Religion Commons^™

Deities’ Rights?, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

A brief commotion arose during the hearings for one of twenty-first-century India’s most widely discussed legal disputes, when a dynamic young attorney suggested that deities, too, had constitutional rights. The suggestion was not absurd. Like a human being or a corporation, Hindu temple deities can participate in litigation, incur financial obligations, and own property. There was nothing to suggest, said the attorney, that the same deity who enjoyed many of the rights and obligations accorded to human persons could not also lay claim to some of their constitutional freedoms. The lone justice to consider this claim blandly and briefly observed …

Contract Law Should Be Faith Neutral: Reverse Entanglement Would Be Stranglement For Religious Arbitration, Michael J. Broyde, Alexa J. Windsor

Faculty Articles

The first section of this Article will outline the ways in which communities—religious and other groups, including the LGBTQ+ community—have used and continue to use private law to achieve meaningful dispute resolution. By diminishing the role of civil courts to review arbitrations, parties may tailor their resolutions to prioritize community values that may be misaligned with secular society. Outside of historical religious usage, private law offers a field ripe for jurisprudential growth. Through alternative dispute resolution, affinity-based minority groups can pave an avenue towards justice which accurately reflects the unique values of their lived experiences.

The second section will provide …

The Body Of Christ And The Law: A Comparative Study Of Romans 7:4 And Galatians 2:19, Dominic Bornand

Dissertations

In Romans and Galatians, Paul refers to a spiritual death to sin (Rom 6:2) and to the law (Rom 7:4; Gal 2:19). As the means of the believer's death to the law, Paul mentions the "body of Christ" in Rom 7:4 and the "law" in Gal 2:19. These verses seem to suggest some sort of relationship between the body of Christ and the law, as well as between the law and sin. The purpose of this study is to determine the type of relationship between the body of Christ and the law, as well as between law and sin. The …

Childhood Trauma And The Faith Maturity Of Seventh-Day Adventist Pastors And Seminarians, Pete A. Palmer

Dissertations

Problem

Unfortunately, Childhood Trauma is a fact of life. For instance, children lose parents/guardians through death or divorce. Children grow up in impoverished situations. Children have parents who suffer from mental illness and/or commit suicide. In addition, more unfortunately, some children are mistreated, neglected, and/or abused. The long-lasting impact of Childhood Trauma includes increased morbidity and mortality, and decreased opportunities for prosperity. This research sought to establish a statistical relationship between Childhood Trauma and Faith Maturity. Childhood Trauma has been demonstrated to affect attachment processes in children and, since religion is an attachment process and God is an attachment figure, …

Between Choice And Compulsion: An Examination And Critique Of The Evolution Of 'Original Sin', Matthew James Wynn

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

“Why are we the way that we are?” is one of the hardest questions to answer because it requires grasping the origin of human beings. This has left philosophers and theologians in century-long debates on forming a “cosmogony of ontology” (i.e., how the origin of the universe informs the human condition). The concept, “original sin” was developed by a North African theologian named Augustine (354 – 430 CE). Augustine’s reading of Genesis 3, and inaccurate translation of Romans 5:12, taught that a person is born morally culpable for a fault antecedent to their existence. This way of thinking about the …

Exploring Graduated Court Diversion Clients' Experience Of Psychotherapy In Their Community Reintegration, Daniel Oduro Sem

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Court Diversion Program (CDP) seeks to reduce the criminalization and reoffending among people living with mental illness to ensure their community reintegration (Schneider, 2010). The complex nature of achieving this goal calls for a comprehensive strategy, which requires a collaborative effort of legal, health care, and allied professionals including psychotherapists. However, because most CDP clients frequently receive medication treatment, not much is known about how CDP clients find psychotherapy services even though psychotherapy is effective for addressing mental illnesses and offending behaviors (Feingold & Fox, 2018; Feucht & Holt, 2016), To gain more insight into the issue, this study applied …

Israel's Scriptures In Philo And The Alexandrian Jewish Tradition, Michael B. Cover

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Dragon's Atonement: Eschatological Yom Kippur In The Book Of Revelation, Andrei Orlov

