Digital Commons Network^™

Review: Megan Sanborn Jones. Contemporary Mormon Pageantry: Seeking After The Dead. Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan Press, 2018., Jill Hemming Austin

Mormon Studies Review

Outdoor historical pageants hold a long and steady presence in the informal and grassroots culture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are several reasons for the robust health of this tradition: theology that implicates living church members in the salvation of their ancestors; an enthusiastic proselytizing culture that seeks to spread the good word; and a tendency towards large-group events and performance. In her book, Contemporary Mormon Pageantry: Seeking After the Dead, Brigham Young University theatre professor Megan Sanborn Jones takes on the task of examining four of the largest church pageants in the United States: …

Four Nineteenth Century Disciples Of Christ Scholarly Quarterlies: An Index Of The Christian Quarterly (1869-1876), The Christian Quarterly Review (1882-1889), The New Christian Quarterly (1892-1896), And The Christian Quarterly (New Series) (1897-1899), Marvin D. Williams

Stone-Campbell Indexes

No abstract provided.

Ministering Across Fault Lines Of Belief And Community, Daniel Ellsworth

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

David Ostler’s book Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question addresses the daunting task of ministering to people who have grown disillusioned with the core doctrines and the community of believers they encounter in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is perhaps the most challenging ministering effort a leader or member of the Church can undertake, and Bridges provides valuable insight into the process of disaffection as well as specific things that Church leaders and members can do to create a healthy environment for members to work through challenges to their faith. This review discusses those strengths of …

The Digo Mission Of The Anglican Church Of Kenya : Essays In Commemoration Of 114 Years Of Mission Work In East Africa (1904-2018), Julius Mutugi Gathogo

Academic Books

-- Culture, identity and power in the Digo mission / Ferdinand Manjewa M'bwangi
-- First European missionaries in Digo land / Bryson K. Samboja
-- Pioneer Digo-Duruma Christian converts / Japheth Muthoka
-- Christianity in Viongwani / Robert Maneno
-- Entry of the first missionaries in Digo land / Peter Mwangi
-- Christian-Muslim relations in Digo land / Evans Mwangi
-- Unsung heroes and heroines in the Digo mission / Julius Mutugi Gathogo
-- Women's participation in the Digo mission / Lawrence Tsawe-Munga Chidongo
-- Protestants and Pentecostal churches / Joshua Itumo Kiilu
-- Challenges and prospects in the Digo …

Navigating Complexity In Our World : Public Theologies For Everyday Life, Gregg A. Okesson, Amanda L. Allen

Academic Books

No abstract provided.

America’S Bishop: The Life Of Francis Asbury, Darius L. Salter

Academic Books

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Musings On The Birth Of The Savior Jesus Christ, Kristine Wardle Frederickson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

In this essay, Kristine Wardle Frederickson muses about “the babe born in Bethlehem,” and who he was — and is — in consideration of those who nurtured, loved, and welcomed the infant Jehovah to Earth. Certain women played critical roles in preparing him for his infinite and eternal Atonement, and that preparation began long before Jesus came to Earth. Four women stand out as devoted mentors, disciples, and witnesses of Jesus Christ’s mission, and of his sublime perfection even on that first Christmas day: Heavenly Mother, Mary, Elisabeth, and Anna. At Christmastime, their witnesses are worthy of deep contemplation as …

Chapter 8: Nephi Organizing, Brant Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

As the author of these two books on the small plates as well as the beginning of the book of Lehi on the large plates, Nephi began the Nephite record-keeping tradition. Principles that Nephi used to create his text were copied and continued until Mormon’s time.

Chapter 12: Book Of 2 Nephi, Brant Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The first, and perhaps most important structural element in 2 Nephi is that there is a 2 Nephi at all. The text we have from the small plates of Nephi are holographic. That is, they are in the hand of the original writers. There is no Mormon standing between the original text and our final version, such as we find in the material from Mosiah to 4 Nephi (or Moroni’s treatment of Ether’s record). We have the chapters just as Nephi created them. We also have the anomaly of two separate books by the very same writer, something that never …

Section 2: Nephi The Writer Chapter 7: Nephi Preparing, Brant Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

We have the Book of Mormon people because of Lehi. Nephi began the tradition that eventually allowed Mormon to create the Book of Mormon. Lehi led his family to the New World, but Nephi defined his descendants as a record-keeping people. The Nephites were a people of the Book both because Nephi (and his brothers) preserved a record-keeping tradition (the brass plates) and because he began a new one after arriving in the New World. Mormon may be most directly responsible for the Book of Mormon, but the records Mormon used (and many of the organizational structures that Mormon used) …

