Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Biblical Choice Model: A St. Augustine-Inspired Approach To Behavioral Economics, Adebukola Adebayo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Economics as defined by Lionel Robbins (1932), is a science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses. While human behavior relates to how wants and desires are coordinated given decision-making mechanisms, social customs and political realities of society, the natural end of individual human actions should be eudaimonia (human flourishing). However, since sin has affected both our emotive and cultural plausibility structures, thereby leading to a distortion in our wants and desires and ability to desire the good, this has led to a generation that is self-ruling, self-creating and self-evaluating. The …

Implementing A Discipleship Strategy Plan For Lay Leaders At Redemption Baptist Church To Help Them Grow Spiritually, Robermann Dorceus

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Discipleship may not be a requirement for salvation. However, it is a requirement for spiritual development and a command that Jesus has given all His disciples to obey. Christians must understand that they are Jesus' followers with a calling to bring others to Christ. Jesus makes it clear when He calls His disciples to follow Him. He calls them to follow so that they can become disciple-makers (Matt 4: 19). However, some members, mainly lay leaders at the church, whose responsibility is to disciple others, were not trained to disciple others, which creates a burden for the pastoral ministry in …

Equipping Spiritually Mature Men To Mentor The Next Generation Of Leaders, Seth S. Carter

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The primary objective of the study was to enhance the operational leadership within the church by implementing a mentorship program. The main target audience consisted of existing ministry leaders who would undergo specialized training to empower them in mentoring the upcoming generation of leaders within the church community. Emphasis was placed on the significance of dedicating resources toward nurturing the spiritual growth of the current leaders, as this would offer valuable insights into effectively guiding the spiritual journey of the future leaders based on solid biblical principles. The project probed into various key themes such as Story, Wisdom, Prayer, Character, …

The Riddle Of Religious Language, Luke Hillman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following project analyzes religious life through the lens of religious language. Motivated by ideas of Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinians, religious language is shown to be nonsensical, and yet significant. Wittgenstein connects how we understand language with how we understand life, and this connection extends to religious life. This project offers an answer to how religious language is unique by comparing religious language to riddles and the process of answering riddles. In addition, religious language becomes understandable with imagination, a relationship with the transcendent, and an understanding of the kinds of language present in religious discourse. These ideas are solidified with …

The Early Proclamation Of The Resurrection As A Compelling Evidence For The Historicity Of The Resurrection: A Historical Inquiry Of The Resurrection Miracle, Marina Gordo Lyle

Masters Theses

The resurrection's historicity has been mainly defended through Jesus's empty tomb and postmortem appearances, which testify more to the resurrection belief of the first Christians than to the resurrection as a historical fact. The early proclamation of the resurrection is a minimal fact often overlooked when defending the resurrection's historicity. Nevertheless, it forms a compelling case for the resurrection as a historical fact through a type of proclamation that emerged at Pentecost, with immediate effects best explained by Jesus's resurrection. Indeed, Pentecost's effects in time include the church's birth and rapid expansion through miracles that only took place once the …

Beings-In-Becoming: A Formative Critique Of Schellenberg's Problem Of Divine Hiddenness, Isaiah Parker

Masters Theses

This thesis aims to show that Schellenberg's problem of divine hiddenness fails as an argument for atheism because his assumptions about, and understanding of, what constitutes belief does not account for the nuanced and complex understanding of belief formation presented in contemporary psychology and recently developed dynamic liminal-belief frameworks. This paper argues that Schellenberg has been immodest in his robust claims regarding the existence of a cognitive state of nonresistant unbelief. In other words, he has misdiagnosed the human condition of doubt by unnecessarily holding to a narrow definition of belief. The complexity of belief formation necessitates a holistic credence …

The House That Love Builds: An Allegorical Interpretation Of The Song Of Songs, Tricia Lee Kline

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Over the last two hundred years, natural interpretations of the Song of Songs have become predominant among scholars. Shying away from the earlier, sometimes fanciful, allegorical interpretations of ancient Jewish and Christian interpreters, these modern-day scholars have argued that the plain sense of the text is of an ideal marriage relationship between a man and woman, and that the Song of Songs is simply a picture of the beauty of love and sex. This dissertation challenges this more modern view and argues again for an allegorical interpretation in which the man represents God and the woman represents His faithful covenant …

Review Of Gender As Love: A Theological Account Of Human Identity, Embodied Desire, And Our Social Worlds, Joseph A. Dennis

Liberty Theological Review

This review of Gender as Love offers a summary and critical analysis of Dr. Fellipe do Vale’s trailblazing work on gender identity, human love, and the placement of both within God’s economy.