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

There are striking differences between the classic description of the scapegoat ritual found in Leviticus 16 and later renderings of this rite in rabbinic and early Christian authors. For instance, several enigmatic additions to the Levitical blueprint of the scapegoat ritual appear in later interpretations of this rite found in mishnaic, targumic, and talmudic accounts, especially in the description of the conclusion of the scapegoat ceremony. Some of these accounts insist that in the final moments of the ritual in the wilderness the crimson band of the scapegoat was removed and then placed back onto the animal. The scapegoat was …

Eschatological Consumption Of Leviathan And Behemoth As Revelation Of The Messianic Torah, Andrei Orlov

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

The notion that the righteous would one day feast on Behemoth and Leviathan occupied a prominent place in early Jewish pseudepigraphical accounts, including testimonies found in the Book of the Similitudes, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch. Thus, from 1 Enoch 60:24 one learns that “two monsters, prepared according to the greatness of the Lord, will provide food for the chosen and righteous.”

Buddhism And Transpersonal Psychology, Elías Capriles

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

In the debate between Freud and Romain Rolland the latter asserted the infants’ oceanic feeling to be saner than the adults’ limited sense of self, and that mystics recover the oceanic feeling without losing the learning achieved during socialization. Freud retorted that the oceanic feeling involved a sense of shelterlessness, and whoever went through derealization was psychotic and needed to be cured. However, the feeling of shelterlessness comes from the fledging sense of separation, and although derealization is a dangerous process, when it develops unhindered the result is greater sanity. So, Buddhism and TP agree in valuing transpersonal and holotropic …

Ecclesiological Sovereignty: Toward An Understanding Of The Sovereignty Of The Pope In The Context Of Luther's Responses, Erik Lee Grayvold

Master's Theses

This thesis seeks to address the contention between the perceived sovereign power of the Papacy and the Protestant Reformers. It will first provide a historical survey of how the Pope came to understand himself through the history of the Church. It will then analyze responses from the Reformers regarding this topic, focusing mainly on confessional documents and responses to these documents from the Roman Catholic Church. It will conclude with a survey of Luther’s specific responses to the situation and how his response to Papal authority and sovereignty impacted this theological development. This survey will also acknowledge situations in which …

พุทธธรรมในนิตยสารธรรมจักษุในสมัยสมเด็จพระมหาสมณเจ้า กรมพระยาวชิรญาณวโรรส ทรงเป็นบรรณาธิการ พ.ศ. 2437-2454 : ความเป็นมา สารัตถะ และบทบาทต่อพุทธศาสนาไทย, พระมหาสราวุธ โพธิ์ศรีขาม

