Digital Commons Network^™

Religion 102 Magic Archive, Yvonne Patricia Chireau

Digital Humanities Curricular Development

The purpose of this project is for you to learn to use digital humanities tools and methods, to generate new research, and to curate relevant subject materials for a zone of innovation in Religious Studies. For this assignment you will explore the intersections between Magic-Religion categories and identify primary sources on the same; you will sort and catalog selected items; format visual materials for presentation; collect sources and documents, images, videos, audio, and other types of files; provide research on the origins, sources, and use of these materials by practitioners and institutions.

Magic: Theory And Practice (Relg 102) Syllabus, Yvonne Patricia Chireau

Digital Humanities Curricular Development

Religion historian Owen Davies defines Magic as “the everyday employment of Religion for reasons other than spiritual enlightenment or salvation.” In this course we examine the history, theory, and meaning of Magic as a category of belief and practice intersecting with religious forms, institutions, and material cultures. Focusing on the arts of American Magic - what we will call Conjure Americana, we will look at the rise of Magic in the early modern era, from its initial formations in post Reformation European popular religion, to its expressions in English Christianity, and in colonial encounters with indigenous religions. This seminar centers …

Evolution Science And Imago Dei: A Richer And More Robust Treatment Of Theological Anthropology, Gansa Tchétongbé Cathérin Paterne

Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations

In my thesis, Evolution Science and the Imago Dei: A Richer and more Robust Treatment of Theological Anthropology, the first chapter demonstrates, from the historical analysis of the content attributed to the concept imago Dei over the centuries, that different ages in the Church have interpreted the content of that expression in different ways. From this historical analysis that the imago Dei assumes different meanings at different points in history, I justify my expectation that the term is open to ever new meanings.

With the second chapter, by exploring the evolutionary contribution to the emergence of modern human, I …

Kāḇôḏ (Glory) RûAḤ (Spirit) And Yaḏ (Hand) Divine Presence And Activity Of Ezekiel (Ezek 1-3; 8-11; 40-48) Thirdspacing The Exile And Its Implications To The Theology Of Divine Presence, Malachy Udochukwu Theophilus

Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations

In Ezek 1-3; 8-11 and 40-48, Ezekiel saw the ("visions of God"). In these visions one observes that the presence of YHWH is experienced in three different spaces: in the temple, in exile and on the mountain east of the city. These manifestations of the divine presence in different spaces challenged the traditional priestly understanding of YHWH as exclusively "tabernacled" in the Jerusalem temple. Thus in this research, I investigate, not only where God is really found, but also the implication of the movements of the (glory of God) from the sacred space to the non sacred space and back …

The Question Of Method In Theology: An African Response To Bernard Lonergan Using Bantu Theological Anthropology, Andrew Simpasa

Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations

The question of method in theology has become the locus of contemporary intercultural and cross-cultural theological investigations. For any theological system to claim credulity in the public opinion of theological discourse it must demonstrate credible methodological processes inherent in its epistemological process to affirm the validity of its knowledge claims. It is method in theology which is among the criteria used to evaluate the theological integrity of an epistemic system. This paper, therefore, endeavors to explain the existence of method(s) not only in discursive and formal theologies but also in the theologies of ordinary people and communities alike. The paper …

The Dynamics Of Conversion Of Ignatius Of Loyola As A Contribution To The Novice Formation In The Context Of Vietnam, Tang Van Nguyen

Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations

Understanding the meaning of conversion as a new way of reorientation of oneself towards God and others can empower the Jesuit novice toward the fulfillment of his vocation. For Christians and especially for Jesuit novices, understanding conversion is celebrating and actualizing conversion to God in daily life and always choosing Jesus Christ as the principle and foundation of personal transformation.

Understanding conversion as authentic self-transformation can support interreligious dialogue between Christians and other religious traditions in Vietnam. Authentic conversion leads a person to realize the forgiving and compassionate presence of transcendent Reality. Respectful interreligious dialogue also challenges one’s own conversion. …

Non-Traditional Church Involvement As A Life-Course Turning Point: Qualitative Interviews With Religious Offenders, William Hunter Holt

Dissertations

This research project conducted and then analyzed qualitative interviews from former and current addicts and criminal offenders who are voluntarily participating in the Christian faith at the same non-traditional, Protestant church. An abridged case study of this church is also provided for background and context. Life-course theory and grounded theory are utilized.

