Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Looking For Good Work: From Matthew Crawford To Pope Francis Via Wittgenstein, Mark Ryan

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Each semester, I teach third-year business students a course in theological ethics. Since my students’ choices of majors (e.g., “accounting,” “marketing,” etc.) directly reference the jobs they hope to have after graduating, it has seemed fitting to make ‘work’ one of our topics of study. I am an Aristotelian, which means that my goal ought to be to teach about the manner in which my students’ work is part of their ongoing formation with the ultimate goal, one hopes, of becoming successful moral agents—or, in Aristotelian terms, achieving excellence in goodness. However, I have often been tempted to teach work’s …

Holy Impairment: The Body As The Nexus Of Apocalyptic Ekphrasis In Acts 2:1–13, Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This article reads Acts 2:1–13 as an example of apocalyptic ekphrasis, bringing together disparate imagery for rhetorical effect. In particular, the Septuagint imagery of theophany is combined with the imagery of divine healing that was associated with the god Asclepius. I explore the imagery of the divided tongue that rests on bodies and transforms them, an element of Acts 2:3 that many interpreters have given up trying to explain. The visual association of snakes and healing was prevalent not only at the shrines devoted to Asclepius but broadly in a variety of contexts outside the shrines. This complex of imagery …

Tears & Ashes: Three Ways Of Looking At The Recent Wildfires In The West, Vincent J. Miller

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

As life in the Anthropocene unfolds ever more rapidly, what were once called “biblical” disasters — fires, floods, locusts, and whirlwinds — have become a daily reality. We watch anxiously as catastrophes occur, at least as much as our screens allow, but still go about our business: reading the next story in our newsfeed or wading into half-flooded subways to avoid being late for work. The problem we face is more difficult than mere inattentiveness: we need to cultivate a way of seeing adequate to the changed world being revealed in these catastrophes.

Guns And Practical Reason: An Ethical Exploration Of Guns And Language, Mark Ryan

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

There is no shortage of words and rhetoric being offered up in relation to the topic of guns, much of it directed to the political standoff regarding how to respond to gun violence. Yet the debate over guns in America, especially as it concerns putting in conversation the positions of “gun people” and “non-gun people,” barely scratches the surface of substantive convictions held on both sides about the place of guns in our lives. A critical reason for this is that the language and rhetoric of the debate suppresses such convictions, keeping the discussion shallow and antagonistic. This, I argue, …

Islamic Meditation: Mindfulness Apps For Muslims In The Digital Spiritual Marketplace, Megan Adamson Sijapati

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This chapter describes and analyzes three digital sites that offer guided meditations curated by and for Muslims: Sakeenah, Sabr, and Halaqah. My analysis offers thick descriptions of these mobile apps, which first appeared in the online “meditation marketplace” in 2020 and 2021, and identifies resonant themes and questions that I believe are fruitful for the study of religion in digital landscapes and for mapping the shifting contours of lived Islam. Today’s industry of online meditation and mindfulness products is highly profitable, as meditation—and, more broadly, “mindfulness”—has in recent decades been embraced and normalized in contemporary, cosmopolitan life as a key …

The Traditional Latin Mass Movement And The Unity Of The Church, Dennis M. Doyle

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Pope Francis' recently imposed restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass need to be understood in relation to the emergence of a Traditional Latin Mass movement, that movement's antagonism toward the liturgical and ecclesial reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and important points of consistency in the efforts of various popes to safeguard the unity of the church. Those in the movement often offer valid points of critique, but in our present age of polarization they have become ever more an extremist group. They are encouraged to give up their devotion to a now antiquated form of worship, …

Business Ethics As A Form Of Practical Reasoning: What Philosophers Can Learn From Patagonia, Mark Ryan

