Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Goemai/Ankwei Religiosity: Understanding Indigenous Divinity In Relation To Christianity, Edward Muge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Postcolonial/decolonial thinking developed in response to modernity’s colonial logic that glorified and universalized the Western locus of enunciation, subjectivity, and history. The prioritization of Western epistemology, hierarchization of being based on race, gender, and religion, and the universalization of Western Christian religion relegated all other modes of being, knowing, and accessing the Divine to the periphery. For a long time, indigenous people have accepted the Western linear worldview that makes them the exemplars of the whites (Euro-Americans) in their primordial state of Western history and development. The goal of the Western colonial matrix of power is the subsumption of …

Akan Traditional Religion And Catholicism In Dialogue: Envisaging A Paradigm Shift In The Theology Of Marriage In Postmodern Ghana, Daniel Adjei

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The changing phases of religions, cultures, and world history in postmodernity call on the Catholic tradition to be religiously and culturally interreligious. The identity and mission of the Church can no longer be defined in a Eurocentric, triumphalist, or exclusivist term as in colonial times. As the Church expands to new religio-cultural and socio-political territories, the theological principles of dialogue, interculturality, listening, and inculturation must guide her mission. This dissertation, tracing the historical, cultural, and theological development of interreligious and cultural dialogue in the Catholic Church, argues that the Catholic Church of Ghana must engage religious and cultural diversity with …

Contestant Theology: Toward A Play Theology Of Religions, Greg Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How can a Christian theology of religions navigate the interreligious dialogical problems of 1) the inability to fully articulate faith, 2) the lack of persuasive religious language, 3) the reality of violence among religions, and 4) the liquescent “truth” of modern times? This dissertation answers this question with a theology of religions considered through the lens of play theology. Contestant theology navigates these problems as 1) a space of cooperation and contest which 2) incorporates assertiveness (exclusivism), compassion (inclusivism), openness (pluralism) and free participation (Trinitarianism) to 3) hold together enriching and diminishing relationalities among diverse religious peoples with a view …

Covenant-Apocalyptic Soteriology: N. T. Wright’S Apocalyptic Jesus In Conversation With The Liberationist Critique Of Atonement, Joseph Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops a theory of atonement in accordance with N. T. Wright’s covenant-apocalyptic interpretation of the ministry and message of the historical Jesus. A covenant-apocalyptic atonement theory, in opposition to the trajectory of contemporary soteriology, prioritizes divine causality in the means of salvation, because, as is generally expected from an apocalyptic hermeneutic, it peers behind systems of violence and oppression to the intangible powers that underlie them. Unlike other strands of apocalyptic theology, though, a covenant-apocalyptic soteriology can stand up to a liberationist critique of the escapism and the divine sadism of a certain popular form of Christian soteriology, …

Stanley Hauerwas' Approach To Christian Marital And Sex Ethics: A Review And Speculative Expansion, Jeffrey A. Schooley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Few places in congregational and denominational life are more fraught with tension and division than conversations about marital and sex ethics. Systemic abuses mingled together with individual failures on this issue has led to confusion, conflict, and chaos. Worse yet, the remedies proposed—and they are many—tend to either double down on “Traditional” values or seek massive reformation of Christian convictions in light of Modern philosophical, anthropological, and sociological presuppositions. Interlocutors quickly come to an impasse and fragmentation occurs. The catalyst for these conflicts is often debates over same-sex marriage, but one does not have to wade far into this conversation …

The Reception Of Isaiah's Suffering Servant In Thomas Aquinas' Theology Of The Cross, Daniel Waldow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Thomas Aquinas' reception of Isaiah 53 throughout his major works of theology.

Rooted In The Earth: An Igbo Sacramental Nature Of The Universe, A Model For Igbo Christian Ecological Ethics, Kenneth Oguzie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The contemporary Igbo society faces a lot of challenges. These include political, religious, and moral crises. These crises affect the environment in many ways. They threaten the peace and harmony of the Igbo society. As a result, it touches on faith. The Igbo society holds a holistic view of life. Whatever affects one aspect of life affects the other areas. Ecologically, various factors are responsible for the crises. These include changes in lifestyle from the traditional way of living to modern style of life with its penchant on consumerism. Also, colonialism and its lingering residues, civil unrests, politics, population growth, …

Philosophical Anthropology And Biblical Interpretation In John Paul Ii’S Theology Of The Body, Shawn Conoboy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the Theology of the Body, through a series of Wednesday Catecheses, John Paul II presents a magisterial understanding of the sacrament of marriage and of marriage and family ethics. At the same time, John Paul II presents a theological anthropology, which forms a basis for the magisterial teaching. His theological anthropology is developed through an exegesis of selected biblical texts, especially Genesis 1-3 and Ephesians 5, and through an application of a philosophical anthropology articulated by Karol Wojtyła. This dissertation draws the connection between the philosophical anthropology of Wojtyła, especially as it is articulated in his major works, …

