History Commons^™

Evangelizing Neoliberalism Through Megachurches In Latin America And The United States, William O. Collazo

Dissertations and Theses

The most prominent and influential feature of worldwide Evangelicalism, is the megachurch. In Latin America megachurches have proliferated and grown in political influence when they first came into contact with neoliberalism during Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. As Latin America's poor first migrated out of rural areas into Latin American cities, then north, to the United States, they have brought with them their religion. Increasingly, this religion is Protestant, evangelical, and for many, it is Pentecostalism. Misunderstood by the early literature on Pentecostalism, is the strain of neoliberalism that has become infused in the religion's most powerful institution - the megachurch. …

Jesuits In The Philippines: Politics And Missionary Work In The Colonial Setting, Francis B. Galasi

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Life And Thought Of Mormon Apostle Parley Parker Pratt, Andrew James Morse

Dissertations and Theses

In 1855 Parley P. Pratt, a Mormon missionary and member of the Quorum of the Twelve, published Key to the Science of Theology. It was the culmination of over twenty years of intellectual engagement with the young religious movement of Mormonism. The book was also the first attempt by any Mormon at writing a comprehensive summary of the religion's theological ideas. Pratt covered topics ranging from the origins of theology in ancient Judaism, the apostasy of early Christianity, the restoration of correct theology with nineteenth century Mormonism, dreams, polygamy, and communication with beings on other planets. For nearly fifty years …

From Company Town To Company Town: Holden And Holden Village, Washington, 1937-1980 & Today, Mattias Olshausen

Dissertations and Theses

In 1937, Howe Sound Company built the town of Holden, Washington, to support its copper-mining operation at Copper Peak, located in the North Cascade Mountains, approximately 10 miles west of Lake Chelan. The operation produced concentrate from 1937 to 1957, during which time the town was home to a lively community featuring many families, a variety of organized recreational activities, and a public school. It was a company town, in which most property, business, organized activity, and public utilities and services were either directly or indirectly controlled by Howe Sound. After the operation shut down in 1957, the town was …

Local Reception Of Religious Change Under Henry Viii And Edward Vi: Evidence From Four Suffolk Parishes, William Keene Thompson

Dissertations and Theses

From the second half of Henry VIII's reign through that of his son Edward VI, roughly 1530 through 1553, England was in turmoil. Traditional (Catholic) religion was methodically undermined, and sometimes violently swept away, in favor of a biblically based evangelical faith imported and adapted from European dissenters/reformers (Protestants). This thesis elucidates the process of parish-level religious change in England during the tumultuous mid sixteenth century. It does so through examining the unique dynamics and complexities of its local reception in a previously unstudied corner of the realm, the Suffolk parishes of Boxford, Cratfield, Long Melford, and Mildenhall. This thesis …

Subordinate Saints : Women And The Founding Of Third Church, Boston, 1669-1674, Melissa Ann Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

Although seventeenth-century New England has been one of the most heavily studied subjects in American history, women's lived experience of Puritan church membership has been incompletely understood. Histories of New England's Puritan churches have often assumed membership to have had universal implications, and studies of New England women either have focused on dissenting women or have neglected women's religious lives altogether despite the centrality of religion to the structure of New England society and culture.

This thesis uses pamphlets, sermons, and church records to demonstrate that women's church membership in Massachusetts's Puritan churches differed from men's because women were prohibited …

A Nun's Life : Barking Abbey In The Late-Medieval And Early Modern Periods, Teresa L. Barnes

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this project is to gain an understanding of the daily lives of nuns in an English nunnery by examining a particular prominent abbey. This study also attempts to update the history of the abbey by incorporating methods and theories used by recent historians of women's monasticism, as well as recent archaeological evidence found at the abbey site. By including specific examinations of Barking Abbey's last nuns, as well as the nuns' artistic and cultural pursuits, this thesis expands the scholarship of the abbey's history into areas previously unexplored. This thesis begins with a look at the nuns …

Fur Trade Daughters Of The Oregon Country: Students Of The Sisters Of Notre Dame De Namur, 1850, Shawna Lea Gandy

