Intellectual History Commons^™

The Ghannouchi Test: The Compatibility Of Religious Ideas And Secular Democracy, Andrew P. Sheppe

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Secular, democratic societies and governments evolved out of religious societies and defined themselves partially in opposition to religious authority. This historical relationship has led to a debate about the compatibility between religious ideas and modern, secular society. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde posited that secular, democratic societies still depend on religious foundations. Jürgen Habermas disagrees, claiming that processes of rational dialogue can provide sufficient support.

Two prominent twentieth century theologians, Reinhold Niebuhr and Abraham Joshua Heschel demonstrate that democratic systems are enriched and protected by theistic ideas, thus supporting Böckenförde’s dictum. However, they both recognize the importance of epistemic humility and a …

Living By The Sword: Religiosity And The Terrorist Subculture Of Russian Revolutionaries, 1904-1910, Gregory I. Mcevoy

Dissertations and Theses

The Marxist dictum of “religion is the opiate of the masses” has led to a prevailing assumption in scholarship that the socialist movements of the early twentieth century have been inherently atheistic. Religion is often associated as a remnant of old, antiquated society and incompatible with the claimed modernity of socialist progress. This assumption has led to overlooking the religiosity within certain radical movements and revolutionary culture at large. Scholarship on the political underground in Tsarist Russia has, thus far, perpetuated this impression. While it is the true that the Bolsheviks and Leninist Social Democrats rejected religion as obscurantist and …

“No Place Is So Dear To My Childhood”: Evangelicalism, Nostalgia, And The History Of An American Hymn, Christopher D. Cantwell

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article tracks the surprising history of a love ballad about a lost sweetheart that went on to become a celebrated gospel hymn about the rural roots of America's greatness. Titled “The Little Brown Church,” but sometimes called “The Church in the Wildwood,” the song's evolution speaks to the ways in which nostalgia became central to the social and religious imagination of those American Protestants call themselves “evangelicals.” Though it first appeared in college songbooks after its publication in 1865, “The Little Brown Church” eventually became a favorite of evangelists, revivalists, and other gospel singers at the dawn of the …

God And Reason: An Intellectual Religious Journey Through The Mind Of Thomas Paine, Jason R. Patterson

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Thomas Paine was one of the most prolific writers in the Age of Revolutions. His writings can be analyzed from a political, philosophical, humanitarian, or religious point of view. However, it was Paine's use of religious rhetoric that ultimately led to the demise of his character and reputation as a popular actor in the American Revolution. Most historiography on Paine focuses in on one of the mentioned perspectives, leaving out a much larger narrative or arch of Paine's life. This thesis will cover a series of Paine's writings beginning with his first, The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772) …

​​​​From Repression To Appropriation: Soviet Religious Policy And Reform, 1917-1943, Andriy Dyachenko

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyses the dynamics of religious reform in the USSR from 1917 to 1943. It argues that the early Bolshevik policy of persecution was increasingly substituted by state co-optation. This dynamic was shaped primarily by Stalinist concerns with state security and problems of ideology.

Playing At The Crossroads Of Religion And Law: Historical Milieu, Context And Curriculum Hooks In Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This chapter presents the use of Lost & Found – a purpose-built tabletop to mobile game series – to teach medieval religious legal systems. The series aims to broaden the discourse around religious legal systems and to counter popular depiction of these systems which often promote prejudice and misnomers. A central element is the importance of contextualizing religion in period and locale. The Lost & Found series uses period accurate depictions of material culture to set the stage for play around relevant topics – specifically how the law promoted collaboration and sustainable governance practices in Fustat (Old Cairo) in twelfth-century …

Religion And Rural Internationalism In The Nineteenth-Century Middle West: The Global Consciousness Of Rural Dutch Middle Westerners,1865–1901, Andrew Klumpp

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

This project asks: How did underlying religious worldviews inform the local, national, and global engagement of rural middle western Dutch communities in the nineteenth century, which are often characterized as isolated and provincial? More broadly, it queries, if the local, national, and global are united by this broad religious worldview, how does that transform our understandings of rural middle western ethnic enclaves and who contributed to the rich internationalism of the nineteenth century and from where?

