Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Political Character Of Adventist Rhetoric Until The End Of The Civil War, Jeffrey Boyd Smith

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

This thesis attempts to account for the emergence, development, and function of Seventh-day Adventist apocalyptic rhetoric within its social context. As the title indicates, the argument is that the rhetoric was political in character, having been derived from the apocalyptic rhetoric of American "civil religion," which originated in the colonial wars with the French during the eighteenth century. After tracing the formation of Adventist rhetoric from William Miller's preaching of the Second Coming to John N. Andrew's interpretation of the third angel's message found in Revelation 14, the author concludes with an analysis of this rhetoric's influence on Adventist behavior …

The Albigensian Heresy And The Gnostic Tradition, John Stine Penman

Masters Theses

That the Albigensian heresy represents a resurgence of early Christian Gnosticism is the thesis of this work. The study defines Gnosticism in terms of its pattern of prevalent characteristics and traces the course of Gnosticism and its emergence as the Albigensianism of the Middle Ages. Using the finding of Hans Soderberg's La Religion des Cathares: Etudes, sur le gnosticisme de la basse antiquite et du moyen age as a point of departure through the analysis of documents discovered since 1949, the study shows that Gnosticism and the Albigensian heresy represent a continued tradition of religious expression as a recognizable alternative …

The Heritage Of Faith: An Historical Evaluation Of The Holiness Movement In America, Craig Charles Fankhauser

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This work traces the holiness movement from the Biblical Day of Pentecost, when the disciples of Christ first received the Holy Spirit, to the founding of independent holiness denominations in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In the eighteenth century the main emphasis of this perfectionists movement centered around the teachings of an Anglican priest, John Wesley. Wesleyan doctrine stressed two distinct religious experiences--justification (God forgiving individuals their sins) and sanctification. The latter cleansed the believer's heart from original sin and made him ready for heaven.

American holiness proponents founded the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784 and in …