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์นี้ศึกษาพุทธธรรมในนิตยสารธรรมจักษุ ในสมัยสมเด็จพระมหาสมณเจ้า กรมพระยาวชิรญาณวโรรส ทรงเป็นบรรณาธิการ พ.ศ. 2437-2454 โดยศึกษาความเป็นมา สารัตถะ และบทบาทความสำคัญต่อพระพุทธศาสนาและสังคมไทย ผลการศึกษาความเป็นมาพบว่า นิตยสารธรรมจักษุ (พ.ศ. 2437-2454) เป็นนิตยสารทางพระพุทธศาสนาเล่มแรกของประเทศไทย ตีพิมพ์เป็นรายเดือน เผยแผ่ครั้งแรกเมื่อเดือนตุลาคม ปีพุทธศักราช 2437 ในสมัยพระบาทสมเด็จพระจุลจอมเกล้าเจ้าอยู่หัว โดยสมเด็จพระมหาสมณเจ้า กรมพระยาวชิรญาณวโรรส (กรมหมื่นวชิรญาณวโรรส) ทรงเป็นผู้ก่อตั้งและบรรณาธิการรูปแรก มีพระเถรานุเถระ พระภิกษุสามเณรนิสิตของมหามกุฏราชวิทยาลัย และกลุ่มบุคคลต่าง ๆ ร่วมจัดทำ เพื่อใช้เป็นสื่อในการเผยแผ่พุทธธรรมที่เข้ากับสมัยนิยม ตามวัตถุประสงค์สำหรับเผยแผ่พุทธธรรมของมหามกุฏราชวิทยาลัย ผลการศึกษาด้านสารัตถะพุทธธรรมพบว่า เนื้อหาสารัตถะพุทธธรรมในนิตยสารธรรมจักษุ จำแนกออกเป็น 10 ประเภท ได้แก่ สารัตถะพุทธธรรมเกี่ยวกับ 1) คัมภีร์พระไตรปิฎก 2) สุภาษิตและนิทานชาดก 3) พระธรรมเทศนา 4) คำอนุโมทนา 5) หัวข้อกระทู้ธรรม 6) ตำนานและประวัติศาสตร์ 7) คัมภีร์ทางพระพุทธศาสนา 8) หลักธรรมสำคัญและหลักการปฏิบัติธรรม 9) พระคุณสมบัติของพระพุทธเจ้า และ 10) พระสูตรทางพระพุทธศาสนามหายาน สะท้อนให้เห็นมิติใหม่ของการเผยแผ่พุทธธรรมไปสู่สาธารณชน ด้วยการนำเสนอเนื้อหาสาระที่หลากหลาย เปิดโอกาสให้ผู้อ่านสามารถเข้าถึงวรรณกรรมทางพระพุทธศาสนามากยิ่งขึ้น ผลการศึกษาด้านกลวิธีนำเสนอสารัตถะพุทธธรรมพบว่า มี 5 รูปแบบ ได้แก่ 1) การใช้ภาษาแนวใหม่ 2) การจัดหมวดหมู่สารัตถะพุทธธรรม 3) การแปลความพระสูตรรูปแบบใหม่ 4) การนำเสนอพุทธสุภาษิตสั้น ๆ 5) การใช้โวหารวิธี คือ บรรยายโวหารวิธี พรรณนาโวหารวิธี ปุจฉาวิสัชนาวิธี สาธกโวหารวิธี และเทศนาโวหารวิธี เพื่อเป็นทางเลือกในการอ่านและศึกษาคำสอนทางพระพุทธศาสนา ผ่านมิติมุมมองด้านประวัติศาสตร์ ภูมิศาสตร์ และภาษาวรรณกรรม โดยประยุกต์หลักธรรมให้เหมาะสมแก่กาลและบริบทสังคม ผลการศึกษาด้านบทบาทและความสำคัญของนิตยสารธรรมจักษุต่อพุทธศาสนาในสังคมไทยพบว่า นิตยสารธรรมจักษุ เป็นเสมือนโรงธรรมสภาของพุทธศาสนิกชน สร้างพฤติกรรมการรับรู้พุทธธรรมใหม่ ๆ คือปรับเปลี่ยนรูปแบบการเข้าถึงหลักพุทธธรรมจากการฟังสู่การอ่าน เป็นสื่อของคณะสงฆ์ส่วนกลางในการจัดการเล่าเรียนหัวเมือง และเป็นสื่อกลางระหว่างพระพุทธศาสนา พระมหากษัตริย์ ชาติบ้านเมือง และประชาชน ซึ่งเป็นประโยชน์ต่อการเผยแผ่คำสอนของพระพุทธศาสนาและพัฒนาการศึกษาของบ้านเมืองอีกช่องทางหนึ่ง …

Understanding Secularized People Of Metro Manila: A Case Study Approach For A Contextualized Urban Ministry Strategy, Ermela T. Dizon

Dissertations DIS

Problem

Secularization shapes people's thinking, feeling, and behaving in the cities. Yearly, there is a rise in the number of de-religionized or secularized people in cities of the world who engage in pursuits of materialism and show declining interest in religion. Sociologists and missiologists postulate about the spectrum of secularity and the variety of secularism in different context. Since Metro Manila is one of the world's top highly urbanized and densely populated cities, the Seventh-day Adventist Church encounters challenges in reaching its secularized people. It is a new turf for the church. Pastors trained for rural settings may not understand …

Towards Empowering Romanian Seventh-Day Adventist University Students To Participate In Cross-Cultural Mission, Daniel Nae

Dissertations DIS

Problem

Romanian Seventh-day Adventist students on secular campuses have a high potential to participate in cross-cultural missions, but only a small number of them actually do. This study aims to identify factors that influence participation in cross-cultural missions of Seventh-day Adventist university students in secular university centers in Romania and to develop a strategy to facilitate cross-cultural missionary involvement in the Middle East and North Africa.