Review Of On The Resurrection: Evidences Volume 1, Brian G. Chilton

Liberty Theological Review

Dr. Brian Chilton reviews the first volume of Dr. Gary Habermas's magnum opus On the Resurrection: Evidences. Chilton summarizes Habermas's work, offering key themes found throughout the book. Then, he analyzes the methodology of the book and confronts the possible objections offered by popular naysayers of the minimal facts approach. Chilton ultimately deduces that the naysayers objections are overblown and that Habermas's approach stands on its own.

The Theological Method Of Thomas Aquinas In The Beatific Vision, Kent T. Maitland

Liberty Theological Review

This essay posits that Thomas Aquinas’s Beatific Vision may not be a biblically accurate conception of the Christian’s eternal destiny because it is grounded in a problematic theological method. For Aquinas, theology is a science for deducing the saving knowledge of God, which can only be discovered through Scripture. The integrity of Scripture’s place of prominence, however, is undermined by the apparent usefulness of other sources for interpreting Scripture’s meaning. His use of other sources in interpreting Scripture is justified by a hermeneutic that emphasizes the importance of Scripture’s figurative meaning over the literal in determining its usefulness for theological …

Modern Qoheleth: An Evangelical Appraisal Of The Theology Of Stanley Hauerwas, Nathan Cantu

Liberty Theological Review

“Jesus is Lord, and everything else is bullshit.” No other phrase better encapsulates Stanley Hauerwas’ unique blend of polemic, provocation, and piety. Formed in Protestant Liberalism, and fiercely critical of Fundamentalism, Hauerwas is a polarizing figure in evangelicalism. Is Hauerwas an ally of evangelicals, or should he be anathema? This article examines the four primary themes of Hauerwas's theology—character, narrative, church, and politics—and offers an evangelical appraisal.

Walter Rauschenbusch: Bringing The Kingdom Of God To Alleviate Poverty In Christianity And The Social Crisis, Christopher Price

Liberty Theological Review

Industrialization and the Gilded Age exacerbated the gap between the wealthy and the extremely poor who inhabited major American cities like New York. Walter Rauschenbusch, a German Baptist pastor who served a parish in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City, began his ministry focusing on individual salvation and piety. After seeing the tangible effects of poverty, including the all-too-common deaths of young children, Rauschenbusch attempted to articulate the social ramifications of Christianity. The best-known example of his understanding of the Kingdom of God was Christianity and the Social Crisis, which became a seminal text in social gospel …

Sterba's Horrendous Evils And Adams' Goodness Of God, Cody Snow

Liberty Theological Review

This article articulates and responds to James Sterba’s Problem of Horrendous Evils from his recent work Is A Good God Logically Possible. Specifically, this article argues that Sterba’s arguments against Marilyn McCord Adams' compensatory theodicy fails to undermine the effectiveness of the theodicy. Moreover, this article argues that Adams' theodicy is successful at removing the core tension at the heart of the Problem of Horrendous Evils and that this theodicy only strengthens appeals to Greater Goods theodicies.

Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 66, No. 3

Restoration Quarterly

PDF of the cover of Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 66, No. 3.

This repository hosts selected Restoration Quarterly articles in downloadable PDF format. For the benefit of users who would like to browse the contents of RQ, we have included all issue covers even when full-text articles from that issue are unavailable. All Restoration Quarterly articles are available in full text in the ATLA Religion Database, available through most university and theological libraries or through your local library’s inter-library loan service.

