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Christianity

Series

2019

Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Modern Intolerance And The Medieval Crusades [Excerpted From Whose Middle Ages?], Nicholas L. Paul Oct 2019

Modern Intolerance And The Medieval Crusades [Excerpted From Whose Middle Ages?], Nicholas L. Paul

History

Whose Middle Ages? is an interdisciplinary collection of short, accessible essays intended for the non-specialist reader and ideal for teaching at an undergraduate level. Each of twenty-two essays takes up an area where humans have dug for meaning into the medieval past and brought something distorted back into the present: in our popular entertainment; in our news, our politics, and our propaganda; and in subtler ways that inform how we think about our histories, our countries, and ourselves. Each author teases out the stakes of a history that has refused to remain past and uses the tools of the academy …

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Fractured Lives, Newfound Freedoms? The Dialectics Of Religious Seekership Among Chinese Migrants In Singapore, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong Oct 2019

Fractured Lives, Newfound Freedoms? The Dialectics Of Religious Seekership Among Chinese Migrants In Singapore, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores the negotiations involved in the process of Chinesemigrants converting to Christianity in Singapore. For many Chinesepeople, migration involves being exposed to religion for the first time,and for some, it involves them converting to Christianity. In Singapore,the conversion of Chinese migrants to Christianity occurs in a context of‘shared’ Chinese ethnicity, which can provide both bridges and barriersto the formation of Chinese Christian identities and communities. This‘shared’ ethnicity causes many Christian groups in Singapore to targetChinese migrants in their evangelisation efforts, which can result inmigrant and non-migrant Chinese communities being formed andfractured through religion. Drawing on qualitative data, four …

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Haiti’S Pact With The Devil?: Bwa Kayiman, Haitian Protestant Views Of Vodou, And The Future Of Haiti, Bertin M. Louis Jr. Aug 2019

Haiti’S Pact With The Devil?: Bwa Kayiman, Haitian Protestant Views Of Vodou, And The Future Of Haiti, Bertin M. Louis Jr.

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This essay uses ethnographic research conducted among Haitian Protestants in the Bahamas in 2005 and 2012 plus internet resources to document the belief among Haitian Protestants (Haitians who practice Protestant forms of Christianity) that Haiti supposedly made a pact with the Devil (Satan) as the result of Bwa Kayiman, a Vodou ceremony that launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803). Vodou is the syncretized religion indigenous to Haiti. I argue that this interpretation of Bwa Kayiman is an extension of the negative effects of the globalization of American Fundamentalist Christianity in Haiti and, by extension, peoples of African descent and the …

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The Attitudes Of Christians Towards Homosexuality, Transsexuality And Transgenderism, Ryan Tack Jun 2019

The Attitudes Of Christians Towards Homosexuality, Transsexuality And Transgenderism, Ryan Tack

Senior Honors Theses

The different attitudes Christians have towards transsexual, transgender, and homosexual behaviors have long been an area in need of investigation. To further the relevant library of research, an anonymous online survey was distributed through SurveyMonkey that attempted to see how Christians felt and how these attitudes compared to those of other groups. Ultimately, attitudes regarding transsexual and transgender behaviors showed a strong trend towards neutrality. Attitudes towards homosexuality showed a strong trend towards neutrality with an additional trend towards positivity.

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Social Justice Through The Lens Of The Cross: A Case For A Biblical Foundation Of Social Work, Allison P. Kasch Apr 2019

Social Justice Through The Lens Of The Cross: A Case For A Biblical Foundation Of Social Work, Allison P. Kasch

Senior Honors Theses

Social work values social justice, as the profession promotes the well-being of society and the rights each person holds. Although social justice is a core value of social work, it is necessary to address the value’s foundation, and questioning the “why” behind social justice calls for a deeper understanding of social work. Using the “Inside-Out” apologetic approach demonstrates how the secular grounding of social work neglects to provide the foundation required to make claims on the necessity of social justice. A Christian foundation, however, offers the grounding needed to support the values and mission of social work, and it is …

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Disjunctures Of Belonging And Belief: Christian Migrants And The Bordering Of Identity In Singapore, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods Apr 2019

Disjunctures Of Belonging And Belief: Christian Migrants And The Bordering Of Identity In Singapore, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Migration results in people that are different from one another living in closer physicalproximity. Proximity increases the chances of encountering difference, and can lead to boththe formation of new communities, and the strengthening of old. As a religion that claims tointegrate people into a trans-ethnic, trans-territorial faith community, Christianity encouragessuch encounters, whilst Christian groups play an important role in mediating them.Disjunctures of belonging and belief are the outcomes that arise from encounters withdifference within spaces of Christianity. Drawing on 100 interviews conducted betweenAugust 2017 and February 2018, this paper unravels these disjunctures through a focus on theinterplay between migrant and …