Dissertations and Theses

Ethnicity, religion, class, and gender are important elements in determining the cultural texture of society. This study examines these components at an important junction in the history of the Pacific Northwest through the lives of students enrolled in two girls’ schools established by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (SNDN) in the Willamette Valley in the 1840s. These girls, predominantly métis daughters of fur-trade settlers and their Indian wives, along with their Irish and Anglo-American classmates, represent the socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the region as the mixing that gave rise to the unique intermediary culture referred to as …

Spiritual Nourishment: A Central Christian Metaphor, Susan Sleeth Mosedale

Dissertations and Theses

Since its origins, Christianity has been pervaded by a large array of images in which the spiritual realities are symbolized as food. Such images may be not only verbal, but visual or expressed in actions. These images can be seen as expressions of a spiritual nourishment metaphor; I apply here the meaning of "metaphor" proposed by the linguist George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson: a metaphor is a concept that structures ideas and actions as well as language. This thesis establishes the spiritual nourishment metaphor as a philosophical concept and begins to explore its history within Christianity.

The spiritual …

From Pietism To Pluralism: Boston Personalism And The Liberal Era In American Methodist Theology, 1876-1953, Amos Yong

Dissertations and Theses

Boston personalism has generally been recognized as a philosophic system based upon a metaphysical idealism. What is less known, however, is that the founder of this school of thought and some of the major contributors to the early development of this tradition were committed members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The purpose of this study is to examine the contributions made by the early Boston personalists to the cause of theological liberalism in the Methodist Church. It will be shown that personalist philosophers and theologians at Boston University ushered in and consolidated the liberal era in Methodist theology. Further, it …

A Study Of Two Attempts By President Plutarco ElíAs Calles To Establish A National Church In Mexico, Roger David Gouran

Dissertations and Theses

In the one-hundred years between 1810 and 1926 there were many civil wars in Mexico. The last of these wars. La Cristiada, was not fought, as were the previous civil wars, by groups seeking political control of Mexico. Rather, the genesis of this war was a question of who would control the Church in Mexico. The war began when President Plutarco Elias Calles attempted to enforce rigorously certain articles of the Constitution of 1917 as well as two laws which he promulgated. If Calles had succeeded, he would, in fact, have created a church in Mexico controlled by the federal …

A History Of The Sisters Of St. Mary Of Oregon's Mission In Tamshiyacu, Peru 1966-1973, Pauline Rose Walbel

Dissertations and Theses

On August 17, 1961, Pope John XXIII appealed to religious communities in the United States to send ten-percent of their personnel to assist the Church in Latin America. Thousands answered his call. This unprecedented effort drew four members of the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon to the village of Tamshiyacu in the jungles of Peru from 1966 to 1973.

The purpose of this thesis ls to examine the experience of the sisters within the context of the total missionary effort and the religious changes affecting the Catholic Church in the United States and Latin America during the 1960/s.

Every Man Crying Out: Elizabethan Anti-Catholic Pamphlets And The Birth Of English Anti-Papism, Carol Ellen Wheeler

Dissertations and Theses

To the Englishmen of the sixteenth century the structure of the universe seemed clear and logical. God had created and ordered it in such a way that everyone and everything had a specific, permanent place which carried with it appropriate duties and responsibilities. Primary among these requirements was obedience to one's betters, up the Chain of Being, to God. Unity demanded uniformity; obedience held the universe together. Within this context, the excommunication of Elizabeth Tudor in 1570 both redefined and intensified the strain between the crown and the various religious groups in the realm. Catholics had become traitors, or at …

The Role Of Episcopal Theology And Administration In The Implementation Of The Settlement Of Religion, 1559-C. 1575, Caroline J. Litzenberger

Dissertations and Theses

The term, Elizabethan Settlement, when applied solely to the adoption of the Prayer Book in 1559 or the Thirty-nine Articles in 1563, is misleading. The final form of the Settlement was the result of a creative struggle which involved Elizabeth and her advisers, together with the bishops and the local populace. The bishops introduced the Settlement in their dioceses and began a process of change which involved the laity and the local clergy. Through the ensuing implementation process the ultimate form of religion in England was defined.