Food Insecurity & Gendered Vulnerability – Sarai/Sarah And Rebekah In Genesis, Maricel S. Ibita

Theology Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Discerning The Missional Implications Of Context: A Demographic Study Of Great Falls For The Great Falls Church Of Christ, Matthew C. Burleson

DMin Project Theses

The purpose of this Lipscomb University June 2024 Doctor of Minstry project thesis was to discern the missional implications of GFCC’s (Great Falls Church of Christ) context. Three components comprised the larger purpose. First, the purpose was to survey the mission of God in Scripture with a team made up of members from GFCC. This survey would facilitate the missional aspect of discerning the missional implications. Second, the purpose was to acquaint this team with practices and principles of spiritual discernment. Acquainting the team with these practices would facilitate the discerning aspect of discerning the missional implications. Third, the purpose …

Diagnosing Silent Forgiveness At The Dialogical Limit In Endō Shūsaku’S Novel Silence, Catherine Buescher

Dissertations

I situate this dissertation within the context of the rightly noted deficiencies of dialogue and dialogical hermeneutics, deficiencies that prevent dialogue from effectively addressing the pathological nature of many of today's social issues, e.g., white supremacy, sexual and gender inequality, and climate change. Using the lens and limits of Western dialogical hermeneutics as noted by David Tracy, I conduct a case study of the dialogues of the main characters - Rodrigues, Ferreira, Kichijiro, God—in Endō Shūsaku’s novel Silence, noting the silence active in each of the dialogues at the end of the novel. I then argue that the nature and …

Jewish Laws For Gentiles: Purity In The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, Joshua T. King

Dissertations

This dissertation is an analysis of the concept of purity in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. The argument proceeds in two parts. In the first, I argue that the Homilies’ presentation of purity reflects an ancient Jewish background. Thus, the Homilies, like other ancient Jews, divides its concept of purity in two domains: a domain related to the body (bodily purity) and a domain related to ethics (purity of the heart). I then track the differences between these two kinds of purity, noting particularly how they are defiled and how such defilements are removed. Thus, while bodily defilement comes from occasional bodily …

Christotechtonics: Dildonic Prostheticity In Theological Formulation, Evan Taylor Marsolek

Dissertations

This dissertation asserts the following claim: Christ is a dildo. This project brings Paul B. Preciado into conversations with contemporary philosophies of religion and interrogates a hegemonic Christian theological political matrix. This project articulates a hermeneutic of christotechtonics, which studies appearance, formation, and utilization of Christ. This project is twofold. It begins with a transdisciplinary exploration that entangles queer and trans theories, religious studies, secular studies, and philosophy of religion to position reading queer and trans theories as forms of counter political theologies. The work then transitions into dildonic prostheticity in theological formulation. The 2019 Vatican document “Male and Female …

The Dialectics Of Faith: Kierkegaard, Irony, And Conversion, Douglas Zimmerman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish philosopher, offers a profound perspective on conversion. According to him, conversion isn't a mere external change, but a deeply personal and internal transformation. It's about moving from a state of despair to faith. Kierkegaard believed that true conversion involves a passionate leap of faith, where an individual confronts their own subjectivity and makes a conscious, often paradoxical, choice to align themselves with their authentic values and spiritual beliefs. In his view, conversion is a constant process, requiring introspection, struggle, and a commitment to live authentically in the face of life's uncertainties. In order to communicate this …

Radical Hospitality: Height And Excess Of The Other And The New Host Self, Diako Alikhani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical framework and its emphasis on the “height and excess” of “the Other,” this thesis explores and develops a sense of “radical hospitality” in Levinas and across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In particular, the thesis explores how encounter with the Other is not only marked by an overwhelming excess, but one which transforms the subject into what I call a “New Host Self:” Where the self is the host who greets the stranger with hospitality, it is ultimately the stranger—the refugee, the migrant—who transforms the host into someone new. Here, the host ultimately receives a gift …

Progressive Paradox In Political Rhetoric: The Hart-Celler Immigration Act Of 1965, Amanda Rolston Henderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the interplay between U.S. norms for inclusion, the embedded role of religion within these norms, and how political rhetoric challenges or sustains them. Using a historical lens, I outline key moments in U.S. history, unravel central ideologies entrenched in U.S. narratives, and illuminate the ideographic function of the key concepts land, family, and work. These terms serve as conduits for conveying complex systems of meaning, which are entrenched in societal assumptions and concretized through political discourse and action.

