Religion Commons^™

Is Religion "Just" Supernatural Agency, Social Support, Or Meaning?, A. Taylor Newton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is longstanding tension in the study of religion between those who believe religion can be reduced to general psychosocial processes and those who think that religion is somehow unique. One way to test these two possibilities is to compare religious versions of mechanisms to nonreligious versions. If religion is somehow unique, then the religious versions should explain variance in outcomes that the nonreligious versions do not. Three studies confirmed religion's independent predictive power. Exposure to a religious supernatural agent reduced cheating more than exposure to a nonreligious supernatural agent (Study 1), receiving religious social support during a stressful task …

Salazar V. Buono: A Missed Opportunity To Clarify The Reasonable Observer Test, Sumahn Das

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Education As A Counterterrorism Tool And The Curious Case Of The Texas School Book Resolution, Diane Webber

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Divergent Responses To The Human Predicament: A Case Study In New Comparativism, Mark Toole

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The enterprise of comparison has been regarded by some as one of the most vital characteristics of a healthy academic study of religion. However, the failed legacy of Eliadian Comparativism has caused others to suggest that the art of comparison has not yet lived up to its promise. This study brings together the best tools of what the author calls "Smithian New Comparativism." In order to demonstrate concretely a rigorous and responsible critical comparative analysis, and to chart a course for future academically beneficial cross-cultural comparisons, this project presents a case study that compares two religious traditions' doctrinal responses to …

Seeking The Face Behind The Face: Rosenzweig And Nietzsche Opening To The Feminine Divine, Sharon Mar Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study begins with a reading of Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption and Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra in a manner that offers evidence for what I call a feminine divine. In reading the Star against Zarathustra I explore how even as Rosenzweig appears to praise Nietzsche as being emblematic of Rosenzweig's "new thinking," Rosenzweig eventually finds Nietzsche falls short, (or, in other words, Rosenzweig critiques Nietzsche in suggesting his pagan roots prevent him from ever reaching Revelation). I suggest Nietzsche's texts do indicate a type of divine inspiration, but it is one coming not from the Father God of …

Wyschogrod’S Hand: Saints, Animality, And The Labor Of Love, Virginia Burrus

Religion - All Scholarship

That the lives of saints constitute an unmediated appeal suggests both a call to imitate what cannot be imitated (thus can result in no mimesis of sameness) and a call to respond to the extremity of the saint's vulnerability; and I would suggest that the two calls turn out to be the same. Because the saint is radically open to the need of others, she is endlessly vulnerable to need herself (she will give everything, again and again); and because she is endlessly vulnerable to need herself, she is radically open to the need of others.

The Dissonant Bible Quotation: Political And Narrative Dissension In Gaskell's Mary Barton, Jon Singleton Ph.D.

Faculty Research and Publications

Religious language exerted multivalent force in Victorian society, as this case study of Gaskell’s novel Mary Barton, Chartist political protest, and the weaponization of the Bible in contemporary social struggle makes clear. Scholars have established that different classes read the Bible differently; but I demonstrate how Gaskell makes the Bible read in several different ways for the same reader. Gaskell makes Bible quotations dissonant through her use of character and narration, in order to challenge the boundaries of readers’ political sympathies. This study shows how any religious utterance escapes the control and political interests of any class—and how its conflicting …

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 …

Institutions, The Rise Of Commerce And The Persistence Of Laws: Interest Restrictions In Islam And Christianity, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Why was economic development retarded in the Middle East relative to Western Europe, despite the Middle East being far ahead for centuries? A theoretical model inspired and substantiated by the history of interest restrictions suggests that this outcome emanates in part from the greater degree to which early Islamic political authorities derived legitimacy from religious authorities. This entailed a feedback mechanism in Europe in which the rise of commerce led to the relaxation of interest restrictions while also diminishing the Church's ability to legitimise political authorities. These interactions did not occur in the Islamic world despite equally amenable economic conditions.

