Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

The Responsible Professional: Vocation And Economic Life, Martha E. Stortz, Tom Morgan

Intersections

No abstract provided.

The Bible And The Curriculum Of American Public Schools (K-12) In The Twenty-First Century, Mark Chancey

Religious Studies Research

This article describes the various ways in which the Bible appears in the curricula of American public schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Table Rules: A Response To Americanist Approaches To The Book Of Mormon, Kevin Christensen

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

Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon is an ambitious collection of essays published by Oxford University Press. By “Americanist” the editors refer to their preferred mode of contextualization: to situate the Book of Mormon as a response to various currents of nineteenth- century American thought. The “table rules” in this case determine who gets invited to the table and what topics can be discussed, using what types of evidence. The approach is legitimate, and the contributors offer a range of interesting perspectives and observations. Several essays base their arguments on the notion that the Book of Mormon adapts itself …

“By Study And Also By Faith”, J Gordon Daines Iii

BYU Studies

At their inception, universities were places where all branches of learning—both the sacred and the secular—were studied. At the great medieval universities, for instance, faith and academic excellence were intertwined,¹ and this strong connection continued in the universities of the New World. Most American research universities began as religiously affiliated colleges whose missions were to develop Christian character and foster faith in order to prepare men for the ministry or work in the government.² But, beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing over the course of the twentieth century, the vast majority of these research universities abandoned …

Rawah, Rawah, Brandi Kilmer

TSOS Interview Gallery

No abstract provided.

Theodramatic Themes And Showtime In Nassim Soleimanpour’S White Rabbit Red Rabbit, Charles A. Gillespie

Catholic Studies Faculty Publications

This essay engages the experimental playwright Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit Red Rabbit alongside the theological dramatic theory of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Every Soleimanpour play can only happen once. Actors receive the script as they begin the show; any given actor must perform Soleimanpour’s drama as a cold reading unique in history. I propose “Showtime” to theorize this theatrical temporality, exemplified by White Rabbit Red Rabbit and shared by von Balthasar’s theology, on analogy to stage space. This article further examines the play’s themes of identity, self-sacrifice, free obedience, and writing about time through a “theodramatic structural analysis” keyed to …

Envisioning Catholicism: Popular Practice Of A Traditional Faith In The Post-Wwii Us, Christy A. Bohl

Theses and Dissertations--History

Marian apparitions in the United States have occurred in ever-increasing numbers since World War Two, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. These apparitions occupy a unique space in religious life, as they provide opportunities for Catholics to practice their faith outside of the Church hierarchy while still maintaining their status as faithful Catholics, often placing women in prominent positions. Although apparitions are an important part of faith for thousands of American Catholics, most Americans and Catholics are unaware of how widespread this movement is. This dissertation takes a comparative approach to examine a selection of apparition events, illuminating the pilgrimage …

The Afterlife: An Exegetical And Theological Analysis Of Christ's Discourse In Luke 16: 19-31, Pop-Coman Ioan

Master's Theses

Problem

The parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus, in terms of its complexity and construction, is one of the most difficult decipherable parables that Jesus uttered during His time among men. With much tact, we will try to answer a question that has profound implications: Does the narrative in Luke 16: 19-31 support the existence of life after death?

Purpose

We carefully examine the Christ’s discourse in Luke 16: 19-31 in order to identify those suggestive parallels between this account of Jesus and the culture of the time, which would help us to decode more clearly both the …

Book Reviews And Books Received

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Leviathan's Knot: The High Priest's Sash As The Cosmological Symbol, Andrei Orlov

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Twenty Years Of The Religious Educator, Brad Wilcox, Timothy G. Morrison

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Where were you twenty years ago? That was before the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the heightened airport security that followed. Do you remember when the vote between George W. Bush and Al Gore dangled on a few hanging chads in Florida? President Gordon B. Hinckley was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2000 and dedicated the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. Faith Hill was singing “Breathe,” and the Yankees beat the Mets in the 2000 World Series. The Sixth Sense was an Oscar-nominated movie that had us on the edge of our …

The Isaiah Map: An Approach To Teaching Isaiah, John Hilton Iii

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Isaiah is an extremely important prophet—his words were endorsed by the Savior himself (see 3 Nephi 23:1). Because Isaiah’s words can be difficult to comprehend, religious educators have a significant responsibility to help their students understand them. Perhaps the best opportunity to teach Isaiah in a Sunday School, seminary, or institute setting is during a course in the Old Testament. The next best opportunity is when teaching the Book of Mormon. “Nineteen of Isaiah’s sixty-six chapters are quoted in their entirety in the Book of Mormon and, except for two verses, two other chapters are completely quoted. Of the 1,292 …