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

As with other fields of applied ethics, philosophers engaged in business ethics struggle to carry out substantive philosophical reflection in a way that mirrors the practical reasoning that goes on within business management itself. One manifestation of the philosopher’s struggle is the field’s division into approaches that emphasize moral philosophy and those grounded in the methods of social science. I claim here that the task, at least for those with philosophical training, is to avoid unintentionally widening the gap between philosophical theory and those engaged in business management by emphasizing the centrality of practical wisdom (phronesis) to the moral life. …

A Cathedral Not Made By Hands, Vincent J. Miller

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In Laudato si’, Pope Francis offers a vision of moral responsibility rooted in awareness of the world around us. He points to St. Francis, who “looked with love” on all creatures, as a model. He writes of an “attitude of the heart, one which approaches life with serene attentiveness, which is capable of being fully present” to everyone and everything. And he also calls for an “intense dialogue” between religion and science, which has its own “gaze.” The H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon, one of the world’s most studied ecosystems, offers an especially rich opportunity for such dialogue. Here …

Míng (名) As “Names” Rather Than “Words:” Disabled Bodies Speaking Without Acting In Early Chinese Texts, Jane Geaney

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

My first scholarly article was about the work of A. C. Graham. Unfortunately, I never met him but my copies of his books became so worn from over-use that I had to replace them. My second, now equally worn, copy of Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science opens to a statement that inspires my work:

A consistent nominalism has to extend its principle to the particular utterances of the name itself; I pronounce the sound ‘stone’ over X and afterwards convey that Y is like X by pronouncing a similar sound.

This claim has two important implications. First, in early …

Semantics And The Study Of Religion, G. Scott Davis

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This essay argues that the approach to meaning articulated by Donald Davidson supplies all the student of religion needs to know about this subject. By focusing on interpretation as understood by Davidson, we can understand, for example, the beliefs and practices of a people such as the Dogon of Mali. By adding to this the evidence of ethnography and history, students of religion can give a compelling account of change and adjudicate between competing analyses.

Shakers And Jerkers: Letters From The "Long Walk," 1805, Part 2, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Throughout the bitterly cold month of January 1805, John Meacham (1770-1854), Issachar Bates (1758-1837), and Benjamin Youngs (1774- 1855), struggled through mud and ice, biting winds, blinding snow, and drenching rains, on a 1,200-mile “Long Walk” to the settlements of the trans-Appalachian West. Traveling south toward Cumberland Gap, the three Shaker missionaries from New Lebanon, New York, were tracking a strange new convulsive religious phenomenon that had gripped Scots-Irish Presbyterians during the frontier religious awakening known as the Great Revival (1799-1805). Observers called the puzzling somatic fits “the Jerks.” Ardent supporters of the revivals believed the jerks were a sign …

Niedergestreckt Und Zerstört: Strafwunder Und Ihre Pädagogische Funktion, Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

After the miracles of Jesus, interpretations of the miracles of the Apostles are now presented in the second volume of the "Compendium of Early Christian Wonders."

Weeping And Bad Hair: The Bodily Suffering Of Early Christian Hell As A Threat To Masculinity, Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This chapter draws upon the conceptions of gendered bodily suffering found in the ancient medical corpus (Hippocrates, Galen and inscriptions), martyrdom literature, and the Roman judicial rhetoric of punitive suffering to read apocalyptic depictions of bodily suffering as “effeminizing” punishments, which in turn utilized masculinity and bodily normativity to police behavior, and equated early Christian ethical norms with masculinity and bodily “health.” By highlighting the different types of bodies found in these texts, as well as the ways in which Christian norms interacted with Greek and Roman notions of the body, the chapter shows how masculinity and ancient notions of …

Lacerated Lips And Lush Landscapes: Constructing This-Worldly Theological Identities In The Otherworld, Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