Both the offenders and this church were chosen in an attempt to better understand how the offenders’ involvement at this house of worship, along with their faith in general, have impacted them. Obtaining the perspectives of the offender is essential for three reasons. First, qualitative research conducted in …

The Catholic Spirit: Music, Media, Miracles And The Brazilian Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Samir Knego

Religious Studies Honors Projects

This project examines the Brazilian Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) and its ambivalent relationship with power. The CCR movement is visible and well-known in Brazil and has connections with Brazilian pop culture, liberation theology groups, and Pentecostalism. Despite this popular presence, it remains excluded from formal avenues of Catholic power like Church meetings and institutional representation. Around 27% of Brazilian Catholics identify as Charismatics, but 56% of Brazilian Catholic churchgoers report occasionally seeing Charismatic practices in church, which speaks to the way that, as I argue, the CCR is bringing about changes in what is considered mainstream or acceptable Catholic expression …

Anthropology & Apologetics: A Critical Analysis Of Contemporary Apologetic Method Through Their Anthropological Assumptions, Austin J. Spiller

Master of Divinity (MDiv)

This thesis argues that contemporary apologetic approaches correlate to, or derive their methods from, different anthropological models with various degrees of accuracy, and that an interdisciplinary study of humanity leads to proper conclusions for apologetic method. Three of the most utilized contemporary apologetic methods are Traditional Apologetics, Presuppositionalism, and Experiential/Narratival Apologetics. Each method reflects an assumption of human persons as thinkers, believers, or desirers, respectively. Interdisciplinary research from theology, sociology, psychology, economics, and neuroscience corroborates the anthropological assumption of humans as essentially desirers. This research leads to at least three important implications for apologetic method, including a focus on persuasion …

“I Want To Love Islam, I Really Do, But . . . ”: Islamophilic Classrooms In Islamophobic Times, Nermeen Mouftah

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This essay reflects on a critical incident that occurred during a seminar discussion about the age of Aishah at the time of her marriage to the prophet Muhammed. I take students’ discomfort with the material and their expression of emotions—especially their desire to love Islam—as an opening to think about the opportunities and challenges of working with students’ emotions in the classroom. I begin by problematizing love (or the want of it) as an Islamophilic response to students’ awareness of the dangers of Islamophobia. I then go on to entertain the possibility of embracing love as a ‘productive’ emotion that …

Religious Identity And Religious Belief: The Subconscious Religiosity Of Chinese University Students, Margot Leiner 20

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Recruitment Considerations For Christian, Dental, Short-Term Missions Relating To The Holistic Development Of Dentists, Diane K. Meyer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A painful toothache often becomes unbearable and an unsightly smile can bring distress. Since tooth decay is the most widespread, chronic disease globally, mission trips by dentists can make an incalculable difference when they offer dental treatment to under-resourced people around the world. Dental ministration opens the door to a caring witness of God’s love where, as Jesus modeled, the physical touch may promote spiritual healing. Often, the recruitment of dentists for short-term, missions is challenging. This mixed-methods, phenomenological, research study was designed to explore the gap in dental, mission research concerning the recruitment of dentists as it relates to …

Toward An Anti-Racist Theology: American Racism And Catholic Social Thought, Douglas J. Cremer

LMU Theses and Dissertations

In the writings of the Vatican, the United States and Latin American bishops, and various theologians since the 1950s, Catholic social thought has generally failed to understand the pernicious depth of the system of racial classification, discrimination, and violence in the Americas. Catholic social thought still sees racism as based on the pre-existing, valid category of "race," requiring individual conversion and social effort. What is required instead is seeing the very concept of " race" as what must be rejected as the product of a racist ideology of politico-economic oppression and developing an anti-racist theological response that overcomes and eliminates …

“Our Heaven Begun Below”: A Contemporary Theology Of Eucharistic Sacrifice In The Wesleyan Tradition, Geoffrey C. Moore

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

In 1984, The United Methodist Church adopted a new eucharistic rite which asserts that Christians “offer ourselves…as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us.” The language of sacrifice employed here is much stronger than that of any of the previous rites used by the Church, or any of its successors, as far back as the first English rite written by Thomas Cranmer. While the Cranmerian rite calls for a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, the new rite calls for the communicant to offer themselves as a “holy and living sacrifice,” a change which calls for …

Islam, Democracy, And The Leadership Role Of Women In Government, Leea Collard

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between Islam, democratic government, and the governmental leadership of women in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT). In order to understand female leadership in this region, the compatibility between Islam and democracy is analyzed. This occurs through the examination of Sharia Law and democratic principles within Islam. Furthermore, a statistical analysis of the successes of democracies in the region will be presented. Each nation will be categorized by the constitutional provisions entrusted to its female citizens. Thus, this thesis will present the legality of the political participation of women in each of the …

That All May Hear: How Indigenous Church Music Encourages Church Growth In Africa, Trevor Yoakum

Great Commission Research Journal

This article demonstrates how indigenous church music can be an effective tool in promoting healthy church growth. After defining indigenous church music through the insights of ethnodoxology, the author explains how it engages local hearers through their own conceptual categories. This cognitive interaction is relevant in that it augments comprehension of biblical themes and content. But it also impacts hearers through the various levels of their worldview. The article ends with a case study of how a consortium of African theological institutions and IMB missionaries are developing orality-based indigenous music to teach, refute heresy, and evangelize the continent.