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Immigration In The Context Of Religion With Case Studies Of France And Hungary, Melissa Garand Apr 2019

Immigration In The Context Of Religion With Case Studies Of France And Hungary, Melissa Garand

Honors College

In a backdrop of rising nationalism and far-right populism, the position of refugees and asylum seekers in the European Union (EU) since the 2015 immigration crisis has been placed under stress in both policy and practice. The identity of many of these recent immigrants as Muslim has further compounded the barriers faced in the immigration process as religiously motivated forms of marginalization through policy, practice, and rhetoric have been increasing in salience. This context allowed for the research question driving this thesis to develop as: How does the relationship between immigration and religion shape the experience for Muslims asylum seekers …

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An Alcohol Questionnaire And Referral Tool For Baptist Churches, Rita D. Moore Apr 2019

An Alcohol Questionnaire And Referral Tool For Baptist Churches, Rita D. Moore

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Alcohol addiction is a pervasive ill within our society with detrimental bio-psycho-social outcomes. Unfortunately, the Baptist churches or more specifically those churches who are members of the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGVA) are not immune to seeing the devastation of this disease, including the spiritual impact. Pastors may find themselves in the role of “first responder” unprepared to fully address this issue. This study explored, through a web-based questionnaire, how those churches associated with the BGVA are currently addressing alcoholism and if pastors would find a referral tool helpful to connect members with professional therapists. It is widely accepted …

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Endangered Danger: Christianity, Affect, And Harmless Snakes In Samoa, Ariel Abonizio G. S. Apr 2019

Endangered Danger: Christianity, Affect, And Harmless Snakes In Samoa, Ariel Abonizio G. S.

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Candoia bibroni (Pacific Boa), is a non-venomous Samoan snake that recently become an endangered species, possibly due to human killing on sight. This interdisciplinary research investigates how Pacific Boa came to be perceived as dangerous animals that need to be killed. Following snake tracks through the history of Samoa and into the present, this research suggests that the relationship between Samoans and the Pacific Boa questions the simple binaries of real/imagined, material/semiotic, subjective/objective, and material/immaterial. Particularly with the introduction of Christianity by missionaries in the early-1800s, the Pacific Boa snake came to inhabit the liminal space between these apparent …

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Religious Urbanism In Singapore: Competition, Commercialism And Compromise In The Search For Space, Orlando Woods Mar 2019

Religious Urbanism In Singapore: Competition, Commercialism And Compromise In The Search For Space, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores the recursive relationship between religious praxisand urban environments. It advances the concept of “religious urbanism” to showhow urban environments play an active role in shaping the praxis of religion,and how religious groups adopt secular logics in response to the pressures ofurban environments. Such logics have given rise to new, more pragmatic forms ofspatial reproduction that lead to the desecularisation of space. Desecularisationinvolves religious groups diminishing the secular properties of space, ratherthan attempting to achieve any lasting notion of sacredness. Drawing on therestrictive religio-spatial context of Singapore, I demonstrate howfast-growing religious groups are forced to compete, commercialise, andcompromise …

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Evangelical Faith And Culture In The Lives Of Vietnam’S Upland Hmong - 1987-2017, Jim Lewis Jan 2019

Evangelical Faith And Culture In The Lives Of Vietnam’S Upland Hmong - 1987-2017, Jim Lewis

Biblical and Theological Studies Faculty Works

This paper centers on the contemporary conversion movement to Christianity among the Hmong of the Northern Mountainous Region (NMR). Taking place within the brief scope of only 30 years, religious change among the 1.2 million highland Hmong in Vietnam’s fourteen provinces has resulted in some 330,000 declaring they have exchanged many traditional beliefs for faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They have embraced substantially the same faith as the Tin Lanh Church, which first came to Vietnam in 1911, one of Vietnam’s six officially approved religions. It is reasonable to claim that a mass movement of this magnitude among a …

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Consumer Capitalist Christmas: How Participation In Christmas Frames Us As Religious Subjects, Shelby Burroughs Jan 2019

Consumer Capitalist Christmas: How Participation In Christmas Frames Us As Religious Subjects, Shelby Burroughs

Religion: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier every year. It starts with the music that plays on the radio, then retail stores begin to drape their shelves with red and green streamers, followed by Christmas movies running on every other channel. Every December, Christmas feels almost inescapable. The holiday manages to find its way into every facet of public life in the United States. Christians and non-Christians alike find themselves exchanging gifts with friends and loved ones on the 25th of December every year. Christmas is able to be so pervasive because of how unassuming it is. You participate in …

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The Y-Factor: Christian Librarians Or Librarian Christians?, Jeffery S. Gates Jan 2019

The Y-Factor: Christian Librarians Or Librarian Christians?, Jeffery S. Gates

Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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