Chapter 11: Book Of 1 Nephi, Brant Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Nephi begins his book according to traditions he learned in his scribal training.277 He adds a colophon,278 which had two functions: describe the contents of the book and to identify that author. The synoptic header prior to chapter I provides the outline of the events to be covered in Nephi’s first book: the departure of the family from Jerusalem, the journey into the wilderness, the return to Jerusalem for the brass plates, the acquisition of wives from Ishmael’s family, the arrival at Bountiful, the building of a ship, and the journey to the new world. Evidence from Mormon’s use of …

Death To Seducers! Examples Of Latter-Day Saint-Led Extralegal Justice In Historical Context, Craig L. Foster

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Some people have suggested a strain of violence within nineteenth- century Latter-day Saint culture as violent as and perhaps more so than that of most Americans around them. Critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints point to a few well-known acts of extralegal violence as evidence of a culture of violence that permeated the early Church. But were these examples of violence really out of the norm of nineteenth-century American society? This article looks at examples of extralegal punishment for certain crimes, placing them and the examples of extralegal punishment in Utah within a greater historical and …

Powerlessness And A Social Imaginary In The Philippines: A Case Study On Bahala Na, Yohan Hong

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Crying Out Together: Forming A Hermeneutic Of Powerful Suffering, Harley Burgess

MA in Religion Theses

Process theology, along with its connection to questions of suffering and theodicy, presents a perspective that is largely absent within biblical scholarship. Similarly, a lack of clear cohesion with the biblical text is an evident critique of process theology. A hermeneutic that is directly informed by process-oriented passibilism meets a need that is present in both biblical scholarship and process theology, allowing for a deeper understanding of biblical depictions of suffering. This thesis aims to incorporate the theological conclusions of passibilist process theology into a new hermeneutical strategy that will allow for a more comprehensive examination of suffering in the …

Ways, Proofs, And The Intelligibility Of God: Thomas Aquinas’S Five Ways As Leading Into The Intelligibility Of An Existing God, Bruce John Paolozzi

CGU Theses & Dissertations

There is some question about how to understand Thomas Aquinas’s five ways of demonstrating that God exists. Often philosophers and theologians portray Thomas as a strict Aristotelian rationalist with a strong emphasis on syllogistic epistemology. Against this view a competing existential, metaphysical, and theological understanding of the five ways has been gradually gaining ground, beginning in the early 20th century, due to the work of existential Thomists such as Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, and Joseph Owen. This understanding has been expanded more recently in the work of John Wippel and others. The rise of the existential view has led to …

Said The River: The Confluence Of Ecotheology And Water, Margaret Harrington Ferris

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Environmental water issues are increasingly in the consciousness of environmental advocates, as well as scientists and engineers. Water experts have approached water issues from a scientific and engineering framework, which has led them to preference material and technical solutions. Yet those solutions have been insufficient. The interdisciplinary field of water studies has been critical of the scientific-engineering approach. Several water scholars have posited that water issues are social-human problems first, and material-technical problems second. They call for alternative approaches that emphasize reconstructing water as a necessary precursor to formulating effective, enduring solutions to environmental water issues. Likewise, ecotheological scholars and …

Tongue Of Flesh - Tongues Of Fire: Enoch’S Encounter With The Heavenly Court In 1 Enoch 14-16 In Comparison With The Encounters In The Hebrew Bible, Christopher David Clarke

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The connections between Enoch’s encounter with the heavenly court in 1 Enoch 14-16 has long been connected with the similar encounters of Micaiah ben Imlah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. All four of these encounters depict a meeting between a mortal and the heavenly court, including the enthroned Deity, that results in an individual receiving a commission to fulfill a task decided upon by the court. Although most scholars recognize the similarities between Enoch’s ascent into heaven and the encounters in the Hebrew Bible, these scholars have largely concentrated on the connections between Ezekiel’s and Enoch’s encounters. This …

The Revealing Love Of God: A Systematic, Hermeneutic, And Phenomenological Approach To Thinking Well About The Love Of God, Daniel L. Nelson

CGU Theses & Dissertations

“The medium is the message:” theological reflections on the idea that God is love. I am proposing that the idea of the self-revelational nature of God’s being functions, among other ways, rhetorically, such that the content of revelation (God’s love) determines the rhetorical mode of its communication (giving orders, inviting, begging, etc.). The three aspects of rhetoric that Kenneth Burke emphasizes in A Rhetoric of Motives—the use of identification, that it is addressed and, as such, is convincing (persuasive)—are examined in terms of revelation. Chapter one seeks to clear the way for what is commonly understood as special revelation by …

Becoming Friends Of God: Practicing Philosophy Of Religion And Theology In And For A Radical Spirit Of Individuality And Humanity, Brandon Vermilya Yarbrough