Why Is Las Vegas Busy Everyday? A Behavioural Analysis Of Impact Investors’ Attitude And Decision-Making Process, Isha Shah

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Remarking a discrepancy in the statistics of a growing influence of impact investment and yet its restrictive inclusion in the financial market has encouraged this inductive research to take an alternative approach to address the impact investment market. In an emic perspective, this study aims to assess the factors motivating individuals and institutions to pursue impact investment. Further, it also investigates some elements that guide the decision making of the investors in this field. The qualitative nature of the research demands exceptional secondary sources and it is rendered more credible with the inclusion of three relevant primary sources. The analysis …

Mysticism And Syncretism On The Island Of Java, Ryan Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

On the Indonesian island of Java, there is a religious tradition referred to as Kebatinan, which can be seen as the mystical branch of the indigenous religion of Java called Kejawen. However, unlike the mystical traditions of other religions, mysticism is critical to the entire popular practice of Kejawen and is not simply reserved for a select few. There are, on the other hand, a select number of people who fully understand the philosophical notions associated with Kebatinan and so can still be considered the “mystics” of the Kejawen faith. What these principles of mysticism have ultimately manifested as in …

The Sword & The Mask: Toward A Confessional Lutheran Account Of Spiritual Warfare, Jon Furgeson

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Furgeson, Jon C. “The Sword and the Mask: Toward a Confessional Lutheran Theology of Spiritual Warfare.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2020. pp. "[Number of pages]"

This dissertation, a work in Trinitarian & ecclesial theology, seeks to recover the foundations of a full doctrine of spiritual warfare. Considering seeming disparate voices such as Walter Wink, C. Peter Wagner, John Kleinig, Gustav Wingren, and Leopoldo A. Sánchez, this dissertation asserts a constructive and integrative approach to spiritual warfare wherein the warfare is only enacted by the fallen powers of the sinful nature, the fallen world, and the fallen angels. This warfare is …

Filled With 'The Fullness Of The Gifts Of God': Towards A Pneumatic Theosis, Kirsten Guidero

Dissertations (1934 -)

Across ecclesial lines, Christian language remains permeated by themes of imitative participatory union with God. However, ecclesial communions divergently retrieve these themes. Eastern Orthodox communities defend a particular doctrine of deification. Western traditions—Catholic or Protestant—continue to wrestle with the notion, at times negating or sublimating it into participation or likeness.How might these communities construct an ecumenical doctrine of deification? Each tradition’s model recedes into a dense thicket of competing metaphysical frameworks, spiritual priorities, and terminology. Mindful of the freight bound up in trying to discover parity between traditions that have developed their structures apart from each other, this project …

Religious Schism: A Case Study Of Social And Political Critique In Sāmoa, Alexis M. M. Zilen

Student Publications

Examining religious schism within Sāmoa in order to demonstrate that schism of Christianity within Sāmoa, of charismatic-Pentecostal churches from traditional mainline churches, represents a social critique. By unifying under a reformed church environment, which mimics existing religious and cultural systems, Sāmoans are challenging their economic, social, and political positionality, while upholding the traditional framework of the fa’aSāmoa, Sāmoan way of life. This work highlights how individuals within Sāmoa navigate increasingly complex social, political, and economic power dynamics. Much of the focus of explores how individuals exercise religious agency, formulated through a created Sāmoan cosmology, to challenge larger structures of oppression …

Dancing Theology - A Construction Of A Pneumatology Of The Body, Kristin Kissell

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Dance is the language of the soul. Dance, as a theological source, can remind us of who we are in and with the living perichoresis of the Trinity. Dance, as embodied art, can provide us with a new way of viewing and discussing pneumatology and that we too, in our incarnate reality, participate in perichoresis. Within this work I seek to answer the questions of how dance is a source of theology, why a pneumatology of the body is significant, and how dance provides a framework for a pneumatology of the body. The creation of a pneumatology of the body …

