Religion Commons^™

Why Mowing The Lawn Can Be Complicated (Chapter 6 From Worthy: Finding Yourself In A World Expecting Someone Else), Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

In Worthy, college professor Melanie Springer Mock sifts through the shape and weight of expectations that press Christians into cultural molds rather than God's image. By plumbing Scripture and critiquing the ten-billion-dollar-a-year self-improvement industry, Mock offers life-giving reminders that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Set free from the anxiety to conform to others' expectations, we are liberated to become who God has created us to be. If you're worn out from worrying that you've missed God's One Big Calling, and if you're tired of trying to fit yourself into some cookie-cutter Christian mold, step away from the expectations and …

Helping Clinical Pastoral Education Students Develop An Integrated Theology Of Judgment In A Hospital-Based, Cpe Program At Mary Washington Hospital, Fredericksburg, Virginia, Kevin S. Crowder

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Many Clinical Pastoral Education students are averse to judgment. Some do not want to be critiqued or critically engaged. Others believe that pastoral ministry should not include judgment, critique, or conflict whatsoever. This project was conceived to help both groups appreciate that judgment is integral to pastoral care. Between pre- and post-curriculum surveys where changes in students’ attitudes and understanding about judgment were assessed, students participated in judgment-related curriculum including readings, didactic seminars, verbatim presentations of clinical cases, and written assignments. There was some movement in student attitudes and understanding, but not necessarily as anticipated.

Monotheism And Its Vicissitudes, K. Daniel Cho

Education Faculty Scholarship & Creative Works

Challenging the claim that monotheism is intolerant, the author presents an original interpretation of Sigmund Freud’s last book Moses and Monotheism. Freud is shown offering a theory of monotheism in which monotheism is not seen as exclusive, but rather as inherently equivocal.

“Arrows Fletched From Our Own Wings”: The Early Church Fathers And The “Delphi Of The Mind”, Daniel J. Crosby

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Delphi, one of the most important sanctuaries of the classical world, presented the Early Church Fathers with an interesting challenge. Although it continued to be an institution of local importance, by their time, the Oracle had long since been a provincial backwater, requiring Imperial patronage, at times, which revived the sanctuary temporarily, but not to its former glory and importance. It was not the actual institution that presented hindrance to the advancement of Christianity, nevertheless the Early Church Fathers attacked it with arguments ranging from the irreverent to the obscene. The interesting fact is that none of these indictments were …

Stewardship 101: An Invitation To Financial Stewardship, Adam J. Copeland

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Unexpectedness Of Hope: Good News For A Generation, David Johnstone

Publications from Student Life & Spiritual Life

The gospel of Jesus Christ is wrapped in the notion of God's "will be[ing] done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10 NIV). The good in the good news (or gospel) looks a little different for every age, culture, and context. Unlike the Eastern no-tion of karma, or what goes around comes around, the Christian gospel centers on God's grace being offered to those who accept Jesus's kindness and authority. God extends grace so that men and women do not receive what they deserve; therefore, what goes around does not come around. Many find this to be good …

Tragic Creation: Hope For The Future—Moltmann's Creative (Mis)Reading Of Hegel's Philosophy, John Michael Bechtold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christian theology, in its many and varied forms, and to the detriment of both the church and the world, is often built upon a shaky epistemological foundation. In this dissertation, I describe this shaky foundation by the term 'insular universalism'. The oxymoronic nature of the term is both intentional and telling. A theology which strives for, or unwittingly arrives at, a position which is here being called 'insular universalism' achieves neither while rejecting or misunderstanding the complexity of both. When considered theologically, insular universalism could be simplistically described as the idea that "one cultural expression of the religion is exclusive …

Narrativizing Theory: The Role Of Ambiguity In Religious Aesthetics, Benjamin John Peters

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project expands S. Brent Plate's "invented religious aesthetics" by bringing it into conversation with Umberto Eco's theory of ambiguity. It articulates the space that ambiguity opens within the field of religious aesthetics when viewed as a liminal or interdisciplinary theory that neither privileges the starting points of transcendental aesthetics nor the "neo-arches" of theories of materiality. It hints at new ways of studying and describing religious worlds while also illustrating the porous borderlines between narrative and theory. It argues that a religious aesthetic rooted in ambiguity emphasizes both the provisionality of knowledge and the narrativization of reality.