Close examination of these rural middle western ethnic enclaves reveals not only an ambitious vision for building local institutions but also for extending Dutch …

Searching For Answers: Examining Historical Christianity In Nineteenth Century Europe Through Kierkegaard & Nietzsche, Robert Jones

Theses

The Europe of the 1800s saw remarkable change. Previously unthinkable ideas and 'isms' made their way to the forefront of exploration in European society, forcing Christianity to a crossroads it had never before experienced. This thesis examines the fusion of politics and religion into a sort of surrogate religion for the Post-Enlightenment world. Above all, it examines historical Christianity through precedent-setting writers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Given the unique process of secularization in the nineteenth century, both writers offer something often overlooked; the inevitable progress or decline of the Lutheran tradition depends, in true existentialist fashion, on the individual.

The New British Christianity Of C.S. Lewis, Thomas Kemp

LSU Master's Theses

The emergence of C.S. Lewis as a popular author known for Christian content during the second half of the twentieth century provides an ideal case study for the transformation of religiosity within Britain. As religious behavior shifted from institutional adherence to private experience, Lewis became a ‘popular theologian’ who represented Christianity both for Christians – who looked to him for spiritual inspiration– and for non-Christians – who treated his views as representative of contemporary Christianity. By analyzing the reception, representation, and use of Lewis (his figure and his work) throughout the twentieth-century and into the twenty-first, it becomes clear that …

The Lost & Found Game Series: Teaching Medieval Religious Law In Context, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context. The Lost & Found project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy. The first game in the series is a strategy game called Lost & Found …

The Presbyterian Enlightenment: The Confluence Of Evangelical And Enlightenment Thought In British America, Brandon S. Durbin

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Eighteenth-Century British American Presbyterian ministers incorporated covenantal theology, ideas from the Scottish Enlightenment, and resistance theory in their sermons. The sermons of Presbyterian ministers strongly indicate the intermixing of enlightenment and evangelical ideas. Congregants heard and read these sermons, spreading these ideas to the average colonist. This combination helps explain why American Presbyterians were so apt to resist British rule during the American Revolution. Protestant covenantal theology, derived from Protestant reformers like John Calvin and John Knox, emphasized virtue and duty. This covenant affected both the people and their rulers. When rulers failed to uphold their covenant with God, the …

Prosocial Religion And Games: Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

In a time when religious legal systems are discussed without an understanding of history or context, it is more important than ever to help widen the understanding and discourse about the prosocial aspects of religious legal systems throughout history. The Lost & Found (www.lostandfoundthegame.com) game series, targeted for an audience of teens through twentysomethings in formal, learning environments, is designed to teach the prosocial aspects of medieval religious systems—specifically collaboration, cooperation, and the balancing of communal and individual/family needs. Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, the first two games in the series address laws in Moses Maimonides’ …

Romanticism And Religion: The Superb Lily, Alexis Marie Michelle Zilen

Wonders of Nature and Artifice

“The Superb Lily,” was donated by Geoff Jackson, class of 1991 and beloved benefactor of Gettysburg College, to Special Collections. This first edition piece was published in the twenty first page of the book, Temple of Flora. This text is considered the greatest and most famous florilegia of the twentieth century due to its accuracy of descriptions and vast size. It contained a total of thirty five floral prints. The publisher, Robert Thornton, produced numerous copies of this book in the same year, however, the exact number of copies is unknown. (excerpt)

Liberal Translations: Secular Concepts, Law, And Religion In Colonial Egypt, Jeffrey Culang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a conceptual history of Egypt’s national formation between the 1880s and the 1930s. This period involved the convergence of nationalism, colonial rule, missionary activity, and new modes of governance at the national and international levels. Drawing on state and missionary archival material, periodicals, legal compendia, laws, and parliamentary transcripts, and adapting methods developed by Reinhart Koselleck, I trace shifts within Egypt’s socio-political lexicon through processes of translation and demonstrate their effects upon social experience and political aspiration. I focus on a set of liberal-secular concepts critical to national politics—religious freedom, public interest, nationality, and the minority—as they …

