History of Religion Commons^™

Record Of A Journey: Mother Benedicta Riepp And Companions Travel To North America: Part I, Helen Herbstritt, Ephrem Hollermann Osb

Saint Benedict’s Monastery Publications

The article presents an historical examination into the travels of the three Benedictine women Mother Benedicta Riepp, Sister Walburga Dietrich and Sister Maura Flieger from Eichstätt, Bavaria to New York City in 1852. Introductory details are given noting the significance of the three women as founderesses of Bavarian Benedictine monasticism in the United States along with the monk Boniface Wimmer. The discovery of a diary by Johann Stephan Maximilian Gärtner is then discussed, highlighting what it relates concerning the Benedictines' travel plans and circumstances.

Pusey's Sermons At St. Saviour's, Leeds, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

"E . B. Pusey as a Preacher." It would not be surprising to find such a phrase as the title of a nineteenth-century work. Authors in both Britain and America used it in books and articles about numerous ministers, literary figures, the Apostle Paul, and even Jesus himself.¹ Edward Bouverie Pusey, in fact, was the subject of one such piece: a review of Sermons for the Church's Seasons from Advent to Trinity, published in the Spectator on 11 August 1883.

Such a scope would, however, be too broad for a scholarly study in the twenty-first century. Pusey's canon …

Drawn Out In Love: Religious Experience, The Public Sphere, And Evangelical Lay Women's Writing In Eighteenth Century England, Andrew O. Winckles

Wayne State University Dissertations

"Drawn Out in Love: Religious Experience, the Public Sphere, and Evangelical Lay Women's Writing in Eighteenth Century England" explores the writing of eighteenth century evangelical lay women in print, poetry, and educational material. Through careful attention to both the content and materiality of their texts I reveal how the women of the evangelical revival used subjective spiritual experience as an impetus for entry into the public discourses of print, and in turn, how their religious narratives were shaped by these discourses. Chapters on women's conversion narratives, moral literature for children, and religious poetry demonstrate the ways that personal spiritual experience …

Squire Adamsson: Or, Where Do You Live? An Allegorical Tale From The Swedish Awakening, By Paul Peter Waldenström, Mark Safstrom

Scandinavian Studies: Faculty Scholarship & Creative Works

It is now over 150 years since Squire Adamsson appeared in bookstores and helped to launch its author, P.P. Waldenström, to prominence within the religious revivals that were then sweeping across Scandinavia. The themes of the novel touched on many aspects of Christian life and its challenges, but particularly drew from the theology of one group of dissenters in the Lutheran state church, the so-called “new evangelical” Pietists surrounding Carl Olof Rosenius (1816-1868). There are a variety of themes that can be found in this text, but perhaps none both so provocative and poignant as the unique presentation of congregational …

Menorah Review (No. 78, Winter/Spring, 2013)

Menorah Review

After the Shoah: Blackmail, Vengeance, and the Death of the Future -- Assessing Jewish Worship in the United States -- Books in Brief: New and Notable -- Claude Lanzmann's Shoah Revisited -- Israel's Leaders An Inside View -- Mission in the Diaspora: Simon Dubnov's Jewish Autonomism -- Saul And David -- The Rambam Project: Code, Marshal, Hegemony, Sanctity Of Life And Gender in the Mishneh Torah -- Valuing Cultural Differences

Menorah Review (No. 79, Summer/Fall, 2013)

Menorah Review

Authorities Without Power: The Jewish Council of Vienna During the Holocaust -- Books in Brief: New and Notable -- Cry and Wail: Jewish Suffering in Documents From Ukraine, 1918-1921 -- Moreshet: From the Sources -- Speaking of the Law -- The Jewish "Success" Story? -- The Power of the Word -- Two Poems by Richard Sherwin -- Unearthing Buried Treasures: Reading Leah Goldberg in Translation

Spirit Politics: Radical Abolitionists And The Dead End Of Spiritualism, Robert Nelson

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

On June 30, 1858, abolitionist Parker Pillsbury wrote William Lloyd Garrison and readers of the Liberator that he had “just returned from attending one of the largest and most important Reformatory Conventions ever held in this or any other country.” In his report on the “Free Convention” held at Rutland, Vermont, Parker praised the “character and quality” and the “large brains and full hearts” of the convention participants. “The most numerous class” among these participants, he noted, were Spiritualists. Spiritualism had burst on the American scene a decade earlier, quickly attracting thousands of adherents who believed that communication and communion …

Sins Of A Nation, Margaret T. Kidd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This article explores how Methodist clergy in Virginia tended to the spiritual needs of their congregations in the context of war. It also discusses the way that clergy worked to make their ideas on the war and its progression known through newspapers, sermons, addresses, and government-recognized days of fasting and prayer. As the largest religious denomination in the South during the war the Methodist Church was in a position to not only offer support , but to shape the opinions of the Confederate people.