Heavenly Clothing Liturgically Worn: The Clothing Metaphor In The Book Of Revelation As Exegetically Performed In The Byzantine Liturgical Rite, Elias Issa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Problem

The subject of these hermeneutical and performative approaches to the biblical texts and the liturgical dimensions and metaphors in the Book of Revelation are of particular interest to this dissertation, whose ultimate goal is to ask how the Byzantine rites, as practiced in the Orthodox Church, actualize the liturgical dimensions of the Book of the Revelation. The question will focus on a case study of the clothing metaphor as used in Revelation and related apocalyptic texts.

Method

The question of this dissertation is framed within this context of the liturgical performative exegesis. The question will be approached in its …

Between Physicalism And The New Dualism: The Moral Relevance Of The Human Body For Catholic Ethics, David J. Demboski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One could argue the remarkable changes to the landscape of Catholic moral theology over the course of the twentieth century were unparalleled in the history of the Church. Animated by anthropological and pastoral concerns, competing schools of Catholic ethicists introduced novel interpretations of natural law that sought to do greater justice to the entirety of the human person, not merely the physical dimension that tended to be emphasized throughout the manualist era. These unique and competing perspectives that emerged in the middle of the 1900s, found in the revisionist school and the New Natural Law Theory school, shaped the topography …

Civil Religion And The Second Amendment, Shivaun Corry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The American approach to legal hermeneutics emerged from the covenant theology of the Puritans. American civil religion understands the Constitution to be based in natural laws: a secularized conception of God-given rights. To change the text would collapse the epistemological framework of the nation. When a nation sees its constitution as a sacred text, then the answer to contemporary problems cannot be to change that text; rather, it must be to return to the text with an even more fundamentalist hermeneutic. Both gun rights advocate Charlton Heston, and gun control advocate Barak Obama, argued their cases using a fundamentalist hermeneutic, …

Consecrate The World To God: Maximus The Confessor On The “Secular” And Vatican Ii’S Theology Of The Laity., Anthony Marco

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Post-Conciliar ecclesiological reflection has been largely critical of Lumen Gentium’s description of the laity. The criticism is focused around two concepts: that the lay vocation takes place principally among the life and work of the world, having a “secular character” and that the activity of the laity, as a participation in the priesthood of Christ, is the consecration the world itself to God. According to this critique, these concepts are problematic because they juxtapose the task of the laity in the world with the task of the clergy who are the sole proprietors of the sacred. This is compounded by …

The Assumptionist Movement As Precursor To Vatican Ii: A Case Study On The Dogmatic Definition Of The Assumption Of Mary And The Teachings Of The Second Vatican Council, Eric Lafferty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Assumptionist movement (1863–1950) was a theological movement within the Roman Catholic Church that worked to obtain a dogmatic definition for the Assumption of Mary. This study employs a form of reception theory to argue for the doctrinal continuity between the Assumptionist movement and Vatican II. The first chapter examines the Assumptionist movement’s overlooked history. It uncovers two major characteristics of the movement. First, it was a global movement. Support for the Assumption dogma emerged from every populated continent. Second, it was a movement that involved every rank in the Church. The laity, priests, religious, and bishops worked together towards …

Justice, Human Dignity And The Capabilities Approach: A Moral Assessment On Ghana’S Health Care Delivery System, Paul Eliud Esibu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Life and quality healthcare delivery are central parts of the well-being of the human person. However, despite the political and socio-economic the successes that Ghana has chalked in pre-colonial, colonial and contemporary times, the quality of healthcare delivery in Ghana could be described as sub-standard. In this a context, the Capabilities Approach, “The Theology of the Body” and the Akan indigenous understanding of the human person emerge as an integrated formidable tool to enhancing life and quality healthcare as central part of the human person. This is because “The capabilities approach – in both its comparative and it’s normative version …

Scripture Living In The Church: The Ecumenical Relevance Of Yves Congar's Ecclesiological Approach To Sola Scriptura, Paul Mueller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Yves Congar was quite possibly the greatest Catholic ecclesiologist of the twentieth century. His lifelong passion for ecumenism and ecclesiology were contained in his prodigious work on the sources of revelation, Scripture and Tradition. Congar explained the frequently misinterpreted Catholic concept of Tradition clearly, which could be helpful in easing any tensions on this topic between Catholics and Protestants. This dissertation intends to show how Congar understood Tradition and to show how that can be a potential aid in ecumenical dialogue. Congar’s efforts in the composition of numerous documents from Vatican II gave him the knowledge of the Catholic position …