Preface, Brett C. Mcinelly

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

As I was breaking into the profession some years ago, religion was a mere blip on my radar of scholarly interests. Having come through graduate school in the 1990s, I naturally followed disciplinary trends in literary and eighteenth-century studies, focusing much of my research on issues of race, class, and gender and examining the relationships between Britain's imperial history and the literature and culture of the period. Religion factored into my queries at times, say, in considering the ways Crusoe's Protestantism informed his sense of self while taking possession of a West Indian island. But religion itself remained on the …

God And Sex: What The Bible Really Says, Michael Coogan, Eric A. Eliason

BYU Studies

Once, while serving as a military chaplain, I attended a training event in Colorado Springs. There we toured the world headquarters of the Evangelical "Focus on the Family" ministry. Our friendly guide explained to us that their organization existed to promote the "biblical model" of the family in the modern world. A cheeky question popped into to my mind: "By 'biblical model' do you mean the polygamy practiced in the Old Testament, or the celibacy encouraged in the New Testament?" But I held my tongue, as I wanted to be a polite guest. But since this event, I have often …

Helping Students Act As A Result Of Classroom Lessons, John Hilton Iii, Brandon B. Gunnell

Faculty Publications

President Thomas S. Monson taught, “The goal of gospel teaching . . . is not to ‘pour information’ into the minds of class members. . . . The aim is to inspire the individual to think about, feel about, and then do something about living gospel principles.” In this same talk he emphasized the importance of taking action as it relates to learning, saying, “I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I learn.” Thus a key responsibility in the role of a religious educator is to help students do things as a result of …

Highway Religion: Truckstop Chapels, Evangelism, And Lived Religion On The Road, David Brett Greenberg

Honors Papers

This study examines manifestations of Christian faith found along the highways of the United States, particularly in the form of truckstop chapels. Through ethnographic research and social-historical/theoretical analysis, this study seeks to explore the ways in which Evangelical Christianity, when combined with certain cultural and social particulars of the trucking profession, may be markedly re-contextualized, giving rise to distinctive approaches to ministry, worship, and religious life.

By identifying widespread and often codified specializations among trucking ministries and examining the ways in which the trucking-specific evangelism of such ministries may be applied and lived out by individual drivers of faith, this …

Mission Between Religious Pluralism And The Postmodern Claim Of Truth: A Study Of Young Korean Protestant's Views Of Other Faiths, Suh Tae Yun

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Vice, Virtue, And Industry: The Church Of Scotland's Employment Of Political Economy, C. 1700-C. 1750, Ryan K. Frace

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

When describing the Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge in 1750, Edinburgh's minister Hugh Blair proclaimed:

It must be the interest of every good man, of every Briton, to encourage this design tending so evidently to make us a happy, a free, and a united nation. Religion and liberty, industry and joy, are sisters, and never appear to such advantage as when in company [together], so that now, Religion and Industry go hand in hand, strengthen and establish one another.

Blair's comment illustrates an intriguing and important development: by the mid-eighteenth century, political economy-a central component of the Scottish Enlightenment-had …

Dealing With Suffering: A Comparison Of Religious And Psychological Perspectives, Emily R. Pimpinella

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

One of the main tasks of psychologists is to help clients deal with suffering. In order to assist the client, a therapist needs to have an understanding of the client’s beliefs about suffering. Due to the importance of religion for much of the general population, and considering how beliefs influence clients when dealing with suffering, it is essential that psychologists be mindful and respectful of religious beliefs in order to provide competent service. In order to do this, therapists need to have knowledge about the religious doctrine that their client observes. Therapists also need to be aware of their own …

The Last Shall Be First: Human Potential In Genetic And Theological Perspectives, M. Therese Lysaught

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

The notion of “human potential” provides a fruitful window through which to explore the competing conceptual frameworks of contemporary genetics and Christianity. The contemporary cultural frame of genetics conceives of human potential in a broadly positive manner: the source of personal and societal flourishing is located within individual bodies, waiting to be identified and unleashed by genetic science and medicine for the good of persons and society. In the Judeo-Christian narrative, human individual, biological potential is far less relevant—and, in fact, may be construed as an impediment to the achievement of personal and social flourishing. Implications for the dialogue between …

The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved And Why It Endures, Brian Jackson, Nicholas Wade

BYU Studies

"People of faith may not warm to the view that the mind's receptivity to religion has been shaped by evolution," writes Nicholas Wade, science writer for the New York Times, in his new book The Faith Instinct. If religion evolves with cultural circumstances, then it loses some of its immutable, supernatural qualities. On the other hand, atheists "may not embrace the idea that religious behavior evolved because it conferred essential benefits on ancient societies and their successors." If we accept the proposition that faith endures because cultures select it (perhaps unconsciously) as a necessary attribute of their survival, then we …

Review: Hokkeji And The Reemergence Of Female Monastic Orders In Premodern Japan, James C. Dobbins

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Assessing A Literary Legacy: The Case Of John Mcgahern, Eamon Maher

Articles

Since he passed away in 2006, John McGahern’s status as Ireland’s foremost prose writer in English has been reinforced by the establishment of an International Seminar and Summer School byNUIGalway and a Yearbook that captures the highlights of this event. Enhanced by wonderfully expressive photographic material and the adroit editorial skills of John Kenny, the second volume of the Yearbook has an impressive array of contributors, including Denis Sampson, probably the leading expert on McGahern’s work, David Malcolm, whose Understanding John McGahern was published in 2007, Gearo´id O ´ Tuathaigh, and Christopher Murray.

