History of Religion Commons^™

10, Points Of Difference, Charolette Stoehr

Texts of Time

Charolette Stoehr describes the points of difference and continuity amongst Book of Hours.

12, A Love Affair: Passionate Pursuits Of The Book Of Hours, Tammy Boyer-Martel

Texts of Time

Tammy Boyer-Martel focuses on how the Book of Hours provides crucial resources of cultural context that reveal the intimate and personal relationship between text and owner.

Meditation In Buddhism And Hinduism - Classical And Modern Dhyāna And Yoga, Ronald S. Green

Philosophy and Religious Studies

This course is an academic study of contemplative practices in two major Indian traditions: Buddhism and Hinduism. It focuses on texts dealing with bhavana (literally "cultivation" of the mind or heart), which is generally called "meditation" today. The course also surveys some of the modern developments of these practices inside and outside of India. Classical sources for meditative practices covered in the course include the Upaniṣads and early Buddhist sūtras, texts of the period of classical Yoga, and those of later Indian Tantrism. Using these texts, the course defines major categories of contemplative practices including meditation on syllables/sounds considered sacred …

09, Decorated Borders: Marginalia, Jackie Anderson

Texts of Time

Jackie Anderson explains the importance of devotional books in medieval life and describes the significance of color and symbol in the marginal illustrations and illustrated initials on a fifteenth-century manuscript.

05, Latin, Vernacular Language, And Personal Devotion In The Portland State Book Of Hours, Matthias Bladou

Texts of Time

Matthias Bladou describes the use of Latin and vernacular French in the Book of Hours, and how language reflected a more personal use of prayer texts in the fifteenth century.

African Americans Speak To Spectacle Lynchings, Mary Beth Mathews

Cultural and Philosophical Inquiry Articles

Donald Mathews’s “The Southern Rite of Human Sacrifice” both describes southern lynching as a lived interpretation of Christianity and claims a role for the religious study of lynching. Relying largely on historiography, Mathews contends that white southerners created this religion and ignored obvious parallels between lynched black men and the death of Jesus on the cross. But missing from this and other interpretations is a key voice: that of contemporary black evangelical pastors.

The First Pontiff: Pope Damasus I And The Expansion Of The Roman Primacy, Thomas J. Mcintyre

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This purpose of this thesis is to examine the extent of the agency Pope Damasus I demonstrated in the expansion of papal primacy and exaltation of the Roman See. Damasus reigned as bishop of Rome from A.D. 366 until 384. To answer this question, the research for this thesis focuses on involvement, of Damasus in contemporary theological disputes, his appropriation of Roman geography and his Latin language initiatives, both liturgical and Scriptural. Research was conducted first by consulting primary sources. These included the writings of Damasus himself, particularly his epigraphs, as well as epistolary correspondence. A key component of the …

A Monastery For The Revolution: Ernesto Cardenal, Thomas Merton, And The Paradox Of Violence In Nicaragua, 1957-1979, Brendan Jordan

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In 1957, a young Nicaraguan poet named Ernesto Cardenal, recently graduated from Columbia University, entered the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani, located outside Louisville, Kentucky. There he met a prominent Catholic thinker and pacifist, Thomas Merton, who soon mentored young Cardenal. Though Cardenal departed Gethsemani in 1959, Merton continued to counsel him in spirituality, poetry, and social activism until Merton’s death in 1968. While Cardenal during these earlier years was a committed pacifist, his experiences after returning to Nicaragua in 1965 radically altered his view of social action. Cardenal established a semi-monastic community in the Solentiname islands in southern Nicaragua, and …

Academic Library Core Collection For Celtic And Roman Religions In Roman Britain, Kim Woodring

ETSU Faculty Works

Presented here is a bibliography representing a core collection on the Celtic and Roman religion in Roman Britain. This religion, which was formed from the mixing of Celtic and Roman religions, was truly a new religion. It was formed from two powerful but different religions. The Celts believed in nature and the power it held within everything in their world. The Romans believed in the power of their pantheon of gods and goddesses. When these two factors merged it produced a religion unlike any other in the world during the Iron Age. This bibliography will list the resources to form …

11, Depictions Of The Arch In Medieval Books Of Hours: Historic And Symbolic Origins, Caitlyn Au

Texts of Time

Caitlyn Au describes the use and meanings of the medieval arch shape as a frame for displaying illuminations within niches and through symbolic gateways.