Religious Ideas In The Declaration Of Independence: Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, And The American Mind, Kristina Benham

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis is an analysis of the religious statements of the Declaration of Independence. It examines contemporary uses of Locke’s ideas on natural rights and created equality in newspapers, town meetings, colonial governments, speeches, and sermons. It also identifies uses of Locke’s works in religious sources in the decades before the Revolution. Locke’s ideas became especially important to arguments in favor of religious liberty for dissenters during and after the First Great Awakening. These analyses connect to both his Two Treatises of Government and his A Letter Concerning Toleration. These works parallel to the writings and protests of colonial …

Pure Land And The Social Order In Twelfth-Century China: An Investigation Of "Longshu’S Treatise On Pure Land", Trevor Davis

Student Work

A 2012-2013 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Trevor Davis (Saybrook College '13) for his essay submitted to the History Department, “Pure Land and the Social Order in Twelfth-Century China: An Investigation of Longshu’s Treatise on Pure Land.” (Valerie Hansen, Professor of History, advisor.)

Davis' essay makes a powerful argument about the Pure Land Buddhist Wang Rixiu's understanding of Southern Song (1127-1279) society. Although Pure Land Buddhism is often thought to be egalitarian - or at least to challenge traditional hierarchies - Trevor shows that for Wang Rixiu, an egalitarian Pure Land coexists …

Sway Of The Ottoman Empire On English Identity In The Long Eighteenth Century, Emily Kugler

Department of Literature and Writing Faculty Publications

Within popular culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the intermingling of Islamic and English Protestant identity was a recurring topic of debate and anxiety in the English cultural imagination. Examining the shifting representations from Early Modern Era to nineteenth-century concepts of race, nation and empire, Sway presents the eighteenth century as a turning point in public perceptions, the moments when English subjects began to believe British imperial power was a reality rather than an aspiration. 

Reading, Writing, And Religion: Institutions And Human Capital Formation, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In this paper, we empirically test the role that religious and political institutions play in the accumulation of human capital. Using a new data set on literacy in colonial India, we find that Muslim literacy is negatively correlated with the proportion of Muslims in the district, although we find no similar result for Hindu literacy. We employ a theoretical model which suggests that districts which experienced a more recent collapse of Muslim political authority had more powerful and better funded religious authorities, who established religious schools which were less effective at promoting literacy on the margin than state schools. We …

Edwards On The Will: A Century Of American Theological Debate, Allen C. Guelzo

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Jonathan Edwards towered over his contemporaries--a man over six feet tall and a figure of theological stature--but the reasons for his power have been a matter of dispute. Edwards on the Will offers a persuasive explanation. In 1753, after seven years of personal trials, which included dismissal from his Northampton church, Edwards submitted a treatise, Freedom of the Will, to Boston publishers. Its impact on Puritan society was profound. He had refused to be trapped either by a new Arminian scheme that seemed to make God impotent or by a Hobbesian natural determinism that made morality an illusion. He …

Freedom Of The Will, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The exact nature of the human will is, like the nature of human consciousness, a question so subjective and so interior that no one is ever likely to arrive at a satisfactory judgment about how it functions or even what it is-which may be the best proof that philosophy is not a science, and the best evidence that those social sciences which try to measure, quantify, and control aspects of human consciousness are not sciences either. Still, there is no denying that we are aware of a power or an impulse within us which transJates thought into action, or at …

1. Introduction, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXI: Meaning in the Social Sciences

Vastly increased research and a sounder technique in history in the nineteenth century had two influences on the social sciences. When an enthusiasm for the records of history was combined with the evolutionary perspective, it often resulted in the search for and the imposition of patterns of development on history in general or on the history of particular subject matters such as economics, politics, morals, or religion. Social scientists looked to history for explanations, in the hope of finding inevitable laws, stages of development, or the forces that moved human society. As historians worked out a critical method for their …