Religion Commons^™

A Comparative Study Of Hermeneutical Approaches To The Seven Seals, Harold Novac

Master's Theses

Problem

From the beginnings God had a purpose with His prophetical messages to the world and we can see in the Bible clearly, that God always presented His prophetical messages in a certain order. A chronological method was favored by God. That is why from the beginnings, as Seventh-Day Adventists we believed that the best way to interpret the secrets of Revelation is through the historicist approach. Unfortunately this view is fading among scholars, even among SDA researchers.

Purpose

We are going to investigate why this is happening and we will show that historicism has a lot to say, even …

Speaking Life To A Church In The Process Of Healing And Growth, Emeka Buffong

Master's Theses

Problem

Over the past several years, there has been a marked decline in almost every area of the Niles Philadelphia Seventh-day Adventist Church life. Members have reported feeling overwhelmed with discouragement, and overall commitment has dwindled significantly. This poor morale is reflected by the low numbers at prayer meetings, Sabbath services and other church functions. Furthermore, there is difficulty in filling church offices and even when individuals volunteer to serve in specific offices they often later resign or lose their motivation to serve. Church members often appear to look for excuses to leave. There is a deep sense of discontentment. …

A Systems Theory Analysis Of The Goshen Seventh-Day Adventist Church's System Of Communication, Clavour R. Tucker

Master's Theses

Problem

The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is a complex and multilayered nonprofit organization (NPO), with carefully outlined policies and guidelines for almost every aspect of the organization. However, the philosophical or structural framework that guides communication within the organization is not clear. It is my hypothesis, having been a member and employee of the organization for almost 30 years, that not having such a structure has led to the creation of a fragmented culture of communication, which is observable in local congregations. This research assesses this phenomenon at the Goshen SDA Church, in Chicago, IL, and seeks to answer the …

The Time Of The Second Coming And The Members Of The Sanhedrin, Alina Roxana Lupu

Master's Theses

Problems

The aspects related to the time of the Second Coming of Jesus were a constant concern of the believers and Bible’s scholars. There are many challenging verses in the Scripture that are talking about the Parousia in temporal terms. This present study was to determine to what extend Jesus’ answer before the Sanhedrin (Matt 26:64) was related to the time of the Parousia and with that generation of his accusers.

Method

An historical perspective over the process of date setting for the Parousia and over the eschatological theology create the framework for understanding the problem of Parousia’s time. The …

A Methodological And Theological Evaluation Of Jon L. Dybdahl's Theology Of Spirituality, Elvis-Silviu Dumitru

Master's Theses

Problem

The concept of spirituality has become popular in recent years among both Christians and non-Christians. The meaning of this term has evolved from biblical times to the present, and today we can come across many types of spirituality. Even in the Adventist Church this concept is understood differently. Ellen White emphasizes that we can correctly represent the character of Christ only by being spiritual, and unfortunately, there are a lot of people who are not spiritual. One of the most influential Adventist theologians concerned with this subject is Jon L. Dybdahl, which highlights the benefits of all types of …

The Abolishment And Fulfillment Of The Law In The New Testament: The Try Of A Harmonic Reading Of The New Testament Teachings Regarding The Law, David Hans Bernhard Harms

Master's Theses

Problem

A central issue in the covenant theology is the change in the law between the OT and the NT. Interpretations vary between the widely spread belief that the entire law has been abolished, up to the belief that the Jewish festivals should still be an obligation for each follower of Christ. The result of investigations regarding the changes in the law depends mainly on underlying presuppositions and different hermeneutical approaches.

Method

This study is based on three basic principles: (a) the acceptance of Christ as the Lawgiver and central Teacher of the law in the OT and the NT; …

Preparing For Retirement: An Intervention With The Seventh-Day Adventist Pastors In Brazil, Paulo Gonçalves Coelho

Master's Theses

Problem

The future of retirement is an issue that has attracted the attention of governments and private entities worldwide. The period for retirement requires preparation during active professional life so that the resources or assets accrued and added to the Instituto Naacional do Seguro Social and Instituto Adventista de Jubilação e Assistência can be sufficient to meet the costs of living in the period of retirement.