Expanding Christianity Or Safeguarding Trade? The Role Of The Missionary For Dutch Colonial Expansion In 17th Century Formosa, Tessa Huging

Undergraduate Research Journal

This essay will explore these extraordinary circumstances. What role did the clergy play in the Dutch colonial intervention on Formosa? How and for what purposes did the VOC employ missionaries? In order to answer these questions, I will especially look at the interaction between the ecclesiastical staff and the VOC-government. This paper will frame the interactions between the Formosan native populations, the Dutch clergymen and the colonial government as a complex political microcosm that was characterised by several conflicts of interest. It suggests that the dual function of the clergy, both as missionaries and civil servants, was a powerful stimulant …

06, The Transition From Psalters To Books Of Hours, Thomas Goodwin

Texts of Time

Thomas Goodwin describes the types of manuscripts that preceded Books of Hours, their commonalities and distinctions, and the changes in content and design of devotional manuscripts over time.

01, "Texts Of Time: The Portland State Library Book Of Hours And The Medieval Manuscript Tradition" Exhibit Catalog, Anne Mcclanan, Shirleanne Ackerman Gahan, Melissa Medefesser, Kenna Miller, Matthias Bladou, Thomas Goodwin, Devin Courtright, Bethany Kraft, Jackie Anderson, Charolette Stoehr, Caitlyn Au

Texts of Time

This is the catalog for the exhibit "Texts of Time: The Portland State Library Book of Hours and the Medieval Manuscript Tradition"

Leo The Great On The Supremacy Of The Bishop Of Rome, Denis Kaiser

Faculty Publications

Pope Leo the Great built his rationale for the supreme authority of the bishop of Rome on an existing tradition, yet with his additions he developed a theoretical rationale for later papal claims to absolute and supreme power in the ecclesiastical and secular realms. Previous bishops and church leaders had laid increasing stress on the unique role of the Apostle Peter as the founder of the Roman churches and episcopacy, the significance of the Roman bishop as Peter’s successor, and the apostolic significance of the city and episcopacy of Rome. Yet Leo’s rationale for the absolute control and power of …

Peter Abelard’S Theology Of Atonement: A Multifaceted Approach And Reevaluation, Denis Kaiser

Faculty Publications

As a person trained primarily in philosophy, Peter Abelard employed an intense questioning mentality in fleshing out his theological ideas.  His extreme debating style of totally deconstructing theological positions and then afterward including some of those same aspects into his own views made it easy for his religio-political enemies to take apparently heterodox statements and declare these as representative of Abelard’s entire atonement theology.  However, many of his theological beliefs are supported in the New Testament and were already held by the church fathers.  He frequently affirmed Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice as the ransom to redeem man.  He rejected various contemporary …

[Book Review Of] American Protestant Theology: A Historical Sketch, By Luigi Giussani, Denis Kaiser

Faculty Publications

Many scholars in the field of American religious and theological history may never have heard the name of Luigi Giussani (1922-2005) because he spent most of his life in his home country Italy, his proficiency in English was limited to reading literacy, and the majority of his writings were not concerned with American religious history anyway. Giussani was a Catholic priest, theologian, high school teacher, professor, and founder of the international movement Comunione e Liberazione. He was closely acquainted with Pope John Paul II and the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. His influence on Italian and European religious life and culture …

Building Bridges: Church Women United And Social Reform Work Across The Mid-Twentieth Century, Melinda M. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations--History

Church Women United incorporated in December 1941 as an interdenominational and interracial movement of liberal Protestant women committed to social reform. The one hundred organizers represented ten million Protestant women across the United States. They organized with the express purposes of helping to bring peace on Earth and to develop total equality within all humanity.