The Imago Dei As A Response To Consumerism And Individualism Within The Church, Carine George

LMU Theses and Dissertations

The pastoral problem being addressed has to do with the culture of consumerism and individualism that have influenced the culture of the Church. Within Western society, the “ism” culture, consisting of factors such as: hedonism, consumerism, materialism, secularism, relativism and individualism, has become very prominent. Christians often operate no differently than non-Christians, and this is problematic since Christians are called to be salt for the earth and light for the world (Matthew 5:13-16), a people set apart. In John 15:19, we are told that we were not made to be of this world, so we need to stop being influenced …

Unveiling God In Counseling: The Compatibility Of Christian Theology And The Modern Therapeutic Process, Kelvin Jamaal Mack

Senior Theses

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the compatibility of Christian theology and a modern therapeutic process informed by secularism. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate that the conceptualization of an active God in the therapeutic process is essential for counselors and clients who adhere to the Christian faith. This conceptualization is either missing or altered by therapeutic processes that operate under the worldview assumptions of secularism. This is what is described as the veiling of God. To explore this issue, a four-tiered analytical approach has been invoked. First, a brief history of secularism and its major …

An Abundance Of Good Things : Paul Ricoeur's Cultural Imagination And A Phenomenology Of Deuteronomism, Tad C. Blacketer

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Parallel Spaces Of Migrant (Non-)Integration In Singapore: Latent Politics Of Distance And Difference Within A Diverse Christian Community, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores how the spatial practices of churches can lead to the (non-)integration of migrant communities. Whilst churches bring migrants and non-migrants together in space and time, so too can they cause them to become divided along ethnic, national, linguistic and/or class-based lines. In such cases, migrants can become integrated into a community of other migrants, which can discourage integration into the church-at-large, or into society more generally. These practices of (non-)integration give rise to parallel spaces of Christian praxis that can lead to the reproduction of distance and difference between (and within) migrant and non-migrant communities. To illustrate …

The Priority Of Homiletics In Preaching Teams: A Strategy For An Effective Homiletical Process For Christ-Centered, Gospel-Driven, Expository Sermons, Bob C. Greene

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this thesis project is to propose an effective strategy for preparing Christ-Centered, Gospel-Driven, Expository Sermons (CGES) by developing an effective methodology for redemptive sermon preparation. Many contemporary churches today often have multiple preaching pastors and preaching teams, many of which have little to no seminary training in homiletics, yet even those that do, recognize that a seminary education does not necessarily mean that competency in preaching exists merely due to the education or degree earned. Due to talented and gifted pastors with multiple approaches to sermon preparation, it is imperative that preachers have a proper homiletical process, …

The Role Of Leading Worship In The African Church, Emmanuel Olugbenga Adu

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Despite the surge in worship leadership, some African evangelical churches have historically placed little emphasis on the role of leading worship. A review of worship on worship leadership in the African evangelical church reveals little information specifically useful for the training and mentoring of African congregational worship leaders. Therefore, this project researched and presents a primary argument for the practical training of worship leaders in the African evangelical congregation and brings attention to the lack of emphasis on worship leadership. Moreover, the thesis investigates the proposition not only for the role of worship leading in the African church to target …

Roman Catholicism In Ukraine: The Contemporary Situation, Social Acceptance, And Social Service, Tetiana Havryliuk, Maryna Lukashenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article investigates the historical peculiarities of the formation and specificity of the current stage of development of Catholicism in Ukraine. It considers the spiritual, socio-cultural, economic, and political prerequisites for the resumption of the activity of the Roman Catholic Church during the revival of Ukraine's independence in the 1990s. A quantitative comparison of dioceses since the end of the last century has been undertaken and their patterns of growth have been identified. The main achievements of the largest Catholic churches in the country since Ukrainian independence have consisted in building its ecclesiastical structures and expanding its community networks and …

Dynamics And Growth Prospects Of The Protestant Denominations In Ukraine, Irina Vasilyeva, Vita Tytarenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The intensity and nature of changes in Protestant communities in Ukraine is analyzed on the basis of broad empirical material (statistics, sociological surveys). The confessional specificity of the spread of Protestant communities in the Ukrainian territories is revealed, as well as their dynamics, geographical conditionality, and more. Changes in institutional, socio-political, cultural, and educational spheres of life of Protestant churches in modern Ukraine are recorded. Social legalization, the legal recognition of these movements as the churches and religious organizations equal to other traditional churches, as well as dynamism of Protestantism in evangelical and missionary sphere and public life, have contributed …