When Irenaeus juxtaposed "tradition" and heresy, he moved away from the Pauline usage, which centered primarily upon incorrect behavior (See 1 Cor 11: 19, Gal 5 :20). lrenaeus' definition of heresy, however, does not indicate that all early Christians prioritized belief over behavior, or even maintained orthodoxy and orthopraxis as separate categories. In the otherworldly spaces of the apocryphal apocalypses doxa and praxis seem to be intertwined, and little or no distinction is made between belief and behavior. Instead, in the Otherworld the categories of primary importance are righteous/unrighteous, good/evil, Christian/Other. The Otherworld is a place in which sins can …

Shakers And Jerkers: Letters From The "Long Walk," 1805, Part I, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Reports of a bizarre new religious phenomenon made their way over the mountains from Tennessee during the summer and fall of 1804. For several years, readers in the eastern states had been eagerly consuming news of the Great Revival, the powerful succession of Presbyterian sacramental festivals and Methodist camp meetings that played a formative role in the development of the southern Bible Belt and the emergence of early American evangelicalism. Letters from the frontier frequently included vivid descriptions of the so-called “falling exercise,” in which the bodies of revival converts crumpled to the ground during powerful sermon performances on the …

Learning While Teaching: Disability And Religion In The Classroom, Meghan Henning, Kirk Vangilder

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This article serves as an introduction to themes explored in the special issue of the Journal of Disability and Religion on disability and religion in the classroom. Dr. Kirk VanGilder (Gallaudet University) and Dr. Meghan Henning (University of Dayton) share their reflections from two academic workshops focusing on pedagogical strategies for teaching at the intersection of disability studies, religion, and theology. Rather than limiting the concept of classrooms only to higher education environments, the authors explore the variety of sites where teaching and learning about disability and religion occur. Challenges, resources, and future directions are mapped out for transdisciplinary teaching …

Jesus And The World Of Grace, 1968-2016: An Idiosyncratic Theological Memoir, William L. Portier

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This article offers an impressionistic look back over the past five decades, from 1968 to 2016, in Catholic theology in the United States. At the heart of this story are Christology, the world of grace, and their relationship. This memoir unfolds in three parts: “Running on Empty, 1968–1980”; “Jesus and the World of Grace, 1980–2016”; “Can Liberal Catholics Come Back?” It identifies the most neuralgic question left to us from this period: How is Christ related to the world of grace?

Response: A Scary Resurrection, William L. Portier

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

With an eye toward reuniting the church and the academy, this book focuses on the role that scholarship can play in making good preachers into really great preachers. This is the bridge between scholarly and popular writing that informs the sermon and makes it more powerful and meaningful for the people who regularly listen to sermons. Preachers are challenged to raise the level of their commitment to scholarship as well as overcome any pre-existing prejudices with scholarship. The preacher as scholar is the perfect way for the pulpit to respond to the challenges of a secular, post-modern world that often …

Teaching The Common Good In Business Ethics: A Case Study Approach, Mark Ryan

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This paper addresses the instructional challenges of teaching business ethics in a way shaped by Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Focusing on the concept of the Common Good in CST, I describe my use of a case narrative in classroom instruction to help students understand the concept of the Common Good and to perceive the variety of ways businesses can serve or undermine the Common Good in a small city. Through these pedagogical explorations, I illustrate the distinctive vision of business ethics that flows from CST.

Chreia Elaboration And The Un-Healing Of Peter's Daughter: Rhetorical Analysis As A Clue To Understanding The Development Of A Petrine Tradition, Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In a Coptic fragment associated with the Acts of Peter, Peter “heals” and then “disables” his own daughter as a demonstration of God’s power at work in him. The following article will compare Peter’s speech with the ancient rhetorical form of the chreia. When placed alongside other traditions that describe the life of Peter, a consistent pattern of anti-healings emerges, in which a display of apostolic power harms another character in order to provide a lesson for those watching. Taken together, the rhetoric and themes of the pericope suggest that it was composed as a way of explaining a …

A Balancing Act: Reading 'Amoris Laetitia', Peter Steinfels, Paige E. Hochschild, William L. Portier, Sandra A. Yocum, Dennis O'Brien

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Five religious scholars provide commentary on Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), Pope Francis's 2016 apostolic exhortation on love in the family.

