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The Practical Orthodoxy Of Balthasar Meisner: The Content And Context Of His Theology, David R. Preus

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Preus, David R. “Balthasar Meisner’s Practical Orthodoxy: The Content and Context of his Theology.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2018. 397 pp.

Throughout his tenure at Wittenberg from 1611 to 1626 Balthasar Meisner (1587-1626) contended with defining “theology” in terms of a genuinely practical enterprise. His challenge was to preserve Luther’s evangelical theology, along with its metaphysical and ethical implications, in the crucible of current political realities and shifting intellectual trends. Though drawn from Scripture, Luther’s theology had certain metaphysical and ethical dimensions that simply could not be ignored by the first two generations after his death. In the interest of …

An Historical Analysis Of The Relationship Between Organized Religion And Dramatic Theory, Emily Bubeck

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

Theatre artists and organized religion both use the same tactics and strategies in order to connect to their audiences. This isn’t a coincidence: Over the course of human history organized religion and performance traditions developed, grew and evolved together. Performance practices grew out of religious traditions and often incorporated elements of spiritual celebration and religious ritual into their practices. In ancient Greece dramatic practices developed as a celebration of the god Dionysus, Sanskrit theatre of Ancient India evolved as a means of communicating Hindu myths to the masses and Noh theatre of ancient Japan started as shamanistic dance traditions. During …

A Letter To Dr. Sacha Walicord, Chris Gousmett

Pro Rege

Editor's Note: Dr. Chris Gousmett's letter is a response to Dr. Sacha Walicord's review of Gary North's book, Christian Economics in One Lesson in Pro Rege, vol. 46, no. 1, September 2017.

Nature Of Sin, Dylan Halter

The Kabod

Sin is inescapable. Since the Fall, mankind has been doomed. God continuously provided His people an opportunity for repentance, but the cataclysmic effects of sin continued. Understanding the nature of sin is one of the most important doctrines for apologetics, evangelism, discipleship, and pastoral teachings. Upon firmly applying hermeneutics, historical tradition, theological exegesis, and practical applications, followers of the Way are more equipped to do the Will of the Lord. The serpent succeeded in the garden, but the Savior defeated death on the Cross, bringing about redemption and restoration for all of humanity.

Unaccompanied Refugee Children At The U.S. Border; A Moral Response Considering The Works Of Thomas Aquinas, Linda Dakin-Grimm

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

No abstract provided.

Creating A Cruciform Examen Of The Parish: The Need For Culpability And Discipleship At St. --’S Catholic Church, Emilie Grosvenor

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

No abstract provided.

The Prospect Of Human Spiritual Unity Through The Cosmic Story, Philip Novak

Collected Faculty Scholarship

Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have noted that, “we seem to be moving beyond any religious expression so far known to the human into a meta-religious age that seems to be a new comprehensive context for all religions.” That “new comprehensive context” is of course now known as Big History -- a.k.a. the Evolutionary Epic, Universe Story, or New Cosmic Story—the astonishing contemporary synthesis of modern sciences that tells a coherent story of the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago to the present.

Yet with the notable exception of the writings of Berry and …

Religion, Media, And Marginality In Modern Africa, Felicitas Becker, Joel Cabrita, Marie Rodet

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

In recent years, anthropologists, historians, and others have been drawn to study the profuse and creative usages of digital media by religious movements. At the same time, scholars of Christian Africa have long been concerned with the history of textual culture, the politics of Bible translation, and the status of the vernacular in Christianity. Students of Islam in Africa have similarly examined politics of knowledge, the transmission of learning in written form, and the influence of new media. Until now, however, these arenas—Christianity and Islam, digital media and “old” media—have been studied separately.

