Christian Denominations and Sects Commons^™

Snake Iconography, Mythology, And The Meaning Of The Bronze Snake Image In Numbers 21:4–9 And 2 Kings 18:4, Mark A. Awabdy

The Asbury Journal

This study pursues the question of why Yhwh, who in the Decalogue prohibits the creation and worship of divine images, would order Moses to create a snake image as the mode of healing snake bites in the desert (Num 21:4–9). This question is legitimated as the Judahites subsequently burn incense to Moses’ bronze snake, which Hezekiah destroys as an act of loyalty to Yhwh. Adopting a definition of meaning from symbolic action theory in cultural psychology, this essay explores what the bronze snake image would have meant for the earliest audiences of these stories. In the core of the essay, …

The Shema As Total Meaning Of Reality: Tradition, Freedom, And Verification In The Pedagogy Of Deuteronomy, Paavo Tucker

The Asbury Journal

This paper will analyze the pedagogy of Deuteronomy in conversation with the educational theory of the Catholic scholar Luigi Giussani. Giussani argues that tradition – as the total meaning of reality, which from a Christian perspective is rooted in the living presence of Christ- should be taught by a process of verification that guides the student, through the exercise of freedom and inquiry, into personal conviction that the tradition coherently accounts for reality. Reading the pedagogy of Deuteronomy through the lens of Giussani’s theory of education will highlight ways in which the instruction of Moses in Deuteronomy initiates the next …

Why Bother With Historical Criticism?: Lessons For Biblical Studies From The Philosophy Of History, Drew S. Holland

The Asbury Journal

This article seeks to integrate insights from the philosophy of history to support the continued use of the historical-critical method in biblical studies. Though the historical-critical method has been muchmaligned within biblical criticism over the past seventy years, this essay attempts to demonstrate the value of investigating ancient Israel’s past as part of a full fledged biblical criticism

The Southern Baptist Convention And World War Ii, David Crum

Selected Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Eugenicists, Quakers, And Rufus Jones, 1893-1938, David Harrington Watt

Quaker Religious Thought

During his lifetime, Rufus Jones’s skills as a writer, speaker, and organizer won him a great many admirers. In the first half of the twentieth century, Jones was one of the most-admired Quakers in the world. Jones was also, as scholars such as Leigh Schmidt and Matthew Hedstrom have shown, one of the more influential liberal Protestants in the United States. In the early decades of the twentieth century, a great many American liberal Protestants avidly embraced what they thought of as the “science” of eugenics. Thus far, however, Jones’s attitudes toward eugenics have not attracted a great deal of …

Oregon Yearly Meeting And The Peace Testimony, Part Ii: Relationship With The American Friends Service Committee, 1938-1954, Cherice Bock

Quaker Religious Thought

Reflecting its twin heritage in the nineteenth century holiness movement and Quakerism, Oregon Yearly Meeting (OYM) grappled with its identity as it weathered the tumultuous years surrounding World War II (WWII). In Part I of this article, I presented findings from interviews and archival research regarding OYM men’s draft choices in these decades, as well as the emphasis placed on the Quaker peace testimony by the yearly meeting. I concluded that OYM held a strong and relatively integrated understanding of themselves as both Quakers and evangelicals throughout this time period, consistently displaying evangelism, social action, and conscientious objection to war …

Contributors-Quaker Religious Thought, No. 136, Jon R. Kershner

Quaker Religious Thought

No abstract provided.

Review Of Drew Lawson, Movings Of Divine Love: The Love Of God In The Letters Of John Woolman (San Francisco: Inner Light Books, 2020), Jon R. Kershner

Quaker Religious Thought

John Woolman (1720–1772) is well-known to many Quakers. The tailor, schoolteacher, farmer, and Quaker minister worked to free humans from enslavement at the hands of his fellow Quakers. He criticized and rejected the machinations of the British imperial economy and he refused to pay war taxes. He also wrote a journal that has been received as a classic of spiritual autobiography. While less read than his journal, Woolman also wrote essays, many of which were published during his lifetime. Woolman also wrote many letters. Unfortunately, these letters are not readily available for general consumption. They are mostly in manuscript form …

Sbms: A Visual Exploration Of Liberian Identity, Gabriel B. Tait

The Asbury Journal

This article explores the use of visuals by missionaries and social scientists to communicate their encounters in sub-Saharan Africa. It offers an alternative perspective by incorporating the Sight Beyond My Sight (SBMS) visual research methodology created by Gabriel Tait. SBMS is a participant research method that employs photography as a way to understand culture and identity. The implications of this body of work, and the method it provides, presents a much-needed contextual lens for missionaries, visual ethnographers, and general persons who are interested in communicating their contexts in partnership with the cultures they are encountering and impacting. The implication of …

From The Archives: Gilbert James And The Fight For Interracial Justice- The Papers Of Gilbert James And The Shelhamer Family Papers, Robert Danielson

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

No Longer Strangers And Aliens, But Fellow Citizens: Ephesians 2:12, 19 In Conversation With Hellenistic Philosophy, Philip N. Richardson

The Asbury Journal

This essay compares Paul’s use of aliens, strangers, and citizens language in Eph 2:12, 19 in the wider context of the epistle with its figurative use in select Hellenistic Philosophical writers. Whereas philosophers view all, or at least the virtuous, as citizens of the universe, Ephesians sees all as alienated from God, unless reconciled by Christ. Philosophy called the virtuous to live in accord with its path, disdaining the body. For Ephesians, Christ’s new humanity in Christ can live God’s way in the body by the mystery revealed and empowered by the Spirit.