Questions Of Self-Designation In The 'Ascension Of Isaiah', Meghan Henning, Tobias Nicklas

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The Question of the 'Parting of the Ways' between Jews and Christians has become a matter of debate again: Is it really appropriate to speak about two more or less coherent groups going two different ways from a certain point in history — perhaps after Paul's mission, after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), or after the Bar-Kokhba War (132-135 CE)? Does the image of a tree with one root and two different trunks going into two different directions really fit what the extant sources tell us about the complexities of the past? Or shouldn't we distinguish between …

New Perspectives On The Northampton Communion Controversy Iv: Experience Mayhew’S Dissertation On Edwards’S Humble Inquiry, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This fourth installment in a series exploring newly discovered manuscripts relating to the “Qualifications Controversy” that drove Edwards from his Northampton pastorate presents an unpublished oppositional dissertation by Experience Mayhew, a prominent eighteenth-century Indian missionary from Martha’s Vineyard. Next to Solomon Stoddard, Mayhew was Edwards’s most important theological target during the conflict. Where Edwards pressed toward precision in defining the qualifications for admission to the Lord’s Supper, Mayhew remained convinced that the standards for membership in New England’s Congregational churches should encompass a broad range of knowledge and experience. His rejoinder to Edwards’s Humble Inquiry provides a rare opportunity to …

New Evangelization, New Families, And New Singles, Jana Marguerite Bennett

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

When Pope Francis issued his calls for a synod in 2013, he stated that he wanted bishops to discuss the “pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization,” surely also a link to the recent calls for a “New Evangelization.” Evangelization has long been tied to Catholic understandings of family. Parents are deemed the original source of Christian evangelization and witness for their children, and thus the family is assumed to be at the center of any kind of broader evangelization that happens. It makes sense, then, that family becomes a central topic of conversation for bishops in …

Hurry And The Willingness To Be Creatures, Kelly S. Johnson

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Kelly Johnson diagnoses our busy scurrying as "anxiety about time." But time is "not a scarce resource slipping away," she counsels; it "is God’s terrible, mysterious patience, in which we meet what is beyond us and come to know ourselves as beloved creatures."

Newman, Millennials, And Teaching Comparative Theology, William L. Portier

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Chapter Abstract:

On the face of it, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and contemporary students of what is called the millennial generation make an incongruous combination. Nevertheless, this essay enlists Newman to make the case that recent generational developments, often described as disaffiliation or post- denominationalism, put comparative theologians in an epistemologically advantageous position to teach religion and theology to contemporary students. Newman’s categories of “notional” and “real” apprehension and assent help to articulate how this might work in twenty-first- century classrooms.

Book Summary:

This volume explores the twenty-first century classroom as a uniquely intergenerational space of religious disaffiliation, and questions …

Devil, Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The scope of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions extends from pre-historical antiquity in the third millennium B.C.E. through the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E.

Hell, Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The scope of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions extends from pre-historical antiquity in the third millennium B.C.E. through the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E.

Visions, Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Entry appears in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions; its scope extends from pre-historical antiquity in the third millennium B.C.E. through the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E.

Paralysis And Sexuality In Medical Literature And The 'Acts Of Peter', Meghan Henning

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This paper focuses on the story of Peter’s daughter that is found in the Berlin Coptic papyrus BG 8502.4 and is associated with the apocryphal Acts of Peter. Research on the story of Peter’s daughter has primarily focused on its interpretation of the theme of chastity, or whether the story was originally included in the Acts of Peter. In the course of these investigations, scholars have taken for granted the curious assumption of the text that paralysis renders Peter’s daughter unfit for marriage, and thus safe from Ptolemy’s unwanted advances.

This paper explores the underlying understandings of paralysis and sexuality …