastics in funeral sermons [Leichenpredigten]. Lutheran pastors wrote funeral sermons for both Stiftsdamen and married women, funeral sermons display similarities or differences between what virtues, characteristics, and displays of piety for women. A comparison will also be made between funeral …

Mordecai F. Ham: Southern Fundamentalist, Kenneth Russell Ii

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Mordecai Fowler Ham, Jr. (1877-1961), a Kentucky bred, Southern Baptist evangelist, was an active participant in both the prohibition and fundamentalist movements. His career was characterized by disagreement and conflict due to Ham's defiance toward anyone who did not profess his style of Christianity.

A true product of the period in which he lived, Ham fought modernism and evolution zealously. He also preached against the use and sale of alcohol and dared liquor supporters to challenge his position. He was convinced as well that Jews, blacks, and Haman Catholics posed a potential threat to Christian America, and he monitored their …

The Pragmatic Evolution Of America & The Role Of The Intellectual, Michael Draper

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The intent of this thesis is to examine a portion of the thought and historical events which contributed to the development of the United States as a pragmatic nation, and the resulting influence upon its intellectual attitudes. The pragmatic evolution of America is a logical consequence, given the backgrounds and circumstances of those people who first settled this land. The founders of this country were, for the most part, members of the poor, working class who had grown up under governments adhering to strict caste societies and religious domination by their rulers. They held a common belief in a work …

The Concept Of Tension In New England Puritanism, Edgar Porter

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The New England Puritans who settled in Massachusetts in 1629 were the product of the Reformation as experienced in England. They struggled with Catholicism and Anglicanism for many years before deciding to move to New England. Moving as non-separating Congregationalists (not separating from the Anglican Church, yet rejecting episcopacy), they left the tensions of being Puritans, or radical Protestants, behind them only to find more tensions in their new holy state. When they settled New England they hoped to build a state that answered to God's call for the development of a new Israel. The saints were to interpret that …

The Haven Of Harmonie, 1814-1824, Irene Strouse

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis attempts to present a view of the Harmonist Society during its period in Indiana, 1814-1824 and to fit it into the framework of the times.

A History Of Baptists In Clinton County, Timothy Cantrell

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study is to present some of the history of the Baptist Church in Clinton County, Kentucky. A detailed study of the early church in the county also presents a picture of the county's social history as well because of the very close association between the individual and his church.

The scope of this study does not lend itself to presentation of the individual histories of all the Baptist churches in the county. It is, rather, the purpose of the author to cover the history of Baptists in the county by tracing the history of their two …

Some Aspects Of Nineteenth Century American Folk Life As Reflected In The Shaker Journals Of South Union, Kentucky, Jean Thomason

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study will describe many of these practices which have been recorded in the journals of the society at South Union and will identify origins, similarities and differences as they relate to the practices of the people of the surrounding geographic region.

Alexander Campbell In Kentucky, Leo Ashby

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The question of religion has caused much strife among mankind in the past, and even the present is not without its spiritual prejudices. In any phase of life the individual who departs too far from the accepted order is almost certain to be brought up sharply against the criticism and even ridicule of his contemporaries.

Alexander Campbell is no exception to this rule. His life was one of strife and conflict in the field of religion. His leadership in the “Reformation Movement” of the early Nineteenth Century has left an indelible impression upon the minds of thousands of men and …