The Spirituality Of Pierre De BéRulle, Steven Percy Poitra

Dissertations and Theses

The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries witnessed a revival of spirituality throughout Europe. Positive theology emerged as both an instigation to and instrument for Christian humanists in their endeavor to redress the Church's fundamental relationship to the laity.

The early efforts for reform in France were discouraged by Gallicanist sympathies. Further, growing numbers of Calvinists combined with the possibility of a Protestant king led to thirty-five years of sporadic civil war.

From the 1580's and 90's, French spirituality began a period of renewal and growth. At the heart of the French experience was the famous Acarie circle among whose members …

Each In Its Own Sphere: Religion And Law In Oregon History, Alan L. Gallagher

Dissertations and Theses

The author employs research skills from law, history and religion in order to present an account of the relations of law and religion in Oregon's history from its earliest days to the present.

The Response Of The German Bishops To The Reichskonkordat, John Roy Slosar

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis focuses on the reaction of the German bishops to the Reichskonkordat, which was negotiated between the Vatican and the German government from April 10, 1933 to September 10, 1933. The paper attempts to show that the views of the episcopate were their own and did not always correspond to those of the Vatican. While secondary sources offer an important supplement, the account relies mostly on published documents. In particular, the Catholic Church documents compiled from the Reichskonkordat negotiations and the correspondence of the German bishops during the year 1933 were used most extensively.

The First Wandering Preachers, Laura Mellinger

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis attempts to trace the origins of the wandering preachers who appeared around 1100 in Europe. These were men who took it upon themselves to wander through towns am countryside, preaching a variety of messages wherever they from an audience. They are of interest in prefiguring St Francis' style, and in exemplifying the ramification of voluntary poverty styles which formed their context. They are also important for their central role in various movements of popular piety.

The Place Of Arminianism In Protestantism, Ottathengil E. Abraham

Dissertations and Theses

The author's background is not either Calvinistic or Arminian. This study was undertaken because the author felt the need of a better understanding about Arminianism and its place in Protestantism in relation to his future work. The author recognizes that the controversy between Arminianism and Calvinism goes back to the sixteenth century and still continues among Protestants today.

An Historical Consideration Of F.C. Baur, His Life, Works, And Theological Thought, Especially In Regard To His Church History And Historical Theology, Steven Norman Goetz

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines and evaluates F.C. Baur's philosophical and theological ideas as they relate to the writing of Church history and historical theology. The study is undertaken within the context of the problem of the relation between faith and history, which can be stated in more relevant categories for Church historiography as the problem of the relation between subject (faith) and object (history), and proposes that Baur's thought on this problem can be useful for the modern faith/history debate, and especially for the consideration of writing Church history.

Russian Oregon: A History Of The Russian Orthodox Church And Settlement In Oregon, 1882-1976, David B. Cole

Dissertations and Theses

The historical record of the Orthodox Church's missionary efforts in North America and of the development of a viable local church administration is extremely scarce at best. No major scholarly work exists in English covering the historical development of any of the national Orthodox jurisdictions which followed the mass immigration of Arab, Greek, and Slavic Christians to the New World. More unfortunately, few scholarly records exist of local or regional church histories. In a very real sense, until these “grass roots” histories are gathered and recorded, no truly complete history can be written on Orthodox Christianity in North America.

The …

Hegel And The Concept Of Religion In Greek Tragedy, Barbara Scot

Dissertations and Theses

A parallel can be drawn in intellectual development between ancient Greece and late eighteenth century Europe concerning the secularization of the religious myth. This parallel is illustrated in a literary mode in Greece and in a philosophical mode in Europe. In both historical situations the intellectual development of a society was posited in a delicate balance of religious mythical interpretation of human existence and in a growing assertiveness of the self-consciousness of the individual. A significant point of analogy is the similarity of the Greek tragedians’ attempt to define man in relation to the gods and Hegel’s formulation of a …