The National Muslim Forum Nepal: Experiences Of Conflict, Formations Of Identity, Megan Adamson Sijapati

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

With Nepal's recent transition to state secularism, the politicization of Muslim religious identity has emerged with increasing vitality. One particular pan-Nepali Muslim organization, the Rastriya Muslim Mane Nepal (National Muslim Forum Nepal), offers a window into the complex relationship between national and religious identity that animates this politicization. Through analysis of the National Muslim Forum's earliest discourses, produced between 2005 and 2006, both immediately before and after the people's revolution that resulted in the declaration of Nepal as a secular state, this essay highlights the ways that experiences of conflict coupled with a national political transition shape and contribute to …

The African-American Islamic Renaissance And The Rise Of The Nation Of Islam, Patrick Denis Bowen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines African-American Islamic culture from 1920 through 1959, a period I label the "African-American Islamic Renaissance" (AAIR). The AAIR is characterized by a significant increase in interest in Islam, extreme diversity in views about Islam, and the absence of a single organization dominating African-American Islamic culture for a significant amount of time. Previous works dealing with African-American Islam in this period have failed to fully recognize these features, particularly the last of these. As a result, explanations for the rise of the Nation of Islam (NOI) have not satisfactorily explained why it was only the NOI--and not other …

Out Of The Ashes: Remembrance And Reconstruction In Catholic Shanxi, 1900-Present, Anthony E. Clark

History Faculty Scholarship

LEWI Conference Paper, Hong Kong 2013

Word, Spirit, And Power: Women And Prophetic Authority In The Early Church, Mitchell Locklear

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

In the second century, a prophetic movement emerged out of Asia Minor that sent shockwaves through the Christian Church. Montanism, as the movement became known, emphasized both prophetic and female authority. These aspects of the movement were a threat to the male hierarchy of bishops, and in their efforts to combat threats to both episcopacy and patriarchy, Church leaders tied prophetic excesses to the usurpation of authority by women. Both Montanists and their opponents used New Testament literature and their own understandings of Church tradition to legitimize their claims. Church leaders were largely successful in neutralizing prophecy as a threat …

Invitation Through Song: Evangelism And Divine Discourse In Arkansas Revivals, Chelsea Hodge

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

For over a century, Protestant evangelists have held revivals to spread their beliefs. The invitation song is the culmination of these meetings; a sermon ends with an invitation to the unsaved to come forward and publicly accept the faith of the revivalists during the “invitation song.” This hymn is not just a traditional means to allow converts to declare their faith; Christians view this time of congregational singing as an intensely personal declaration of their own conviction, a discourse between themselves and the divine. The singers believe their music can be a powerful instrument of change because of a fundamental …

Record Of A Journey: Mother Benedicta Riepp And Companions Travel To North America: Part Ii, Helen Herbstritt, Ephrem Hollermann Osb

Saint Benedict’s Monastery Publications

A series of excerpts is presented from the 19th century diary of the missionary Reverend Maximilian Gärtner, which explores the Reverend's journey from Europe to the U.S., from June 24, 1852 through July 12, 1852.

Sunday Does Not Come In Camp, Margaret T. Kidd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This article explores how the Methodist Church tended to the spiritual needs of the soldiers in the Confederate Army. The church supplied 448 chaplains to the Army, but there were never enough to meet the needs of the troops. The church worked to mitigate this problem by establishing the Soldiers' Tract Association in 1862 and by sometimes working with churches of other denominations to support the soldiers.

Polemic, Redaction, And History In The Mandaean Book Of John: The Case Of The Lightworld Visitors To Jerusalem, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

It is unclear whether there is anything of historical usefulness that can be gleaned from the details of the depictions of figures such as John the Baptist, Miriai, and Jesus in the Mandaean Book of John. This does not mean, however, that the text cannot provide useful information about the history of the Mandaeans, and of their interactions with other religious communities. By analyzing the evidence for redaction in certain key sections, and by distinguishing between core elements and peripheral additions to the stories recorded in it, it is possible to draw conclusions about the tradition history of the material, …

The Trials Of Robert Ryland, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

Robert Ryland tried to behave in a generous Christian way with the African-American people among whom he lived all his life even as he presided over what he recognized was a compromised form of the church. He faced skepticism and criticism from all sides, and experienced considerable doubt, but he pressed on.

New Perspectives On The Northampton Communion Controversy I: David Hall's Diary And Letter To Edward Billing, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Jonathan Edwards’ fateful decision to repudiate the church admission practices of his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, provoked a bitter dispute with his parishioners that led to his dismissal in 1750. Scholars have long debated the meaning of this crucial turning point in Edwards’ pastoral career. For early biographers, the Northampton communion controversy served as an index of eighteenth-century religious decline. More recent studies situate Edwards’ dismissal within a series of local quarrels over his salary, the “Bad Book” affair, conflicts with the Williams family, and the paternity case of Elisha Hawley. This essay is the first a series that reexamines the …

Scripturalization And The Aaronide Dynasties, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

Priests claiming descent from Aaron controlled the high priesthood of temples in Jerusalem and on Mount Gerizim in the Second Temple period. These Aaronides were in a position to influence religious developments in this period, especially the scripturalization of the Torah. The priests’ dynastic claims were probably a significant factor in the elevation of the Pentateuch to scriptural status. This claim can be tested by correlating what little we know about the Aaronide dynasties with what little we know about the scripturalization of two different portions of the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch and Ezra-Nehemiah.