Method

The present study employed a research design that comprised theological, bibliographical, and survey research. A survey based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen 1991) was created to assess students intention to participate …

An Evaluative Study To Understand The Mission Motivation Of The Theology Students Of Spicer Adventist University With Missiological Implications And Applications, Anish Puthusseril Joseph

Dissertations DIS

This dissertation critically examines the understudied domain of mission motivation among theology students at Spicer Adventist University (SAU) to provide valuable insights for developing an appropriate missiological response. Chapter I provides a comprehensive overview of the research proposal. Then the study builds upon a biblical and theoretical foundation established in Chapters II and III. Official statistics reveal a significant need for focused missiological attention in India, where the Adventist community constitutes a ratio of 1:811 (1.26 billion Indian population vs. 1.55 million Adventists in India). However, there has been a lack of evaluation concerning the mission motivation of theology students …

The Effectiveness Of Theological Education To Grow Disciples In The Unorganized Territory, Chung Yin Mak

Dissertations DIS

Problem

In the past three decades, China has imposed serious restrictions on theological education in the Unorganized Territory (UT). The Adventist Church has endeavored to address this challenge by seeking various means of equipping its leaders through both formal and informal theological education. This study is needed because these attempts have never been reviewed in light of advancing the church’s mission especially in the area of discipleship.

Methods

Duce and Cameron (2013, 16-143) proposed the use of questionnaires, participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and documentary analysis in order to conduct theological research. Multiple research methods were utilized (Creswell 2014, 16; …

An Analysis Of The Current State Of Seventh-Day Adventist Mission In Bihar With Missiological Implications, Santosh Kumar

Dissertations DIS

This study investigates and evaluates the current state of Seventh-day Adventist mission in Bihar to discover the hinderances that are affecting the mission work. When Bihar was divided in 2000, a new state, Jharkhand, was created, and church membership and the number of mission workers dropped dramatically, raising concerns about what may have caused the present condition of the SDA mission.

Although the Adventist mission has tried various strategies to spread the Gospel throughout Bihar since 2000, these appear to have been ineffective in terms of membership growth. The failure to evangelize Bihar led to dissatisfaction among church leaders, and …

Week 4: Psalm 51 - Praying Our Sin, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

The Hands Of God And The Glittering Sword: A Theological History Of John Brown, Christian Chiakulas

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

The political praxis of American abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859) furnishes an example of practical liberation theology. This work advances an experimental historiographic model, termed theological history, which combines the central insights of Christian liberation theology and Marxist historical materialism to draw both historical and theological conclusions about its subject, John Brown.

The foundational work of Gustavo Gutierrez and James Cone suggests that history and praxis are central to liberation theology, and that Marxist epistemology and ontology are necessary for historical conclusions drawn from liberation theology to be valid. This work extends this contention, arguing for an even greater fusion …

Divine Democracy: Examining The Intersection Of Religion And Politics In Civil Religion, José Andrés Serrano

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis seeks to build upon and provide a new interpretation of civil religion in the United States. In it, the history of civil religion from the 1960s, starting with Bellah, to the 2010s will be analyzed for any themes still used in the 2020s. Similarly, understanding what a religion is within this time frame will be broken apart and examined to see how it paralleled the evolution of political understanding. Building upon its history, the paper will break into four prominent chapters: Is American Democracy Like a Civil Religion?, Religious Characteristics in the American Government, American Democracy as a …

From Building To Dwelling: Unfolding Infinity Through Bioregional Fulfillment, Sanjana Bhatnagar