Book Review: Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Just War As Christian Discipleship: Recentering The Tradition In The Church Rather Than The State, Brian Stiltner

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

From his conversations in church settings and classrooms, Daniel M. Bell, Jr. has observed that Christians by and large do not know the church’s just war tradition very well, but that they are receptive to learning about it. Most theologians would likely agree that they know a number of Christians who are hungry to see better thinking and more effective action in response to war in our time. Bell, a Lutheran seminary professor and ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, wrote this book to interpret ‘the just war tradition in terms of concrete practices that might contribute to the …

Hill, James Emmett, B. 1926 (Sc 2388), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2388. "James Madison Pendleton's Theology of Baptism," by James Emmett Hill, a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Theology degree, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, 1948.

Leisure In The Life Of The 21st Century Black Church: Re-Thinking The Gift, Steven N. Waller Ph.D.

Movement and Being: The Journal of the Christian Society for Kinesiology, Leisure and Sports Studies

Scholarship devoted to examining the role that leisure plays in the life of the Black Church is lacking. Leisure is an important facet of congregational life in African American churches and permeates congregational dynamics on multiple levels. The purpose of this essay is to examine leisure in the life of the Black Church and posit how a healthy, theologically accurate understanding of the value of leisure can help with health and wellness promotion, community-economic development and church growth. The Black Church is defined as the eight historically Black denominations: African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal, Church …

Franklin Presbyterian Church - Franklin, Kentucky (Sc 2359), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2359. Correspondence, budgets, financial information and miscellaneous historical data relating to Franklin Presbyterian Church, Franklin, Kentucky (formerly College Street Presbyterian Church), compiled by Stella Harris for a 1960 history of the church.

Providence College And The Common Good, R. Gabriel Pivarnik

Theology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Santa Clara Strength Of Religious Faith Questionnaire: Assessing Faith Engagement In A Brief And Nondenominational Manner, Thomas G. Plante

Psychology

The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire is a brief (10-item, or five-item short form version), reliable and valid self report measure assessing strength of religious faith and engagement suitable for use with multiple religious traditions, denominations, and perspectives. It has been used in medical, student, psychiatric, substance abuse, and among general populations nationally and internationally and among multiple cultures and languages. Brief non denominational self report measures of religious and faith engagement that have demonstrated reliability and validity are not common but can have potential for general utility in both clinical and research settings. This article provides an …

Abbey Of Our Lady Of Gethsemani - Trappist, Kentucky (Sc 2357), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2357. Photocopy of a document titled "Fondation de Gethsemani 1848." [French] 19 leaves, with 8 copied pages to a leaf. Includes handwritten notations on text.

Isaac Of Stella, The Cistercians And The Thomas Becket Controversy: A Bibliographical And Contextual Study, Travis D. Stolz

Dissertations (1934 -)

Isaac of Stella (ca. 1100-ca. 1169), an English-born Cistercian and abbot, has been dwarfed by Bernard of Clairvaux and other of his twelfth-century Cistercian contemporaries in terms of literary output and influence, giving him a reputation as an elusive and marginal figure. Isaac's 55 sermons and two treatises are modest compared to the productivity of other monastic writers and his position as the abbot of an obscure monastery in western France has not helped to raise his visibility among the luminaries of the twelfth century. He is remembered as a mysterious and often tragic figure in the annals of history. …

Scriptures, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Introduction

Interchangeable with holy/sacred book, “scriptures” is the English language term that is still popularly used to refer to a text or collection of texts deemed to be of special if not unique origins, authority and power. Users of the term also tend to assume that “the Bible” of the Jewish and Christian traditions represents either the only instance of such or the example par excellence among some others. A popular linguistic and rhetorical placeholder among cultures of Indo-European origins, the English term originally simply meant (from the Greek graphe/-ai, ta biblia; Latin, scriptura/-ae; Hebrew, ketav/-uvim) and continues to mean …

American Graffiti: Musings On The Ground Zero Mosque, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses reactions and parallels to a mosque proposed near the site of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in public discourse.