Church Women United was the bridge between the First and Second Wave of Feminism and the bridge between the Social Gospel and Social Justice Movements. Additionally they connected laterally with numerous social and religious groups across American society. As such, they exemplify the continuity and …

China Gothic: Indigenous' Church Design In Late-Imperial Beijing, Anthony E. Clark

History Faculty Scholarship

In 1887 the French ecclesiastic-cum-architect, Bishop Alphonse Favier, negotiated the construction of Beijing’s most extravagant church, the North Church cathedral, located near the Forbidden City. China was then under a semi-colonial occupation of missionaries and diplomats, and Favier was an icon of France’s mission civilisatrice. For missionaries such as Favier, Gothic church design represented the inherent caractère Français expected to “civilize” the Chinese empire. Having secured funds from the imperial court to build his ambitious Gothic cathedral, the French bishop enlisted local builders to realize his architectural vision, which consisted of Gothic arches, exaggerated finials, and a rose widow with …

Anathema & Dialog: Ecumenism From Aquinas To Ratzinger, Anthony E. Clark

History Faculty Scholarship

Whitworth Ecumenism 2015

Le Jeune Dreams Of Moose: Altered States Among The Montagnais In The Jesuit Relations Of 1634, Drew Lopenzina

English Faculty Publications

This article explores ruptures of colonial representation in the 1634 contribution of Paul Le Jeune to the Jesuit Relations, particularly in regard to Le Jeune’s intense antipathy to the faith Native Americans placed in dreams and dream interpretation. Native peoples had highly ritualized frameworks for interpreting dreams that stood in stark opposition to the expressed evangelical agendas of the Jesuits. The Montagnais, with whom Le Jeune wintered in 1633–34, used dreams to speak to manitous, who would assist them in finding game and other endeavors. Dreaming itself, with its claims to prophetic vision, was a phenomenon that threatened to override …

Inspiring Piety: The Influence Of Caravaggio’S Paintings In Santa Maria Del Popolo, Cara Coleman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This article looks at the way Italian Baroque painter, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio broke from the artistic conventions of the Renaissance and Mannerist styles in his religious paintings to create an entirely new style that reflected the needs of the post-Tridentine Catholic Church. Caravaggio pushed painting throughout Europe in a new direction, away from the idealization of the Renaissance and the artistic extremes of Mannerism, by popularizing realism in art. Caravaggio’s unique style is examined through comparisons of his paintings, The Conversion of Paul, c.1601 and The Martyrdom of Saint Peter, c.1601 in the Roman basilica, Santa Maria del Popolo …

An Alternate Ending To An Akkadian Letter-Prayer To Amurrum (Abb 12, No. 99), Alan Lenzi

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

Twenty-five years ago W. H. van Soldt published an interesting letter-prayer from a man named Ardum to the god Amurrum. In this short note, I offer an alternative translation of the prayer’s final sentence, which explains how a bed-ridden man delivered his prayer to the god and granted others the authority to lay the petition before the deity.

Religion, Russo-British Diplomacy And Foreign Policy In Anna Ivanovna’S Russia (1730-1740), Kyeann Sayer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The reign of Russian empress Anna Ivanovna (1730-1740) has been known primarily for disproportionate “German” influence, Anna’s refusing the “conditions” imposed by the supposedly backward-looking noble faction that engineered her succession, and unflattering court spectacle. Religion and foreign policy have received relatively little attention. Meanwhile, the formalization of Anglo-Russian diplomatic and trade relations during Anna’s reign has been seen as the triumph of “modern” nobility who rose as a result of the Petrine reforms. Examination of the concomitant diplomatic relations has focused on the strategies and personalities of Anna’s “German” advisers and portrays Russia as dependent. Finally, the Russo-Turkish War …

Altering Tian: Spirituality In Early Confucianism, Jacob Thomas Atkinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to analyze the three earliest Confucian thinkers and the foundational texts associated with them. In studying these texts this paper attempts to discover how these early Confucian thinkers conceived of Tian. This paper claims the early Confucian thinkers did not make as radical of a departure from the Ancient Chinese religiosity as many modern scholars have suggested. It has often been asserted that the tradition presented by these Confucian thinkers was entirely humanistic, altogether separate from the Ancient Chinese religiosityThis paper contests such claims,instead insisting that the early Confucian spirituality still viewed Tian as God and that …