CGU Theses & Dissertations

We want to live well. For us, coming to live well involves learning to think well. The extent to which we can make the transition from death and misery to life and blessedness will depend on the extent to which we learn to truly think the transition. We are not free to truly opt for life unless we can truly distinguish between death and life, and we are not free to truly opt for blessedness unless we can truly distinguish between misery and blessedness. Toward these ends, we have much work to do. It is not the case that every …

Indigenous Healing In New Zealand: An Anthropological Analysis Of "Traditional" And "Modern" Approaches To Well-Being, Lillian T. Brice

Honors Theses

Drawing on contemporary anthropological approaches used by scholars of well-being and medical anthropology (i.e. Michael Jackson and Lisa Stevenson), I explore how indigenous healers in New Zealand blend “traditional” and “modern” elements to establish a creative and inclusive system. Specifically, I explore the use of herbal treatments, ritual chanting, and ceremonies that encapsulate Māori cultural values. I also explore the impact of biomedicine and New-Age wellness approaches on indigenous healing. I argue that Māori healing moves beyond the binary of “tradition” and “modern” as healers merge the past and present and combine the foreign and native. My research is based …

Mobilizing The Social Power Of Iconic And Performative Texts For Justice And Reform, James Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

In the ten years of its existence, SCRIPT has succeeded in promoting and publishing an increasing variety of scholarship on iconic and performative texts. Culturally specific studies have provided the basis for comparative theorizing about the phenomena. This body of scholarship has put us in a better position to analyze current events involving iconic books and performative texts. It can also enable us to make creative suggestions for strengthening movements for justice and social reform by ritualizing iconic and performative texts. Here, I provide three examples of how to employ SCRIPT research to strengthen contemporary movements for social and environmental …

Biblical Rhetoric Of Separatism And Universalism And Its Intolerant Consequences, James Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

The long history of the Jewish and Christian use of separatist rhetoric and universal ideals reveals their negative consequences. The Hebrew Bible’s rhetoric about Israel as a people separated from the Egyptians and Canaanites is connected to Israel’s purity practices in Leviticus 18 and 20. Later communities wielding greater political power, however, employed this same anti-Canaanite pollution rhetoric in their efforts to colonize many different parts of the world. Separatist rhetoric was used to protect small Jewish communities in the early Second Temple period. The Christian New Testament rejected many of these purity practices in order to makes its mission …

The Second Bible Of Charles The Bald: Patronage And Intellectual Community At St. Amand, Riccardo Pizzinato

School of Art & Design Faculty Publications

Among the manuscripts produced for Charles the Bald, King of West Francia (843-77) and Holy Roman Emperor (875-77), the so-called Second Bible (Paris, BnF, MS Lat. 2) holds a special place. Illuminated in the scriptorium of the abbey of St. Amand between 870 and 873, the Bible—unlike all the other manuscripts presented to the king during this period—contains no human figures or royal portraits. It exhibits instead large initials patterned with geometric and zoomorphic designs. In addition, the volume opens with a long poem dedicated to Charles the Bald and written by Hucbald (ca. 840–930), master of the monastery school …

Childhood Religious Stress As A Predictor Of Adult Substance Use Disorders Among Sexual Minorities, Jennifer A. Schindler

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers have taken considerable interest in the relationship between religious stress in childhood and substance use disorders in adulthood among sexual minorities because more individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, and bi/pansexual have a substance use disorder compared to heterosexuals. However, researchers have not yet completed an integrated analysis of religious stress, mental health, and age of awareness among sexual minorities. This study was important now because the societal climate has shifted to more extremes of intolerance and less acceptance for sexual minorities. The purpose of this study was to examine religious stress as a predictor variable for substance use …

God Is An Undocumented Border Crosser, Harold J. Recinos Ph.D.

Apuntes: Reflexiones teológicas desde el margen hispano

Immigration is one of the biggest civil and human rights issues of our time. Global migration patterns reveal today that one out of every 35 people around the world (200 million; larger than Brazil or the fifth largest nation in the world) live in a region other than their homeland, while one of every seven persons residing in the United States is foreign born. Today, the total immigrant population living in the United States equals 47 million persons and undocumented immigrants represent nearly 12 million among them. In this brief essay, I will focus on the humanity of immigrant newcomers …

Crisis 3-Crisis En La Vida, Marcos Kempff

Crisis y luto

Crisis 3-Crisis en la vida

Luto 5-Palabras Que Ayudan, Tricia Lott Willford

Crisis y luto

Luto 5-Palabras que ayudan

Children And Childhood In The Bhāgavata Purāṇa And Its Theatrical Traditions, Makoto Takata

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Lost & Found: New Harvest, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, a great crossroads of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens …