Comparative Methodologies and Theories Commons^™

In Continuity With The Past: Indigenous Environmentalism And Indian Christian Visions Of Flora, James Ponniah

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article considers whether Indian Christianity can be said to have a distinctive ecological vision. The first two parts of the article examine Christian environmentalism in two native forms of Indian Christianity: Tamil Christianity and Tribal Christianity. Continuing with the theme of conformity to the local culture—though of the elite—the third part of the article investigates how Christian Ashrams function as dynamic centers for ecological praxis. The last part of the article considers how contemporary Indian Christian communities can respond to the ecological challenges confronting them.

Antoniyar Kōvil: Hindu-Catholic Identity At The St. Anthony Shrine In St. Mary’S Co-Cathedral, Chennai, Pj Johnston

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article combines ethnographic description of the practices of Hindu and Christian visitors of the St. Antony Shrine in Chennai with the observation that this material cannot be understood using the standard world religions paradigm that essentializes Christianity as exclusivistic. Drawing upon the visual and material culture of the shrine in light of premodern and Vatican II templates for inculturation and the negotiation of religious difference, the article highlights overlap between Tamil Hinduism and the Tamil Popular Catholicism of the site to argue that the beliefs and practices documented should inform descriptive and normative accounts of Catholic Christianity. Because Tamil …

Disabling The Body Of Christ: Toward A Holistic Ecclesiology Of Embodiment, Nancy Jill Hale

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

Dissertation Notice:

Full Text of Dissertation

A brief history of ecclesiology is followed by an assessment of the embodied ecclesiology of selected theologians. The relationship among embodiment, liturgy, and christian formation is probed. Finally, principles are proposed that answer the question, “What would it mean for the church to be a disabled body?” The intention of these principles is to help churches disable those beliefs and practices that keep them from being the message of the kingdom of God and from embodying the new social reality of the gospel that challenges the values of other social bodies in the world.

A Theological Heritage For New Evangelicalism And Its Social Justice Focus, Kenley Hall

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

Based on a review of relevant literature, this article will look at this emerging submovement within evangelicalism that researchers are referring to as “New Evangelicals” and its expanding social consciousness. Then the article will address an issue I believe is of critical importance: a likely theological and historical heritage for New Evangelicalism that can serve as a theological resource and even connection between them and the larger evangelical narrative.

Amazon Book Review Of David Ray Griffin's God Exists But Gawd Does Not (2016), Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

David Ray Griffin employs the term “anatheism” (ana-theism) for describing a natural scientific return to theism, by moving logically from traditional theism to atheism to panentheism. Griffin shows how natural scientific reasoning leads from commitment to traditional theism (“Gawd” exists) to modern atheism (“Gawd” does not exist), then from modern atheism to [constructive postmodern] Whiteheadian panentheism (“God” does exist).

About The Concept Of "Gnosticism" In Fiction Studies, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

I In his article "About the Concept of 'Gnosticism' in Fiction Studies" Fryderyk Kwiatkowski notices that in the twentieth-century humanities the concept of Gnosticism has become a popular term for labelling tendencies in modernity and postmodernity. Kwiatkowski argues that the majority of scholars in fiction studies base their research on outdated methodologies. In consequence, Kwiatkowski presents an overview of contemporary approaches in Gnostic studies and discusses how they can be adapted in studies of literature, film, video games, comic books, etc. By outlining advantages and disadvantages of methodological approaches, Kwiatkowski posits that in studies of fiction with Gnostic components it …

Spirit-Empowered Discipleship In Acts, Yan Chai

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Discipleship study had unavoidably been focused on the Gospels, and rightfully so. Whereas missions and church planting tended to occupy centre stage in the study of the book of Acts, and discipleship was often overshadowed. Nevertheless, Spirit-empowered discipleship, undoubtedly, had played a crucial role in the explosive growth of the early church. The purpose of this project is to utilize the four “E” principles of discipleship implicit in Acts: empowerment, exhortation, encouragement and exaltation to galvanize growth in Faith Hope Love Chinese church. It shall investigate the discipleship pattern that existed, apply the underlying principles given, and subsequently, analyze the …

Maimonides’ Yahweh: How His Via Negativa God Influenced Rabbinic Judaism And Its Subsequent Misunderstanding Of Incarnational Christian Theology, Amy Downey

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The life of Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides) remains a mystery to many within evangelical Christianity while he is lauded as a “Second Moses” within Modern Judaism. In many ways, Maimonides is deserving of the title as his understanding of the nature of God being that of via Negativa created a rationale for rejecting the Messiahship claims of Jesus in Rabbinic Judaism. However, and one of the purposes of this dissertation, is to illustrate that Maimonides in his desire to create an anti-Christian apologetic regarding the Incarnation fashioned a Judaism that does not reflect the truths of the Tanakh (Old Testament) …

The Development Of The Life-Healing Program In Churches For The Restoration Of God's Image, Young Park

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study is an attempt to introduce a pastoral system called Life-healing to Restore God’s Image. God made man in His image when He created him. The image, however, was broken because of the fall. Even after becoming a new creation by believing in Jesus, many Christians remain the same instead of experiencing the restoration of God’s image. Korean churches have grown in number and emphasize doctrines but face criticism for not exemplifying the life resembling God’s image. In an effort to overcome the criticisms, the researcher biblically analyzes the concept of God’s image and examines the theological resources related …

Christian-Stoicism: Exploring The Relationship Between Christianity And Stoicism And Constructing A Manual Of Christian-Stoic Wisdom, Trevor Kelly

Master of Arts in Religious Studies (M.A.R.S. Theses)

While the theological assumptions of Christianity and Stoicism may seem disparate, their philosophies are highly compatible. This compatibility is one of the reasons that early Christian authors looked to pagan Stoic authors for support and inspiration. Many Stoic and Christian authors compiled manuals for right living. The historical connections and conceptual similarities between the two schools of thought suggest the viability and value of constructing a combined Christian-Stoic manual of wisdom. Such is the constructive task of this thesis. Passages from Christian and Stoic sources are brought together to illustrate major common themes. The passages are followed by original commentaries …

Obligations Of Grace, Mark E. Roberts

Empowered21 Global Network of Spirit-Empowered Scholars

Grace obliges recipients to respond in gratitude and obedience to God, the giver of grace. While the New Testament emphasizes God's grace given through Jesus Christ in a New Covenant with believers, the Old Testament emphasizes grace more than many Christians recognize. Grace is expressed in the Old Testament especially through God's free choosing of Abraham as the "father of the faithful," through divine covenants with Abraham, with the divinely constituted nation of Israel, and with the governing house of David. Such grace abounds when God's covenanted people fail to keep their covenant, yet God, after disciplining the covenant people …

Exploring Intercessory Prayer As It Relates To Spiritual Warfare Preaching At Mount Zion Christian Church, Vernon Langley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The focus of this thesis is exploring the influence of intercessory prayer; from the standpoint of spiritual warfare preaching. Present day homiletics concentrates on the method of sermons by applying information within the message to a great story and powerful scriptural passages which is imperative to make the sermon thought provoking and applicable to contemporary congregations. However, there is another element to preaching the gospel, which has gotten considerably less attention in modern day study. How the evaluations of Divine powers of intercessory prayer operate behind the discourse, and spiritual powers of darkness that endeavor to obstruct the reception of …

Developing A Model For Church-Based Disaster Relief, Brady Rose

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this project is to provide a manual for the local church to implement in preparation for and during times of disaster. The author will specifically focus on the region of Amherst County, Virginia for this project. The author will approach this project by first defining what a disaster is and the role the church should play during times of great need. Attention will be given specifically to how the church should respond during times of disaster in foreign nations, in the United States, in nearby counties, and in the community of the church’s backyard. This project will …

Homiletical Discipleship: Developing An Approach To Small Group Study Based On Sunday Morning Exposition, Lance Cole

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Jesus promised to make Peter a “fisher of men,” while The Great Commission calls us to make disciples of all nations. The purpose of this project is to create a discipleship approach for the local church that helps teach the church’s members based on the Sunday morning sermon. One disciple making problem is that many people attend a church to spectate and not participate. Some sit for years listening to the pastor preach without having any desire to be an active disciple. Others completely leave the church after a short time. This approach for churches will teach them how to …

Developing A Curriculum Ministry For Widows In The Local Church, Gail Nanez

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

An examination of widows in the local church reveals a growing percentage of widows in many churches today, signifying a significant ministry need for widows in the church. An abundance of widows sitting in churches, are not only suffering the grief, and loneliness from their loss, some have lost their only income and sometimes feel neglected or a burden to others. As a biblical mandate, it is imperative that the church, pastors, and counselors take heed to the biblical command of ministering to the comfortlessness and insecurity many widows are facing. This will entail revitalization of the care of widows, …

A Study Of Developing Healthy Disciples In The Korean-American Church, Kyung Seo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Korean-American congregations within the Presbyterian denomination need to implement a Bible-centered discipleship model in order to become a more spiritual and viable Christian church. As the Senior Pastor for the Columbia Korean Presbyterian Church (2009-2014), the author utilized qualitative and quantitative analysis when interviewing church pastors within the Korean-American Presbyterian Churches of America. The surveys identified the need for a practical model of spiritual growth to develop healthy disciples within the Korean-American Church. Based upon the biblical principle of Christian discipleship, the author developed an overall a three-level strategy of making healthy disciples.

Gary Dorrien, Stanley Hauerwas, Rowan Williams, And The Theological Transformation Of Sovereignties, David Wade Horstkoetter

Dissertations (1934 -)

Christianity’s political voice in US society is often situated within a simplistic binary of social justice versus faithfulness. Gary Dorrien and Stanley Hauerwas, respectively, represent the two sides of the binary in their work. Although the justice-faithfulness narrative is an important point of disagreement, it has also created a categorical impasse that does not reflect the full depth and complexity of either Dorrien’s or Hauerwas’s work. Their concerns for both justice and faithfulness differ only in part because of their different responses to liberalism and liberal theology. Under all those issues are rival accounts of relational truth that indicate divergent …

A Biblical Strategies For Optimizing The Disciple Training Ministry (Dtm) Within Korean Churches, Keeyoung Kim

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this thesis project is to provide biblical strategies for optimizing the Discipleship Training Ministry (DTM) within Korean churches, which will transform and equip their laity to live incarnationally for Christ in the church and the world. Many different forms of DTM have developed within Korean churches during the recent decades, playing both positive and negative roles in church growth, but many unfortunately digressed into marketing programs that do not transform and equip the laity to follow Christ in every sector of their lives. This thesis project will examine, through a comparative analysis, diverse growth and health factors …

Reframing The Imperative Of The Great Commission In The Haitian Context: Discipleship Strategies To Impact Haiti For Christ, Dieufort Dieujuste

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Haitians generally identify themselves as Christians. According to World Factbook, Haiti is 80% Catholic and 16% Protestant; however, nearly all the population practices or believes in Voodoo, which is now a national religion. Idolatry permeates every segment of life while the Haitian Protestant Church remains powerless and disengaged. The purpose of this thesis project is to develop key strategies of discipleship for Haiti in view of Matthew 28:18-20. The author proposes to survey 300 Haitian pastors, seminarians, and lay leaders in order to gauge the status of discipleship and to identify hindrances to the gospel in Haiti. The survey will …

An Inquiry In The Early Creed Of Romans 1:3-4: Does The Word Ὁριζω Support An Adoptionistic Christianity?, Nicholas Dodson, Brian Scalise

Eruditio Ardescens

No abstract provided.

Review Of Indian Thought And Western Theism: The Vedanta Of Ramanuja, Sucharita Adluri

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Theodicy: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective On Evil And Interreligious Theology, Rico G. Monge

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

This essay is written from the vantage point of a comparative theologian who is personally steeped in the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition and who primarily specializes in Christian-Muslim comparative theology. It might seems curious, then, that the present essay employs the comparative theological method in order to focus on questions of theodicy in the Christian and Hindu traditions. Perhaps even more curious, however, is that I aim not at articulating a comparative Christian-Hindu theodicy, but rather at suggesting that the most productive path forward is a comparative theological rejection of theodicy as a productive enterprise. Drawing from resources within my …