Animated By The Spirit: An Ecclesiology For Assessing Charism-Centered Mission In Higher Education, Michelle Nicole Blohm

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A “charism-centered” institutional mission is a mission that is believed to be instantiated and guided by the working of the Holy Spirit. Countless Catholic higher education institutions claim to have missions rooted in one or more charisms. However, institutional assessment processes tailored to charism-centered missions have remained in their infancy due to the lack of a theological grounding for institutional charism and its assessment. This work uses Yves Congar’s pneumatological ecclesiology to establish a theological framework for interpreting charism as respecting and enhancing stakeholder diversity and uses Louis-Marie Chauvet’s ecclesiology of symbol to pioneer a model for institutionally assessing charism-centered …

Natural Law And Latinx Social Ethics: A Narrative Approach, Mathew D. Scruggs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation will argue concepts rooted in Latinx social ethics provides a corrective to acontextual and ahistorical, Euroamerican natural law frameworks by positing natural law as a type of moral reasoning rooted in the contexts, histories, and narratives of particular communities. Rooting natural law in the narrative practices of Latinx communities not only reveals the need for justice for oppression against Latinx bodies from the wider community, but also offers a corrective to ahistorical and acontextual Euroamerican natural law frameworks. A Latinx natural law functions as a radical and prophetic critique against systems of oppression that destroy the lives of …

The Ethical Accountability Of Organizational Leadership To Communities Of Stakeholders In Healthcare, Lisa Martinelli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

THE ETHICAL ACCOUNTABILITY OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP TO COMMUNITIES OF STAKEHOLDERS IN HEALTHCARE

By

Lisa A. Martinelli, JD, MA

October 2020

Dissertation supervised by Professor Gerard Magill

While much is written on organizational ethics in healthcare, this dissertation uniquely links organizational ethics and stakeholder theory to the ethical accountability of leadership to their distinct, vulnerable stakeholder communities. It does so by examining the healthcare organization’s moral agency in relation to stakeholder theory and applies those considerations to three major stakeholder categories: confidentiality and privacy of healthcare information, research and attention to specific pediatric populations, and ethics of care concerning the …

Examining The Intersectionality Of Religious Faith, Spirituality, And Healthcare Communication, Felix Okeke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is my own contribution in responding to the concern raised by certain communication scholars. Their concern was that little research and few publications have been done in the communication field by communication scholars that trace the relationship among religious faith, spirituality, and healthcare communication. While Parrott (2004) describes this apparent neglect as “collective amnesia,” others label it “religion blindness.” Thus, in trying to trace this relationship, this project uses Christian, biblical, and bioethics backgrounds to establish the value, sacredness, and dignity of human life, since these concepts make healthcare and healthcare communication necessary in the first place. These …

The Influence Of Thomas Aquinas’ Concept Of Createdness On Josef Pieper’S Moral Philosophy, Sarah Slater

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Josef Pieper’s practical moral philosophy can be best understood by reference to the theology of Thomas Aquinas, and specifically Aquinas’ concept of the created human person. Pieper uses Aquinas’ theological anthropology to argue for three actions which respond to the reality of being created: giving assent to having been brought into existence by God, perceiving God and created reality, and pursuing of the end of human life through the practice of the virtues in order to receive beatitude. Pieper’s well-known works on the seven virtues, on leisure, and on festivity rely on the same concepts from Aquinas which Pieper examines …

Exploring And Re-Envisioning The Significance Of Agrarian Consciousness In Theology With Specific Reference To Kerala, Jinto George

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Globalization has a great impact on present-day society. Everything and everyone relates to each other based on market value. The commodification of agriculture and food has led the world into a situation where one lacks intimacy and bond in the relationship. The impact of globalization has influenced the present Kerala community. The monocultural systems of globalization have influenced the community which has led the Kerala society into a commodified society. The commodification of agriculture and food has influenced the patterns of relationships in the Kerala society, especially in their ecological, human, and spiritual relationship.

God did not create a world …

Mission As Virtuous Practice: A Theology Of Mission Through The Lens Of Virtue Ethics, Michael Niebauer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work uses theological virtue ethics as a guide both for critiquing various models of Christian mission and for constructing a model of mission that adequately addresses these criticisms. The first section of the dissertation (chapters one, two, and three) is devoted to an assessment of three major models of mission, which I have labeled mission as the missio Dei, mission as growth, and mission as dialogue. This assessment generates three recurring issues within the field of missiology that have remained largely unresolved: the problems of distinction, agency, and persuasion. The second half of the dissertation (chapters four, five, …

Natural Law, The Object Of The Act, And Double Effect: Moral Methodology For Catholic Health Care Ethics, Travis Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Veritatis Splendor is the first and only magisterial document that systematically articulates a moral methodology for Catholic moral theology. This dissertation makes explicit the methodological connection between Vatican teaching and the United States Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. The thesis of the dissertation explains the systematic connection between Natural Law, the Moral Object of the Act, and the Principle of Double Effect and by extension the ethical Principle of Cooperation. Second, the thesis applies this complex moral method of official teaching to health care ethics.