The objective of this work is to awaken the interest in this issue, bring enlightenment and information for those who wish to prepare for retirement and encourage choice a balanced financial position or strengthen …

The Motif Of The Messiah In Zechariah 9-14, Caroline Stanke

Master's Theses

Topic

Zechariah 9-14 is full of prophecies regarding the coming of the messiah. The Jews at the time of Jesus awaited a messiah different from the one that came but how so? Did they misunderstand the prophecies or, by any chance, were the prophecies not clear enough?

Purpose

Firstly, it will be given an overview of the Book of Zechariah. Then, the messianic prophecies in Zechariah 9-14 will be examined closer and how they fit into the context of the prophets, the book of Zechariah, and the different chapters. An analysis of the similarities and differences will be written afterwards. …

Why Did Daniel And His Friends Refuse The King's Food And Wine, Sung Jae Park

Master's Theses

Problem

The first chapter of Daniel contains a well-known story of Daniel and his three friends' refusal to eat the king's food and wine. To the casual reader, this story may not solicit any probing questions as to the rationale for their decision. However, commentators of the book of Daniel have long been puzzled over this. The purpose of this study is to raise this question and propose a rationale for Daniel and his three friends' refusal of the king's food and wine.

Method

This study will encompass the entire first chapter of Daniel. Although the entire chapter will be …

Promoting Hope, Healing, And Wellness: Catholic Interventions In Behavioral Health Care, Thomas G. Plante, Gerdenio Manuel S.J.

Psychology

In this chapter, we will outline, highlight, and review some of the Catholic traditions and pastoral tools that can be integrated into any professional clinical practice in behavioral health care. We will focus our attention on six tools in particular that are particularly popular and unique within the Catholic faith tradition. We will also offer brief case illustrations to provide examples of how these Catholic tools can be effectively integrated into professional clinical practice.

The Changing Face Of Australia: From Secular To Post-Secular Identity, Saskia Ebejer

Theses

The secularisation thesis, originally developed in the 1960s and touted as a seminal sociological theory, has over the last few decades been called into question. In particular, claims regarding the displacement of religion in the public square and, ultimately, the waning or disappearance tout court of religion from the lives of individuals have come under scrutiny. The advent of the secular paradigm has no doubt had lasting effects, both publicly and privately, but, far from consisting merely in the extinction of religion, theorists have been drawing attention to the recent proliferation, spawned by the crisis of or dissatisfaction with the …

Bible Readings On The Progressive Development Of Truth And Experience In The Books Of The Old Testament, Hannah Whitall Smith

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Filling The Gaps In Civil Society The Role Of The Catholic Church In Latin American Democratization, John Thiede, Matthew Carnes

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

In this paper, we seek to draw lessons about the roles that religious institutions can play in promoting democracy in deeply divided societies by examining the experience of the Catholic Church in Latin America. We focus on the cases of Chile and El Salvador, two countries where the Catholic Church played a decisive role in advancing democracy after autocratic military rule. These two cases illustrate where theology and action productively promoted social change in highly conflictual societies. We note challenges to democracy in the region, but also new opportunities in the era of the first Latin American pope, Francis.

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’ …

Your Iphone Cannot Escape History, And Neither Can You: Self-Reflexive Design For A Mobile History Learning Game, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This chapter focuses on the design approach used in the self-reflexive finale of the mobile augmented reality history game Jewish Time Jump: New York. In the finale, the iOS device itself and the player using it are implicated in the historical moment and theme of the game. The author-designer-researcher drew from self-reflexive traditions in theater, cinema, and nonmobile games to craft the reveal of the connection between the mobile device and the history that the learners were studying. Through centering on this particular design element, the author demonstrates how self-reflexivity can be deployed in a mobile learning experience to …

Factors Impacting Parental Acceptance Of An Lgbt Child, Dani E. Rosenkrantz

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Chrisler’s (2017) Theoretical Framework of Parental Reactions When a Child Comes Out as Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual suggests that parental reactions to having a non-heteronormative child are impacted by a process of cognitively appraising information about their child’s identity and experiencing and coping with emotional responses, both of which are influenced by contextual factors such as a parent’s value system. However, some religious values can challenge parents in the process of accepting a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) child. The purpose of this study was to test a model that examines the influence of cognitive-affective factors (cognitive flexibility, emotional …

The Death Of Tragedy: The Form Of God In Euripedes's Bacchae And Paul’S Carmen Christi, Michael B. Cover