No Common Ground: Competing Worldviews At Mato Tipila, Wendy Anne Felese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project analyzes a legal conflict (Bear Lodge Multiple Use Assn v Babbitt 2 F. Supp. 2d 1448) at Mato Tipila, a significant place for the Lakota (Sioux) community and with which they have a historical and longstanding relationship. Commercial and recreational rock-climbing enthusiasts who make use of it and the tourists who arrive in droves each year to visit, call this place Devils Tower. The case centered on whether the government violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by instituting a climbing ban during the month of June to accommodate Lakota ceremonial obligations. In recent historical developments, the …

A Critical Interpretation Of Olivier Roy: On Globalization, The Cosmopolitan And Emerging Post-Secular Religiosities, Joshua Rey Ramos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is that secularization transforms religion into religiosity. In other words, the secular breaks apart religion, or rather, 'deculturates' religion from a cohesive, collective body embedded within a particular society and within a traditional culture towards an individuated, and existential experience of faith within the autonomous religious subject. There are various reasons for this shift, as there are various consequences. Globalization, which is modernization writ large, is the dominant paradigm through which I conceptualize these changes. The theorist whose work I use as a lens to interpret secularization, religion and societal transformation is Olivier Roy. Roy's theories are of …

Front Matter

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Review Of Why Liberals Win (Even Win They Lose Elections): How America’S Raucous, Nasty, And Mean ‘Culture Wars’ Make For A More Inclusive Nation, By Stephen Prothero, Neil J. Young

Mormon Studies Review

Depending on how one feels about the 2016 election, reading a book titled Why Liberals Win (Even When They Lose Elections) might seem like either a deluded endeavor or much-needed balm. In his latest work, Stephen Prothero argues that liberals stand on the victorious side of history, if not always the ballot box, because they have won every culture war battle since the nation’s founding. Liberals win, Prothero contends, because conservatives launch culture wars to preserve a way of life that has already begun to change, an ill-fated effort that cannot turn back the progressive forces of history that churn …

Review Of Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies Of The Emergence Of New Spiritual Paths, By Ann Taves, Seth Perry

Mormon Studies Review

When Ann Taves’s last monograph came out, in 2009, the journal Religion ran a review of it by Finbarr Curtis entitled “Ann Taves’s Religious Experience Reconsidered is a sign of a global apocalypse that will kill us all.”1 Curtis was worried about the effects of Taves’s unapologetically reductive approach to religion. Taves is well known as a proponent of using cognitive science and related methodologies to explain what really happens when people have religious experiences. This sort of thing, as indicated by Curtis’s title, rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

Minds, Bodies, And Objects, Samuel M. Brown

Mormon Studies Review

As I wander ever more deeply into the semantic labyrinths of early Mormon translation, I find myself confronting ubiquitous objects that matter for more than their mere physicality. Seer stones, interpreters, gold plates, Egyptian papyri, locks of hair, underclothing, and scores more. Mormonism is saturated with such objects, pregnant with what some scholars call “abundance” or “real presence.” Mormons don’t call them “relics,” afraid to conjure (that fraught word!) Catholic altars, corpses, and catacombs. Mormons are no idolaters, so there must be no relics. But we who think academically about Mormons may do well to acknowledge the deep kinship Mormons …

Introduction: Small Means, Great Things, Benjamin Peters, John D. Peters

Mormon Studies Review

Mormonism is a media religion: every contribution to this forum makes this point in some way. Of course, the same could be said of most religions, and yet the Mormon tradition in particular incorporates media. How so?

Full Issue

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Communing With Compromise: Mormonism And The Early Internet, Gavin Feller

Mormon Studies Review

As an emerging technology, the internet stirred a fascinating brew of excitement, anxiety, and fear for Jew and Gentile.1 It challenged both grassroots and top-down notions of intimacy, authenticity, and control. For Mormonism, a religion whose chronology parallels uncannily the development of electronic communication technologies, the internet joins a host of media dripping with ambivalence. In tracing the contours of Mormonism’s evolving and uneasy relationship with the twentieth-century internet—from early listserv communities to institutional web development—this brief essay presents only a morsel of the richness the religion offers for the study of technology, culture, and power.

Review Of Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805–1830, By Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, Mark L. Staker

Mormon Studies Review

Around the turn of the century, Signature Books planned a series of three volumes that would cover Joseph Smith’s life in detail. Richard S. Van Wagoner was commissioned to write the first volume of the trilogy, treating the period from Smith’s birth to his move to Ohio. Van Wagoner’s Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805– 1830 engages Smith’s family and cultural background, his childhood and formative years, his visionary claims, his translation of the Book of Mormon, and the organization of the Mormon church. Much of the work of Mormon history is done by amateur scholars who contribute …

Review Of What Is Mormonism? A Student’S Introduction, By Patrick Q. Mason; Mormonism: The Basics, By David J. Howlett And John Charles Duffy, Jennifer Graber

Mormon Studies Review

Two introductory texts on Mormonism have much to offer scholars, like myself, who are not specialists in the tradition yet regularly return to it when teaching undergraduate classes in American religions and American history. Mason’s volume, What Is Mormonism? A Student’s Introduction, focuses on the Latter-day Saints and explores the tradition’s historical development, global expansion, daily practice, and function as a response to existential problems. Howlett and Duffy’s book, Mormonism: The Basics, surveys the Latter-day Saints, the Reorganized Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now Community of Christ),

and fundamentalist groups with an emphasis on Mormon history, relations with non-Mormons, ritual life, …

Front Matter

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

“The Time Is Past”: A Note On Samuel’S Five-Year Prophecy1, Neal Rappleye

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

1The story of believers being nearly put to death before the appearance of the sign at Christ’s birth is both inspiring and a little confusing. According to the Book of Mormon, the sign comes in the 92nd year, which was actually the sixth year after the prophecy had been made. T here is little wonder why even some believers began to doubt. The setting of a final date by which the prophecy must be fulfilled, however, suggests that until that day, there must have been reason for even the nonbelievers to concede that fulfillment was still possible; yet after that …

Encountering The Gospel Anew: Confirmation As Ecclesial, Personal, And Missional Practices, Terri L. Elton

Faculty Publications

Given the challenges facing congregations and young people today, some church leaders are wondering if confirmation continues to have a role in discipling young people. Based on the findings from The Confirmation Project, this article asserts that confirmation is, in fact, uniquely positioned to be a vibrant ministry for young people to encounter the gospel anew when congregations integrate ecclesial, personal, and missional practices. Such an approach strengthens confirmands’ understanding of faith, deepens their experience with Christian community, and equips them to discern their call to join in God’s mission in the world.

Emerging Trends In Confirmation And Equivalent Practices, Terri L. Elton, Katherine Douglass, Richard Osmer

Faculty Publications

This article highlights the findings of The Confirmation Project research, a mixed methods project that studied confirmation and equivalent practices in five denominations in the United States. (The denominations were United Methodist, Presbyterian USA, African Methodist Episcopal, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church.) What that discovered was confirmation can provide an opportunity for young people to encounter the gospel anew. It is an important ministry when it strengthens young people’s understanding of faith, deepens their experience with Christian community, and equips them to discern their calling to join in God’s mission in the world. As congregations …

Confirmation Basics, Terri L. Elton, Lisa Kimball, Gordon Mikoski

Faculty Publications

This article moves the findings of The Confirmation Project research from theory into practice. Three members of the research team highlight three themes (purpose, design, and leadership) and walk congregational leaders through a process of discovering how these ideas can help them find a way forward that is meaningful to their congregation.

Christ And Antichrist: Reading Jacob 7, Adam S. Miller, Joseph M. Spencer

Maxwell Institute Publications

The Book of Mormon’s Jacob chapter 7 focuses on a dramatic showdown between Sherem, a defender of the Mosaic tradition, and Jacob, a prophet who views the Mosaic law as dead in light of what he calls “the doctrine of Christ.” The papers collected in this volume offer theological readings of this Book of Mormon chapter that draw on Jacob 7’s structure and literary details to illuminate key themes like law, family, prayer, mourning, and messianic time.

Includes contributions from Jana Riess, Kimberly M. Berkey, Adam S. Miller, Jacob Rennaker, Jeremy Walker, Joseph M. Spencer, Jenny Webb, and Sharon J. …

Infinite Cardinalities, Measuring Knowledge, And Probabilities In Fine-Tuning Arguments (Chapter 5 Of Knowledge, Belief, And God: New Insights In Religious Epistemology), Isaac Choi

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

This paper deals with two different problems in which infinity plays a central role. I first respond to a claim that infinity renders counting knowledge-level beliefs an infeasible approach to measuring and comparing how much we know. There are two methods of comparing sizes of infinite sets, using the one-to-one correspondence principle or the subset principle, and I argue that we should use the subset principle for measuring knowledge. I then turn to the normalizability and coarse tuning objections to fine-tuning arguments for the existence of God or a multiverse. These objections center on the difficulty of talking about the …

Quakers In Early Falmouth And Portland, Maine : 1740 - 1850., Wayne Cobb

Books and Documents

Chronicle of Quaker settlements in the Portland (Me.) region, with a focus on the James Winslow family.

75 pages.

The Phenomenon Of Rome: On Roads, Refugees, And Teilhard De Chardin, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

Teilhard de Chardin’s understanding of creation as an evolutionary process is used as a lens for studying Roman roads and refugees. A shorter version of this essay was published in Seton Hall University 2018 Core Trip, pages 28-33. This draft has been submitted for potential publication in Writing Rome: A Spiritual Journey, Kelly Shea ed.

What's Up Newsletter, January 2018

What's Up Newsletter

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Milwaukee, WI

What's Up Newsletter Finding Aid

What Does It Mean To Be A Christian Woman? Sustaining And Empowering The Female Christian Faith In Light Of Sexism In Christian Communities, Erin Pauline Rooney

Seattle Pacific Seminary Projects

What helps young Christian women sustain their faith in the face of sexism within Christian communities? Are there practices or traditions that leaders of these Christian communities need to consider to better support young Christian women? Do young Christian women find value in studying theology, history, and hermeneutics from female perspectives, and if so, why? These are the guiding questions this project seeks to answer. This project involves a qualitative research study with a group of students within a “Women in Christianity” course at Seattle Pacific University. Participants were interviewed twice during the course and also forwarded their written reflections …