The Political And Legal Uses Of Scripture, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

More Than An "Immoderate Superstition": Christian Identity In The First Three Centuries, Edward Mason

Theses and Dissertations--History

Only recently have scholars given particular attention to the development of the racial discourse present in early Christian apologetics. This study is aimed at understanding the Latin and Greek literary antecedents to the development of a Christian discourse on race and identity and examining in detail the apex of this discourse in the work of third century apologist Origen of Alexandria. Origen’s work represented the apex of an evolving discourse that, while continuing to use traditional vocabulary, became increasingly universalizing with the growth of the Roman Empire. By understanding how Christians in the first three centuries shaped their attitudes on …

Beyond The Battle: Religion And American Troops In World War Ii, Kevin L. Walters

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation examines the ways in which military personnel interacted with religion during World War II. It argues that the challenges of wartime service provided the impetus and the opportunity to improvise religious practices, refine religious beliefs amid new challenges, and broaden religious understanding through interaction with those from other traditions. Methodologically, this dissertation moves beyond existing analyses that focus primarily on institutions and their representatives such as military chaplains. Instead, it explores first-person accounts left by men and women who were not part of the chaplain corps and analyzes ways in which non-chaplains engaged religion. The exigencies of war …

Evangelicalism And Religious Pluralism In Contemporary America: Diversity Without, Diversity Within, And Maintaining The Borders, William Vance Trollinger

History Faculty Publications

Not that many people need convincing, but the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) provides confirming evidence that evangelicalism in America is alive and well. In this survey, which involved 54,461 telephone interviews, the 76% of respondents who identified themselves as Christians were asked a follow-up question: "Do you identify as a Born Again or Evangelical Christian?" Forty-five percent answered yes. This number obviously includes a fair number of folks within "mainline" denominations and within predominately African-American churches; more surprising, perhaps, 18.9% of American Catholics identified themselves as "born again" or "evangelical."

If one were to depend solely on the …

"The Perfidy Of The Jews": Visigothic Law And The Catholic Public Sphere, Jonathan Phillips

Anthós

In this essay, I will analyze the Visigothic law code, the Forum judicum, as revised by King Recces winth in 654 CE and King Erwig in 681 CE, in order to examine Visigothic society as envisioned by its lawmakers. In particular, I will focus on the role of Jews in this social framework. While these laws were, of course, normative and not necessarily reflective of any historical reality outside the imaginations of their authors, they can be used to attempt to determine the intent of the Visigothic rulers towards the Jews in their kingdom. To this end, I will …

Urban Rifts And Religious Reciprocity: Chicago And The Catholic Church, 1965-1996, Dominic E. Faraone

Dissertations (1934 -)

From the late 1960s onward, a sequence of unusually transformative, combustible, and sometimes alarming urban phenomena beset the city of Chicago and bred considerable turmoil and uncertainty: post-industrial transition; street gang activity and unprecedented levels of interpersonal violence; the political ascendancy in 1983 of African American reform candidate Harold Washington to the mayor's seat; gay liberation; and AIDS. Each accentuated a host of social and/or spatial rifts--between the deteriorating city and comparatively thriving suburbs; the economically impoverished, culturally alienated, and frequently isolated inner city and the rest of Chicago; machine and reform politicians; Black lawmakers and White "ethnics"; sexual majorities …

Innovation In Tradition: Gregory The Great's Use Of Classical And Patristic Thought In His Commentary On The Song Of Songs, Caleb N. Zuiderveen

Theses and Dissertations

To follow the example of Jesus and to draw closer to God in a meaningful relationship was the ultimate goal of the monastics. Starting with St. Anthony and spread by St. Athanasius in the fourth century CE, Egyptian monasticism was established in the deserts of North Africa. Around the fifth century, these monastic ideas disseminated within the western monastic world. John Cassian had brought the ideas of the east to Gaul, establishing a monastery, while Jerome translated the works of these desert monastics into Latin.¹ These monks employed eastern monastic theology in order to help interpret the Bible, especially …

The Choir Books Of Santa Maria In Aracoeli And Patronage Strategies Of Pope Alexander Vi, Maureen Elizabeth Cox

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines painted leaves and fragments that were extracted from a set of choir books created in the last decade of the fifteenth century for the basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome. These remnants are currently housed within various library and museum collections throughout Europe and the United States. The set is agreed upon generally by scholars to have been commissioned by Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, 1431-1503), who was pope from 1492 to 1503, as a gift to the church during his time as pontiff. The choir books for Santa Maria in Aracoeli contain the bulk of …

An Exploration Of Worship Practices At An African American Church Of Christ, Lamont Ali Francies

Doctoral Dissertations

The identity of the African American Churches of Christ is deeply rooted in the American struggle for racial equality. Without a formal governing body, the Churches of Christ have survived throughout the majority of the 20th century without making an official stance on racial relations. Many leaders in the religious movement have claimed racial immunity but have not addressed the evident division among ethnic lines. This study explored the extent of cultural influence that Caucasian Churches of Christ have on African American congregations.

This study observed these influences and how they shape religious culture and tradition in Black churches. The …