A Jershon Classroom, Scott Royal Bagley

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

A powerful tool for recruiting students can be our classroom environment. The scriptures give us a wonderful example of this idea. After the people of Ammon are given the land of Jershon, they are soon joined by religious refugees from among the Zoramites (Alma 35:6–9), fugitives from among the Lamanites (Alma 47:29), and Lamanite wartime prisoners (Alma 62:17, 27–29). The people of Ammon accept all of these people as their own. But the question is this: what was it about the people of Ammon that attracted these societal refugees? As we examine the people of Ammon and how they cared …

Part 1: The Structuring Of Nephite Style, Brant Gardner

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

The Book of Mormon tells the story of the Nephite people. That story began on plates the first writer, Nephi, made by hand. Their story ended on plates the last writer, Mormon, made by hand.1 Nephi created one record that chronicled the reigns of the kings and a second that covered the ministry.2 Mormon wrote in the official Nephite chronicle of the reigns of the kings3 but wrote a second work for a different and more sacred purpose.4

Full Issue

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

How Thick Is The Stained-Glass Ceiling?: An Exploration Of Heteronormativity In Religious Circles, Hannah Rae Smothers

Masters Theses

The 2012 National Congregations Study found that only 11.4% of the total clergy in the United States were women (ARDA 2012). As the congregation size grows, that number declines further, with data indicating only 3.4% of congregations with 1,000 or more members have a female leader. The number of women religious leaders increased by less than one percent between 1998 and 2012. These statistics work well to outline a phenomenon for female religious leaders, their inability to break the stained-glass ceiling. Many religious groups in the United States allow women to become ordained leaders. However, some of the largest religious …

Clinician Experiences With Religious, Spiritual, And Nonreligious Beliefs In Psychotherapeutic Interactions, Carolyn Rochelle Cowl-Witherspoon

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Psychologists are ethically bound to respect the belief systems of their clients while practicing within appropriate boundaries of competence regardless of whether they hold different beliefs than their clients. Further, though there may be a disparity between clinicians’ and clients’ beliefs, most clients expect meaningful integrations of religious and spiritual beliefs, values, and traditions into psychotherapeutic interactions. To meet the needs and expectations of a religiously or spiritually oriented client base, psychologists must maintain appropriate levels of competency within this complex domain. But clinicians are hindered by inaccurate, incomplete, or inconsistent levels of education and training specific to the ethically …

Village-Temple Consciousness In Two Jaffna Tamil Villages In Post-War Sri Lanka, Pathmanesan Sanmugeswaran

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

This dissertation investigates how community rebuilding is occurring in a gravely damaged, post-conflict society. Specifically, it looks at how people in two villages in Tamil, Hindu, Jaffna, Sri Lanka, are using their ‘sense of place’ and ‘place-making practices’ or what I call here their ‘village-temple consciousness’ or village consciousness, to maintain and rebuild their communities after war to make them, once again, places in which they feel a comfortable sense of belonging. This is a comparative study because Inuvil and Naguleswaram were affected differently by the Sri Lankan civil war. That is, while Inuvil, was physically damaged and socially disrupted …

The Isaiah Map: An Approach To Teaching Isaiah, John Hilton Iii

Faculty Publications

I saiah is an extremely important prophet—his words were endorsed by the Savior himself (see 3 Nephi 23:1). Because Isaiah’s words can be difficult to comprehend, religious educators have a significant responsibility to help their students understand them. Perhaps the best opportunity to teach Isaiah in a Sunday School, seminary, or institute setting is during a course in the Old Testament. The next best opportunity is when teaching the Book of Mormon. “Nineteen of Isaiah’s sixty-six chapters are quoted in their entirety in the Book of Mormon and, except for two verses, two other chapters are completely quoted. Of the …

‘The Open Letter To The Evangelical Church’ And Its Discontents: The Online Politics Of Asian American Evangelicals, 2013-2016, Justin K. H. Tse

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Recent treatments of Asian American evangelicals tend to focus on a shift of attention from their identity-based attempts to found autonomous congregrations to online self-publications. I evaluate this new trend by considering two episodes in Asian American evangelical self-publication: the 'open letter to the evangelical church' in 2013 and the Killjoy Prophets initiative from 2014-2016 when their leader Suey Park disappeared from the Internet. I argue that while Asian American evangelical online self-publication is intended to reform evangelicalism, its discursive nature leads to debates among Asian American evangelicals about whether the cyber-discourse about them is adequately representational. This sobering analysis …

Some Hermeneutical Principles For The Biblical Historian, Paul J. Ray Jr

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

While the grammatical-historical method of interpretation, which focuses on the languages of the biblical text and its historical backgrounds to arrive at meaning, has long been the interpretive procedure of choice in many faith communities, modern methods of biblical study have tended to move away from text-historical, to text-exclusive or more reader-centered hermeneutics. Unfortunately, this trend has either basically removed history from the interpretive arena or left the field open to simplistic and sensationalistic historical explanations. Since one’s view of biblical history is predicated on background matters such as conceptions of revelation, inspiration, the Bible, and even history itself, I …