Agency In The Subaltern Encounter Of Evil: Subverting The Dominant And Appropriating The Indigenous, James Ponniah

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

This essay focuses on subaltern encounter of evil that occurred in two different religious orbits, namely, Hinduism and Christianity in India. The Hindu phenomenon to be studied is Ayya Vaḻi1 (henceforth, AV) founded by Ayya Vaikundar (1809-1851) and the Christian phenomenon, Bible Mission (henceforth, BM) established by Devadas Ayyagaru (1840-1960). While attempts have been made earlier in the writings of Chad Bauman, Zoe Sherinian, Eleanor Zeliott, Sathianathan Clarke and G.Patick2 to study the relation between religion and subaltern agency in India, this work has a different focus in that it employs the idea of subaltern agency to discuss the parallel …

Viewpoint: Hinduism And The Academy: Towards A Dialogue Between Scholar And Practitioner, Ravi M. Gupta

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Gupta articlulates a rationale as to why the position of both the academician and the practitioner are necessary for meaningful religious dialog.

Book Review:Against Dogmatism: Dwelling In Faith And Doubt, Michelle Voss Roberts

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Against Dogmatism: Dwelling in Faith and Doubt. Madhuri M. Yadlapati. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013, 204 pp.

Shortening The Leap: From Honest Doubt To Enduring Faith, Robert G. Tuttle Jr.

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Buddhist Phenomenology And The Problem Of Essence, Jingjing Li

Comparative Philosophy

In this paper, I intend to make a case for Buddhist phenomenology. By Buddhist phenomenology, I mean a phenomenological interpretation of Yogācāra’s doctrine of consciousness. Yet, this interpretation will be vulnerable if I do not justify the way in which the anti-essentialistic Buddhist philosophy can countenance the Husserlian essence. I dub this problem of compatibility between Buddhist and phenomenology the ‘problem of essence’. Nevertheless, I argue that this problem will not jeopardize Buddhist phenomenology because: 1) Yogācārins, especially late Yogācārins represented by Xuanzang do not articulate emptiness as a negation but as an affirmation of the existent; 2) Husserl’s phenomenological …

On The Evolutionary Origins Of Religious Belief, Robert Duane Howard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Religious belief is a byproduct of evolutionarily designed cognitive mechanisms. The ubiquity of religious belief and experience across human cultures is explained by our common human psychology; our domain-specific cognitive mechanisms give rise, collectively, to the phenomenon of byproduct religious belief/experience. In this thesis, I will examine what I call religion-generating cognitive mechanisms, and I will argue that byproduct raw god-beliefs are developed by cultures into refined god-beliefs. These refined god-beliefs are co-opted by evolutionary processes and are cultural adaptations. My conception of “religious belief” in terms of raw and refined god-beliefs allows a disambiguation of the term “religion,” and …

Exploring The Relationship Between Attachment Style, Stress Perception, And Religious Coping In The Evangelical Missionary Population, Laurie Tone

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This cross-sectional survey design study examined the relationships between attachment style, stress perception and religious coping in a sample of 267 cross-cultural, evangelical missionaries. No significance for effect for attachment style on perceived stress was found. However, both age and gender demonstrated significant effects on perceived stress. There was also a significant association between perception of stress and religious coping, independent of attachment style. Religious coping accounted for a small amount of the variance in perception of stress. The vast majority of the sample reported patterns of positive religious coping, which was not influenced by attachment style. A new tool …

The Initiation Of Growth-Focused Relationships Involving Healthy Accountability, Stephen L. Shaffer

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

This paper summarizes a Doctor of Ministry project thesis conducted in 2011 that introduced healthy accountability within growth-focused relationships to shape an emergent spiritual growth culture at the Carbondale Church of Christ. The theological basis for the intervention (1) uses Romans 12 to establish the Christian community, not the individual, as the ultimate vision of fully realized human life and (2) asserts that spiritual growth, following Alasdair MacIntyre’s definition of a practice, must involve virtues such that the means of growth are reflective of the desired ends of growth. The positive results demonstrate the effectiveness of healthy accountability, illuminate participants' …