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Scholarship on Phil 2:6–11 has long wrestled with the question of “interpretive staging.” While acknowledging that Jewish sapiential and apocalyptic literature as well as Roman apotheosis narratives provide important matrices for the hymn, the following study pinpoints a third backdrop against which Paul's dramatic christology would have been heard in Philippi: Euripidean tragedy. Echoes of Dionysus's opening monologue from Euripides's Bacchae in the carmen Christi suggest that Roman hearers of Paul's letter likely understood Christ's kenotic metamorphosis as a species of Dionysian revelation. This interpretive recognition accomplishes a new integration of the hymn's Jewish and imperial-cultic transcripts. Jesus's Bacchic portraiture …

The Context And Effects Of The Spirit Filled Seventy Elders, David Abbott

Masters Theses

The passage of Numbers 11:16-17, 24-29 is an important passage in understanding the work, role and gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. It also is a passage that sends ripple effects throughout the rest of the Bible, most notably through Joel 2:28-32, Acts 2, 10, and 19, and in Paul’s teachings in Galatians 3:28 and 1 Corinthians 12:31 and 14:1. Although this work does not settle any theological debate about speaking in tongues, it does look into the gifts of the Spirit from an Old Testament perspective. The resting of the Spirit that appears in the Old …

Leading Through Awareness And Healing: A Servant Leadership Model, Jiying Song

Faculty Publications - George Fox Digital

Excerpt: "Servant-leadership was not a leadership theory developed through empirical studies, but more a philosophy of life first articulated by Robert Greenleaf (1904-1990) (Beazley, 2003). Scholars and writers have been criticizing servant-leadership as soft (Ebener, 2011; Nayab, 2011) and lacking a coherent conceptual framework (Eicher-Catt, 2005), an integrated theoretical development (van Dierendonck, 2011), and empirical support (Northouse, 2016). In response to these critiques and public interest, some scholars and writers have organized servant-leadership into a variety of elements: characteristics (Liden, Panaccio, Meuser, Hu, & Wayne, 2014; Spears, 2002), behaviors (Liden et al., 2014), pillars (Sipe & Frick, 2009), dimensions (van …

For The Beauty Of The Earth: Serving Others Through Being Fully Present, Jiying Song

Faculty Publications - George Fox Digital

Excerpt: "Have you ever tried to describe a quiet summer afternoon in the garden? You are sitting in the shade, feeling the breeze, smelling the barbeque aroma from the neighborhood, drinking iced tea, listening to birds chirping, and watching the sunlight embracing leaves, flowers, and grass. We are made out of dust; that is how attached to the earth we are. We may be looking at a garden, but are we present to the beauty of the earth?"

The Impact Of Pilgrimage Upon The Faith And Faith-Based Practice Of Catholic Educators, Rachel Capets

Theses

A pilgrimage of Catholic educators from Sydney Catholic Schools served as a phenomenographic case study for an investigation into the impact of pilgrimage upon the faith and faith-based practice of Catholic educators. Forty-five Catholic educators embarked on a pilgrimage for the Canonisation of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II in April 2014. The pilgrimage itinerary led the educators through Italy, whereby the pilgrims visited the holy sites of Saints significant in the life of the Church.

Phenomenographic data collection and analysis are used to investigate the range of ways educators’ perceive the impact of pilgrimage on faith. Pilgrimage is …

Because He Has Spoken To Us Joseph Ratzinger, The Revelation Of The Logos In Jesus Christ, And A Fundamental Pattern For Evangelization, Bradley Bursa

Theses

In a 1983 lecture, Joseph Ratzinger noted that one need not demonstrate at great length the apparent difficulties within the epoch’s catechetical efforts, even going so far as to declare the situation a state of crisis. He argues that the reversal of roles between content and method – with content now serving method – served as a significant source of the purported crisis.1 The bulk of Ratzinger’s expansive theological work is a response to various crises within the understanding of the contents themselves, with a willing admission on his part that he did not have responsibility for catechetical methods.2 However, …

The Christian Concept Of The Nature Of Motherhood And Its Implications In A Contemporary Context, Christine Fisk

Theses

The contemporary context presents countless ideologies and conflicting views about what femininity is and what it is not. In particular, the modern pursuit of equality and autonomy has resulted in the perception of motherhood as inconvenient in some quarters or, worse yet, inconsequential. This thesis considers the question as whether or not motherhood is separable from womanhood, and if there is indeed any inherent value to motherhood. The intent of this thesis was to go beyond the variety of views of what motherhood is to the two primary female figures in Scripture – Eve and Mary - to discern what …