Contours Of European Adventism: Issues In The History Of The Denomination On The Old Continent [Review] / Höschele, Stefan, And Chigemezi N. Wogu, Ed., Aleksandar S. Santrac

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

Book Review

“I Don’T Want To Hear Your Language!” White Social Imagination And The Demography Of Roman Corinth, Ekaputra Tupamahu

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

This article aims to deconstruct the hidden pervasive whiteness in biblical scholarship and to propose another way to reimagine the linguistic dynamic of Roman Corinth from an Asian American perspective. It highlights the legal and historical interconnectedness of whiteness and the dominance of English. English is a critical marker of whiteness in the United States. In this context, immigrants are expected to conform to and assimilate themselves with whiteness by performing English. This particular racialized context has influenced and resulted in a scholarly historical reconstruction of immigrants in Roman Corinth as “Greek speaking im/migrants.” Immigrants can come from many different …

“Spirited” Engagement: Latin American Faith And The Construction Of Emancipative Pentecostalism, David Luckey

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Pentecostalism is a prominent form of Christianity around the world that is increasingly pervasive in the Global South. One of the persistent issues that obscures accurate understanding of the movement is the question of whether such a spiritually-oriented faith gives attention to social realities. This dissertation identifies a broad spectrum of Latin America Pentecostal social- ethical engagement in order to complicate stereotypes and reveal a natural orientation toward public witness. It shows that Pentecostalism is too complex for broad generalization, and it draws on leading voices from within the movement to articulate a call to increasing efforts for social justice.

The Religious-Philosophical Legacy Of Ahmed Zaki Validiy, Muminjon Xojaev

The Light of Islam

This article analyzes the social and social life during the time of Ahmad Zaki Validi Togan, the religious-philosophical, socio-political views of A. Validi.

The emergence of the need to study the history of Islam and Christian doctrine, religious and philosophical thoughts by Ahmаdom Zaki Validi. Socio-political views of Zaki Validi on the political situation during the Soviet totalitarian politics based on an analysis of his views on the spiritual degradation of society, the moral impoverishment of people and the dependent of communist ideology among people of the former Soviet Union.

Explaining The Sectarian Violence In The Middle East: A Conflict Analysis Of The Case Study Of Saudi Arabia And Iran, Ahmed Elsayed Eltally

Dissertations and Theses

The Middle East has been rife with conflicts, extremism, and sectarianism in recent decades. Many explanations attribute the rise of sectarianism in the Middle East to the historical divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims, while others attribute it to power or identity concerns. This thesis explores the factors that contributed to the rise of contemporary sectarianism in the Middle East through the case study of Saudi-Iranian rivalry. Drawing on the literature on the history of the Middle East, Islam, theories of international relations, and conflict studies, it underlines how Saudi Arabia and Iran use sectarianism to further their interests. This …

Let’S Be Friends: Black Theology, Climate Change, And Trust, Nathaniel Holmes Jr.

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

Climate change is a worldwide issue with ramifications for all ethnic groups. Yet, there is a dearth of engagement of climate change issues by Black theology and Black churches, even though the effects of climate change are predicted to affect African Americans and other racial minorities to a greater extent than other groups. Given the history of mistrust of the uses of scientific research and practices that have themselves caused negative impacts within the African American communities (e.g., Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment), this disconnect is not surprising. Furthermore, some view the attention given to anything other than criminal justice reform, police …

Regrouping In The Clearing: Resisting Liturgiam Authenticam And Reconsidering An African American Rite, Kenneth L. Crowe Hamilton

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

In light of the move to the right manifested in the recent changes to the Roman Rite, this essay seeks to add an Africentric and postcolonial critique to other recent liturgical and linguistic critiques of the new rite by liturgy scholars and pastors. I argue that the new translation is an attack on not only Vatican II principles but also on black Catholic theological principles, the black Catholic community, and oppressed populations in general. The essay seeks to locate the racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism behind the imperialist nostalgia of Liturgiam Authenticam by revisiting the 1960s and the issues and …

The Grand Narrative Worldview: A Narrative Inquiry Into The Impact Of Biblical Metanarrative Teaching In Liberty University’S School Of Divinity Global Studies Program, Chesed Anne Dent

Masters Theses

There is limited research and literature on the effectiveness of narrative-centered academic learning environments that utilize biblical metanarrative as a tool for teaching. Literature exists showing that story is an effective tool within education, within discipleship, and within training for cross-cultural effectiveness. This narrative inquiry research study focused on Liberty University’s Global Studies Program, a program that overlaps these distinct areas into one platform. Global Studies uses the power of story through the Grand Narrative of Scripture to teach students academic content, equip them as messengers of God’s Story, and help them assess and understand their own narratives within a …