Bringing Evidence To The “Anti-Magic” View: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation Of Acts 19:11-20, Joy Vaughan

The Asbury Journal

In Acts 19:11-20 two main events are set beside one another. The first event tells of the miracles performed by God through the hands of Paul. The second event is the story of the failed exorcism attempt by the sons of Sceva. This article argues that Luke’s purpose in the juxtaposition of the two events is to clarify for the audience the difference between magic and miracle. Key evidence for this interpretation is found in the intertextual relationship between Luke’s terminology and ancient magical literature. Additionally, the rhetorical feature of synkrisis (encomium/invective) further supports the thesis. Luke does not just …

Global Megachurch Studies: The State, Evolution, And Maturation Of A Field, Chad Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Over the past decade, the field of megachurch studies has matured and become global in its scope and orientation. The number of texts produced on megachurches since 2010 is nearly triple the number produced before that date, and many of the newest texts decenter North America. Megachurch studies today, therefore, is a properly international and cosmopolitan field. The article has four interrelated aims: (1) to provide a thorough overview of major themes and work in megachurch studies, with special emphasis on works emerging in the last decade; (2) to update two excellent state-of-the-field reviews by Stephen Ellingson (in 2008 and …

Guest Co-Editors Preface, Jason A. Myers, David B. Schreiner

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

By What Law: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Romans 8:1–4, Jason A. Myers

The Asbury Journal

Traditional interpretation of Rom 8:1-4 has failed to adequately understand Rom 8:1-4. This paper proposes a unifying reading of "law" and supports an unfolding theme within Romans, that of obedience. The rhetorical features of amplification present in 8:1-4 highlight the need for a consistent use of the term νομος. This allows a proper understanding of δικαιωμα in v. 4 that refers to the realm of moral behavior as described in the law and shows how Paul sees the Spirit guiding his communities to fulfill the "just requirement" of Mosaic law.

Lucretia Mott: Active Imagination And James 1:21, Mark Bredin

Quaker Religious Thought

Wayne Rollins comments: “The technique of active imagination has a long-standing relevance for the scriptural interpreter.”1 Christopher Bryant observes that such an approach to the Bible “helps us to focus our attention on God’s presence within, in the soul’s centre… The way to read Scripture is not only to ponder the meaning of words and to recreate in imagination the scenes described but to listen to the Word, to God himself speaking in the heart.”2 Quaker abolitionist and suffragist Lucretia Mott’s (1793-1880) emphasis on self-reflection, meditation, her capacity to recall texts, and her ability to embrace empathy, combined to produce …

Quaker Youth Ministry And Theopraxis In A Multicultural Context, Nim Njuguna

Quaker Religious Thought

"Theology is exciting. It is about God’s word, God’s world and God’s people. It is vitally important for the church to nurture young Christians into thinking, speaking and writing about God and the world, and it is even more important that the Church listen to their voices. Theology Slam encourages us to do just that: listen to God, listen to the world, and listen to the voices emerging within the Church, so we can join into God’s work in the world today.” —Archbishop Justin Welby – Archbishop of Canterbury 1 As Quakers, we believe there is that of God in …

The Global Quaker Witness On The Holy Spirit And Peacemaking, Stephen W. Angell

Quaker Religious Thought

“That Spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil, and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world; that the spirit of Christ which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward Weapons neither for the Kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdom of this world.”

This 1661 statement endorsed by Quaker founder George Fox, and eleven other leading Quakers, ultimately presents a challenge, not just to members …

Unsettling: On Palestinian Quaker Theology, Sa’Ed Atshan

Quaker Religious Thought

In this essay, I will reflect on the remarks I shared in January 2022 on the “Decolonizing the Quaker Peace Testimony” panel of the Quaker Theological Discussion Group and in July 2022 on the “Invoking Unsettling” plenary of the Friends General Conference.

Unsettling has many different meanings and layers, whether it is thinking about unsettling settler colonialism or in unsettling some of our assumptions that we may not be comfortable grappling with. Settler colonialism has unfolded all over the world and unfortunately it continues in the present, not just in the United States.

For me, the context of Palestine/Israel hits …

Decolonizing The Quaker Peace Testimony In The Global South, Cristina J. Montiel

Quaker Religious Thought

I was born in the Philippines, and except for several international academic and research fellowships, I have been living in MetroManila for my whole life. I am a peace and political psychologist in the Psychology Department of Ateneo de Manila University, a Jesuit-owned academic institution. I identify my religious orientation more as a Jesuit Quaker rather than a Catholic Quaker. In the first half of my adult life, I was in a political movement against the Marcos dictatorship. I founded and led Lingap Bilanggo (Care for Prisoners), a national movement for the freedom of all political detainees. Many of my …