These dynamics are demonstrated in a case study of the discourse surrounding the Hart-Celler Immigration Act …

Saint Brigit And Her Habits: Exploring Queerness In Early Medieval Ireland, Jacqueline K. Stephenson

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Saint Brigit's behavior and reception by society highlight an avenue by which women in the early medieval period could escape societal strictures, exercising agency over their bodies and their romantic choices, and carve out a distinct and unexpected place for themselves in a Christian patriarchal society. In Saint Brigit’s case, this is especially demonstrated by the breadth of her portrayed power as not just a nun but a saint, her extreme resistance to marriage, and her frequent comparisons to men. Indeed, her hagiography, written by Cogitosus in the seventh century, positioned her as one of the three principal and earliest …

New Paths In Jewish And Religious Studies: Essays In Honor Of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Glenn Dynner, Susannah Heschel, Shaul Magid

Purdue University Press Books

The work of Elliot R. Wolfson has profoundly influenced the fields of Jewish studies as well as philosophy and religion more broadly. His radically new approaches have created pioneering ways of analyzing texts and thinking about religion through the lens of gender, sexuality, and feminist theory. The contributors to New Paths in Jewish and Religious Studies: Essays in Honor of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, many of whom are internationally renowned scholars, hearken from diverse fields. Each has learned from and collaborated with Wolfson as student or colleague, and each has expanded the new scholarly directions initiated by Wolfson’s groundbreaking …

Salvation Of The Nations In Isaiah, Isaiah M. Gillette

NEXUS: The Liberty Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies

In the book of Isaiah, a key theme that is present is the salvation of the nations. This salvation is in the form of peace on earth, peace in the millennium, and salvation of the soul through the Messiah Jesus Christ. Articles are looked at that discuss specific passages about the salvation of the nations in Isaiah. The passages themselves are also studied to determine what they say about the salvation of the nations. Some authors of the articles argue for different views on certain passages, like that it is of judgment of the nations instead of salvation of the …

A Religion For The Common Man: A Culturally Subversive Understanding Of Kabir’S Simple State, Wyatt Golden

NEXUS: The Liberty Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies

No abstract provided.

Harmony Or Discord? The Intersection Of Religious Beliefs And International Mindedness, Ranjan Kumar Lima

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

A fundamental concept of the International Baccalaureate (IB) educational philosophy is international mindedness. International mindedness refers to being, thinking, and acting with openness to the world and an understanding of the interconnectedness of oneself with others. Despite extensive research on religious beliefs and international mindedness separately, there remains a dearth of studies exploring their intersection, especially among the International Baccalaureate (IB) teachers in their early professional years. This study examines how the religious beliefs of early adult and early-career International Baccalaureate (IB) teachers influence their perceptions and manifestations of international mindedness. This study utilizes phenomenological research strategies. It involves eight …

Inciting Peace From The Inside Out, Stephen G. Adubato, Ebere Bosco Amakwe, Katherine Hinic, Sarita Maldjian, Forrest Pritchett, Jon Radwan, Nicholas Sooy, Chad Thralls

Conferences

Violence and war can be incited, and so can peace. This volume shares select addresses and responses from Seton Hall University’s 2/7/23 conference “Inciting Peace From The Inside Out.” A multi-disciplinary range of scholars each addresses how reconciliation processes grow from spiritual dynamics. Multiple religious traditions teach contemplative praxes that prioritize and nurture personal reflection oriented toward peace. Social conflicts divide, so engaging them with a partisan orientation only serves to escalate harmful rifts. In contrast, bringing personal awareness and sensitivity, spiritual balance, and holistic integral perspective to conflict can transcend divisions and work toward unity. This volume is supported …

Interviews In Global Catholic Studies: Hansol Goo, Mathew Schmalz, Hansol Goo

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

The Secrets Of Christian Others: Hungarian Catholic Intellectuals Debate Ecumenism At A Transylvanian Pilgrimage Site, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

Claims about a shared Christian tradition animate European debates about religious otherness, but more remains to be known about how Catholics on Europe’s near-margins understand ecumenical unity among churches. I analyze contemporary Hungarian Catholic intellectuals’ publications about a controversy at the Hungarian national shrine, Our Lady of Csíksomlyó, in Transylvania. When a priest wrote that Csíksomlyó’s annual pilgrimage commemorated sixteenth-century Catholics’ victory over an invading Unitarian army, Transylvania’s Unitarian bishop denounced the origin as an undocumented myth. Prominent Catholic ethnologists, historians, and theologians agreed that, in the name of ecumenism, intellectuals should not publicly mention the origin narrative. But they …