Ontologia Ad Theologia: An Intellectual History Of Contemporary English Language Rahner Scholarship, Maddison Reddie-Clifford

Theses

This thesis develops the methodology of the practice of the History of Ideas for the study of English language Rahnerian literature. Drawing primarily on the Cambridge School and techniques of French analysis, it endeavours to recover the intended consequence of particular writings of Karl Rahner and to examine how this intended consequence conforms with the current English language understanding. It facilitates this with a study of several questions that arise in the current dominant hermeneutics of English language Rahner study. By deploying a rigorous intellectual history of Rahner’s theological development, it tests the extent to which the non-foundationalist approach to …

Between Forum And Tower: The Sources Of Political Judgement In The Leadership Of Pope John Paul Ii, Cormac Mccaughan

Theses

According to Mary Ann Glendon, scholars and statespersons have often grappled with a tension of pursuing their political ideals within practical realities. In The Forum and The Tower, Glendon examines how the political judgments of prominent public figures illuminates how conceptions of political ends inform, or do not inform, those decisions. This thesis draws from contemporary debates on Aristotle’s phronesis to explore how political actors deliberate between acting with integrity and compromising their political ideals. It develops a theoretical framework to examine the sources of political judgment in the leadership of Pope John Paul II towards Communist authority in Poland. …

The Plight Of Mass Man & The Concept Of Creatura According To Romano Guardini & Josef Pieper, Andriya Martinovic

Theses

This thesis argues that the plight of Mass Man finds relief when creaturely awareness is practised. For Guardini, a close reading of key passages substantiates the basis for the thesis. The Pieper response considers a broad selection of texts to affirm what is explicit in Guardini regarding Mass Man, established continuity with it, and to explicate what Guardini infers regarding creatura. Chapter 1 finds that Guardini affirms the goodness of matter or masses, and man’s mediative role in perfecting it (Ur-Werk), by drawing upon Augustine’s theory of hyle as creation; but shows the possibility of massification when man, as created …

An Exegetical Study Of The Annunciation Of Luke 1:26-38 Through Text And Art, Kellie Costello

Theses

In the Gospel of Luke, Mary of Nazareth’s encounter with the angel Gabriel has captured the attention and the imagination of theologians, scholars and artists for millennia, for in it the evangelist, communicates the announcement of the Incarnation of the long-promised Messiah. This exegetical study of the Annunciation through text and art examines how this good news was communicated to the first readers. Then following on from this acquired knowledge, this research seeks to discover if the understanding of the Annunciation has evolved over time by examining four artworks: two from sixteenth-century Europe and two from twentieth-century Australia. Each artwork …

How Do The Writings Of Pope Benedict Xvi On "Transformation" Apply To A Couple's Growth In Holiness In Sacramental Marriage?, Houda Jilwan

Theses

No abstract provided.

The God Of Love And The Love Of God: Thinking With Rāmānuja About Grace In Augustinian Christianity, Ankur Barua

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

‘moments’ of the Lord’s gracious help offered to the devotee and also the active response of the devotee; second, to indicate the contours of an Augustinian Christian resolution of this theological paradox; and third, to offer some reflections on what Christian theologians could learn through an engagement with Rāmānuja’s understanding of the divine presence. As we will see, the doctrine of production of the world and the doctrine of divine favour are mutually interrelated across Vaiṣṇava Hindu and Augustinian universes. For the later Augustine (411–430 CE), the key theological note is the utter incapability of human beings, who have a …

Why Rāmānuja? Some Reflections On Christian-Vaiṣṇava Comparative Theology, Gopal Gupta

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

This paper examines the very idea of developing a Christian-Hindu comparative theology by focusing on Rāmānuja in particular. The paper begins by reflecting on some possible reasons--social, political, theological and philosophical—that Rāmānuja, instead of Madhva and other Vaiṣṇavas, has held, and continues to hold, such a central place in Christian-Vaiṣṇava comparative work. It then compares the Thomist doctrine of creation ex-nihilo with the theologies of Rāmānuja, Madhva and Jīva Goswami to illustrate that engaging with multiple Vaiṣṇava voices can enrich and expand the Christian-Rāmānuja comparative discourse.