Pitzer Senior Theses

The causes of anthropogenic climate change touch every feature of our modern-day existences. Approaches to sustainability tend to focus on material actions, but unsustainable practices are guided by an ontological orientation of individuality and human exceptionalism. This thesis provides an alternate account of being that decenters individuality through weaving the metaphysics of Fazang of the Huayan School of Mahayana Buddhism with the metaphysics of Martin Heidegger. To encompass the whole of the relational network that constitutes and conditionally defines our existence, I expand Heidegger’s account of locales as relational sites which are put forth solely by humans to an account …

Athanasius Pulled Apart: Heresiology And The (Dis)Membered (Fe)Male Body, Jennifer Barry

Cultural and Philosophical Inquiry Articles

In this article, I engage Athanasius of Alexandria’s invocation of the infamous dismemberment of the unnamed woman found in Judg 19. By the fourth century, this story of gang rape—along with other preserved stories of sexual violence—found in Judges, were scattered throughout early Christian literature. Judges 19 holds a particularly troubling history in the late ancient context. The story of the rape and dismemberment of the unnamed woman in Judg 19 gave life to another story and typified a style of writing that I characterize in the article as a heresiology. The spectacle of Judges, along with other gruesome deaths …

Show Us How You Do It, Jonathan Underwood

Tenor of Our Times

Published in 2008, Edward J. Robinson’s Show Us How You Do It: Marshall Keeble and the Rise of Black Churches of Christ in the United States, 1914-1968 poses a thesis that Marshall Keeble had such a strong impact on the formation of African American Churches of Christ in the twentieth century because of his willingness to work alongside white supporters of his ministry, thus making two fellowships within the Churches of Christ that reflected the broader racial, social, and religious context of the United States. Robinson accomplishes defending his thesis by first describing Keeble's upbringing and influences in the church. …

Reawakening Rochester: The Leadership Styles Of Bishop James E. Kearney, Maria G. Wild

Soaring: A Journal of Undergraduate Research

Throughout their vocation, Catholic priests are assigned to a parish within their diocese, oftentimes without their consultation, and are called to engage with that church to increase the liveliness and faithfulness of its parishioners and encounter others within the surrounding community. While the geographic location of priestly assignments will impact the immediate influence that one can have on a group of people, it is the inherent identity and leadership abilities of the priest that will dictate the trajectory of the lives of people that will proceed them. After being assigned to the Diocese of Rochester, NY in 1937, The Most …

Playing As Others: Theology And Ethical Responsibility In Video Games (Book Review), Brad D. Hickey

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Reviewed Title: Playing as Others: Theology and Ethical Responsibility in Video Games by Benjamin J. Chicka. Baylor University Press, 2021. 235 pp. ISBN: 978-1481315463.

The Cost Of Debunking Conspiracy Theories, Scott Culpepper

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

This chapter is published in QAnon, Chaos, and the Cross: Christianity and Conspiracy Theories edited by Michael W. Austin and Gregory L. Bock. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2023. Eerdmans.com

A Distributional Synoptic Perspective On The So-Called "Historical Present" Tense Of Mark's Gospel, Oliver Glanz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Healing A Broken Spirit, David Sedlacek, Beverly Sedlacek

Faculty Publications

Abuse of any kind as well as significant losses such as death of a loved one can result in a broken spirit (Proverbs 15:13, 17:22). However, we have a wonderful God who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (Isaiah 51:3). He often leads us into communities where we can experience being seen, soothed, safe, and secure. This chapter describes the experience of brokenness and the process of healing integrating both biblical and interpersonal neurobiological perspectives.

Self-Harm: Warning Signs, Risk Factors, And Prevention, Alina M. Baltazar

Faculty Publications

Rates of suicide and self-harm have been increasing in children and adolescents over the last 20 years (CDC, 2022). Suicidality and self-harm are preventable, treatable, and manageable. Parents and those who work with children, teens, and young adults are an important part in addressing this issue. This article reviews the current statistics of suicide and self-harm, role of trauma, risk-factors, causes, prevention, and treatment options. Practical tips and resources are included. The reader will better understand the phenomenon and know how self-harm and suicide can be prevented and treated.

Luther On Sabbath & Eschatology, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.