Following the introduction, chapter …

Spiritual Struggle And Gregory Of Nyssa’S Theory Of Perpetual Ascent: An Orthodox Christian Virtue Ethic, Stephen M. Meawad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project utilizes virtue ethics as an especially suitable lens by which to develop an Orthodox Christian ethical model generally. At the same time, virtue ethics carries with it some complexities that are in turn mitigated by the particulars of this Orthodox model—spiritual struggle and perpetual progress, or epektasis. Spiritual struggle in this project, which ultimately shifts the emphasis from virtue’s acquisition to its pursuit, is defined as the exertion of effort in all conceivable dimensions—physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual—with intent to attain a semblance of, knowledge of, and intimacy with Jesus Christ in community, for God …

An Exploration Of The Context And Ecclesiastical Investigations Of The Virgin's Reported Appearance In Knock, Ireland In 1879, Erin Meikle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On August 21, 1879, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, and the Lamb of God reportedly appeared in Knock, Ireland. Ecclesiastical authorities of the Roman Catholic Church investigated this reported apparition in 1879 and again in 1936. The first chapter of this paper explores the processes by which the Church investigates alleged apparitions and considers different models for conceptualizing the Church. The second chapter unpacks the context of two nineteenth century French apparitions. The third chapter explores the Knock apparition and the immediate historical context surrounding the apparition. The analyses in the first two chapters serve …

Reshaping The Theology And Praxis Of Inculturation Through Interreligious Dialogue Between The Catholic Church And African Traditional Religion In Igboland, Nigeria, Cajetan Anyanwu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior to the advent of Christianity in Igboland, the people practiced Igbo Traditional Religion. They believed in a Supreme Being (Chukwu/Chineke) who has other smaller deities as messengers including Ala/Ani the most powerful deity on earth. They revered their ancestors, who, they believe, still relate to and communicate with the living. Thus, the concept of God as ultimate reality is a dynamic existential aspect of Igbo world-view. Categorically speaking, it was short-sighted for the European missionaries to claim that Igbo people had no knowledge of God or lacked religion before the introduction of Christianity in Igboland in the …

A Praxis Of Oral Homiletics: Preaching From The Heart, Weiwen Tu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christian preaching has been a central and significant custom to the practitioners of biblically confessional and creedal communities in worship, evangelization, and discipleship. Yet modern preachers confront two challenges presented by the New Homiletic and the media environment. Undue favor toward narrative-based form, audience-oriented eventfulness at the expense of biblical authority, and shifting media that alter the preacher’s identity and incapacitate the preacher’s orality have led to a dissonant handling of form and content and thus a profound decline in the quality of the Christian pulpit.

This project grows out of an attempt to integrate an Augustinian hermeneutic and homiletic, …

Theology Of Arcavatara And The Eucharist: A Comparative Study, James Adeoye

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The diversity in the world today is undeniable and quite imposing. The claim to uniqueness and universality of faith in each religious system cannot be sustained without factoring the implications and impacts of this claim on the well-being of humanity and reality hermeneutics. The postmodern world favors pluralism and encourages mutual respect for particular opinion, praxis, faith, theology and all forms of epistemology as they exist in the individual culture, religion and society. With this in mind, this work is a comparative analysis of the notion of avatars in Vaishnavism, a religious sect in Hinduism and the concept of the …

Unpresentable Members: The Theology And Radical Phenomenology Of The Sexual Flesh, Justin Pearl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unpresentable Members begins with a wager: that a proper account of the flesh and its sexual character may not only prove philosophically fertile within its own limited domain, but may also provide insight into the theological question of the proper role and place of gender and sexual difference within communities, particularly Christian religious communities. In this regard, this dissertation has two distinct goals: one phenomenological and one theological. Phenomenologically, it offers an account of the manifestation of concrete sexual determinations not only as they objectively appear across the “body-object” (Körper, le corps) but with equal importance as …

A Disability Theology Of Limits For Responding To Moral Injury, Lisa Hickman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The lament of Jeremiah, “they dress the wound of my people as if it were not serious,” reverberates today as veterans return home from a decade of war, ridden by PTSD and moral injury, only to discover lethargy, lack of seriousness and complacency in societal response. The seriousness of our soldiers’ wounds, to body and spirit alike, demand ethical, societal and theological responsibility. Failure to address the seriousness of these wounds results in distress, depression and even suicide for the soldier. Statistics may describe a portion of the reality, but the degree to which soldiers suffer in silence and the …