Religion, Media, and Marginality in Modern Africa …

The Shari'a Courts Of Mogadishu: Beyond "African Islam" And "Islamic Law", Ahmed Ibrahim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, based on a year and eight months of fieldwork, is a historical ethnography of a Shari‘a-based movement which appeared in Mogadishu, Somalia within a year after the complete disintegration of the central government in 1991. The movement originated when religious authorities and “traditional” elders established centers in various neighborhoods in Mogadishu to deal with the vacuum of power after the fall of the state. Since Shari‘a structures of authority and discourse were integral to the formation and functioning of the centers, they became known as Shari‘a courts. My work on the Shari‘a courts intervenes in the literature on …

Strategies Of Salvation: Evangelical Christian Praxis And Sites Of Degradation In Sri Lanka, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper demonstrates how disasters create sites of degradation – potent spaces of upheaval and engagement – that are readily filled and exploited by evangelical Christian groups. In doing so, it explores how disasters provide opportunities for evangelical groups to gain a foothold in localities where Christian presence, and evangelical praxis, may otherwise be restricted. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Sri Lanka throughout 2010–2011, two comparative case studies are presented that reveal the strategies of evangelical Christian praxis in and through sites of environmental and political degradation. Specifically, the case studies reveal how evangelical groups pursue ‘outside‐in’ and ‘inside‐out’ …

Indian Dalits And Hindutva Strategies, Seth Schoenhaus

Denison Journal of Religion

“Indian Dalits and Hindutva Strategies” by Seth Schoenhaus, ’18. The author tracks the evolution of India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party alongside Scheduled Caste (specifically Dalit) self-conception to elucidate the BJP’s strategies to attract Dalit voters, who have historically not been receptive to the BJP’s muscular Hindutva thrust. Importantly, appropriating and recasting the Hindu story of Lord Ram in a nationalist light and engaging in historical revisionism regarding Dalit communal leader B.R. Ambedkar has proven vital in engaging with the Dalit electorate. These methods, combined with lingering sentiments of Sanskritization in many Dalit communities and increasing stratification with higher rates …

Ex-Votos From The Church Of São Lázaro And The Votive Healing Process, Natalia Marques Da Silva

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

Votive objects or actions, which are widely referred to as ex-votos, are made in thanksgiving to deities or miraculous beings for graces received. In an ex-voto, the completion of the vow constitutes it as a votive offering. The process of promising and completing a votive acts as a coping mechanism utilized both by individuals and by their communities. This article explores the votive traditions and related coping mechanisms found in the church of São Lázaro, in Salvador, Bahia through field work conducted in 2009.

From Guest To Host: Cultural And Language Conflict In The Korean American Catholic Parish, Irene H. Park

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Pastoral ministry in the context of Korean American Catholic parishes brings many challenges, including that of cultural conflict. Frequent miscommunications occur between the Korean speaking and English speaking groups who coexist in these parishes. Considering some of the socio-cultural and theological factors of this issue, which are explored in this paper, a pastoral plan utilizing social media is proposed.

Ecclessiology Today And Its Potential To Serve A Missionary Church, Kristin Colberg

School of Theology and Seminary Faculty Publications

This article engages the theme of the 2017 meeting of the American Society of Missiology: “Missiology’s Dialogue Partners: Practitioners and Scholars Conversing about the Future of Mission.” It seeks to contribute to that conversation by providing a survey of the discipline of ecclesiology with an eye towards how it might learn from the field of mission and how it might inform it. This exploration begins by defining some of the goals, methods, and boundaries of the field of ecclesiology. It then considers three critical issues at the forefront of ecclesiological work today: 1) questions emanating from the ecumenical sphere; 2) …

Long Vacation In Bk, Doll Chao

Theses and Dissertations

The diary of a transcontinental search for self and place, a journey through obtuse politics, cultural oppression, and loneliness - this film is the document of a lost generation of Taiwanese youth and its conflict with China, swirling in a transpacific gyre of sound, image, and text.

Insider Movements Among Muslims: Reflections On Their History, Identity, And Theology, Richard Doss

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"The enormity of the task still facing Christian missions is almost incomprehensible. Nearly 4.1 billion people are still in need of the gospel (Johnstone 2014:65). In some ways, the task of reaching the unreached is most difficult among Muslims. With nearly 1.3 billion adherents, Islam represents a significant challenge to the spread of the gospel. Or does it? Given the complex nature of the relationship between Christianity and Islam, could it be that the inability of Christian missionaries to shed the social, cultural, and political trappings of the West and Christendom have limited the effectiveness of the gospel? Might the …

Faith-Based Social Entrepreneurship: The Integration Of Faith And Business For Sustainable Social Impact, Christine Beech

Business as Mission Theses and Dissertations

Faith-based nonprofit organizations face myriad challenges in securing a sufficient donation base within a restricted pool of donors. This funding challenge often limits their ability to conduct their mission. To offset this challenge and model self-sufficiency, many faith-based organizations are looking to evolve into hybrid platforms that operate as faith-based social entrepreneurial ventures and manage to a triple bottom line of social good, financial impact, and spiritual mission. Yet even with the best of intentions, successfully merging a for-profit business model into a preexisting nonprofit organization often fails, even before the faith-factor is in play. This study of social entrepreneurship …

Spiritual Formation In The Graduate School Of Clinical Psychology At George Fox University, Rodger K. Bufford, Nancy S. Thurston, Kathleen Gathercoal, Marie-Christine Goodworth, Lynn H. Holt

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

At its inception, the training model in the Graduate School of Clinical Psychology (GSCP) at George Fox University was informed by the approach inaugurated at Fuller Theological Seminary School of Psychology in the 1960s. In the original model, training in Christian religion/spirituality and theology accompanied training in professional psychology. In the interim, our culture, psychological knowledge, perceived psychological needs, and training programs have changed greatly. Here we report changes in religion/spirituality (RIS) training and integration over the last two decades. We describe our current spiritual formation structure and process, and program evaluation efforts. Over the past several years the GSCP …

The Path Toward Religious And Cultural Inclusivity: The Need For Critical Inquiry, Nina Marie Ricci

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

The following thesis seeks to explain the essential practice of critical inquiry in the religious sphere. It explores Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim attitudes on the subject of critical inquiry and assesses how these varying stances affect engagement in interreligious dialogue. The thesis presents the impact a religion has on a society’s perception of other religious and cultural practices. Overall the thesis argues for more open-minded attitudes and the need for religious and cultural inclusivity by promoting the proposition that practicing critical inquiry is a necessity to moving forward.

A Case For Cavalletti In The Classroom: The Salt Approach, Anne-Marie Irwin

Theology Conference Papers

The Scripture and Liturgy Teaching Approach (SALT Approach) is the product of a PhD study completed in 2017. Taking Montessorian principles and Sofia Cavalletti’s work, the SALT Approach is built upon the Christian anthropological understanding of the human person. Its core pedagogies address the need facilitate pondering, respect for each person, and authentic choice-making. The SALT study investigated and addressed elements impacting on these pedagogies. It demonstrated that SALT’s holistic approach has the potential to work successfully within diversely populated schools, and that it can meet the accountability demands. Furthermore, it offers a paradigm for religious education very much in …

Review Of The Bible, Mormon Scripture, And The Rhetoric Of Allusivity, By Nicholas J. Frederick, Cory Crawford

Mormon Studies Review

In this monograph Nicholas Frederick tackles the directional literary relationship between canonical Mormon scripture and the King James Bible with a methodology more secure and transparent than has been applied in the past. He advances substantively the study of Latter-day Saint sacred texts by trying to get an analytical handle on what attentive readers detect easily, namely, that the rhetorical space created and occupied by Joseph Smith’s canonized writings, produced in English, is inseparable from the English of the King James Bible in ways that complicate the question of historicity and translation. For Frederick, detecting and decoding allusion in LDS …

“Arrows Fletched From Our Own Wings”: The Early Church Fathers And The “Delphi Of The Mind”, Daniel J. Crosby

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Delphi, one of the most important sanctuaries of the classical world, presented the Early Church Fathers with an interesting challenge. Although it continued to be an institution of local importance, by their time, the Oracle had long since been a provincial backwater, requiring Imperial patronage, at times, which revived the sanctuary temporarily, but not to its former glory and importance. It was not the actual institution that presented hindrance to the advancement of Christianity, nevertheless the Early Church Fathers attacked it with arguments ranging from the irreverent to the obscene. The interesting fact is that none of these indictments were …

Tragic Creation: Hope For The Future—Moltmann's Creative (Mis)Reading Of Hegel's Philosophy, John Michael Bechtold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christian theology, in its many and varied forms, and to the detriment of both the church and the world, is often built upon a shaky epistemological foundation. In this dissertation, I describe this shaky foundation by the term 'insular universalism'. The oxymoronic nature of the term is both intentional and telling. A theology which strives for, or unwittingly arrives at, a position which is here being called 'insular universalism' achieves neither while rejecting or misunderstanding the complexity of both. When considered theologically, insular universalism could be simplistically described as the idea that "one cultural expression of the religion is exclusive …

No Common Ground: Competing Worldviews At Mato Tipila, Wendy Anne Felese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project analyzes a legal conflict (Bear Lodge Multiple Use Assn v Babbitt 2 F. Supp. 2d 1448) at Mato Tipila, a significant place for the Lakota (Sioux) community and with which they have a historical and longstanding relationship. Commercial and recreational rock-climbing enthusiasts who make use of it and the tourists who arrive in droves each year to visit, call this place Devils Tower. The case centered on whether the government violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by instituting a climbing ban during the month of June to accommodate Lakota ceremonial obligations. In recent historical developments, the …

A Critical Interpretation Of Olivier Roy: On Globalization, The Cosmopolitan And Emerging Post-Secular Religiosities, Joshua Rey Ramos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is that secularization transforms religion into religiosity. In other words, the secular breaks apart religion, or rather, 'deculturates' religion from a cohesive, collective body embedded within a particular society and within a traditional culture towards an individuated, and existential experience of faith within the autonomous religious subject. There are various reasons for this shift, as there are various consequences. Globalization, which is modernization writ large, is the dominant paradigm through which I conceptualize these changes. The theorist whose work I use as a lens to interpret secularization, religion and societal transformation is Olivier Roy. Roy's theories are of …

Minds, Bodies, And Objects, Samuel M. Brown

Mormon Studies Review

As I wander ever more deeply into the semantic labyrinths of early Mormon translation, I find myself confronting ubiquitous objects that matter for more than their mere physicality. Seer stones, interpreters, gold plates, Egyptian papyri, locks of hair, underclothing, and scores more. Mormonism is saturated with such objects, pregnant with what some scholars call “abundance” or “real presence.” Mormons don’t call them “relics,” afraid to conjure (that fraught word!) Catholic altars, corpses, and catacombs. Mormons are no idolaters, so there must be no relics. But we who think academically about Mormons may do well to acknowledge the deep kinship Mormons …

Christ And Antichrist: Reading Jacob 7, Adam S. Miller, Joseph M. Spencer

Maxwell Institute Publications

The Book of Mormon’s Jacob chapter 7 focuses on a dramatic showdown between Sherem, a defender of the Mosaic tradition, and Jacob, a prophet who views the Mosaic law as dead in light of what he calls “the doctrine of Christ.” The papers collected in this volume offer theological readings of this Book of Mormon chapter that draw on Jacob 7’s structure and literary details to illuminate key themes like law, family, prayer, mourning, and messianic time.

Includes contributions from Jana Riess, Kimberly M. Berkey, Adam S. Miller, Jacob Rennaker, Jeremy Walker, Joseph M. Spencer, Jenny Webb, and Sharon J. …

Two Years Of The Literature Of Missions, Frank W. Price

Papers

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The Missionary Today, Donald Mcgavran

Papers

No abstract provided.

Mission Literature Of The Past Biennium: From The Spring Of 1956 To The Spring Of 1958, Frank W. Price

Papers

No abstract provided.