History of Christianity Commons^™

Political Agendas In The Letters Of Hildegard Of Bingen, Anna Sweeney

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Hildegard of Bingen is mentioned only briefly in historical accounts of musicology, religious philosophy, and biographical studies of various monarchs from the twelfth century; however, she played a crucial role in maintaining the Catholic Church's influence as a political institution. In her correspondences, Bingen used enormous amounts of prophetic language to refer to many current events that were happening throughout Western Europe. In her letters to churchmen, bishops, popes and kings, she counseled against rampant heresies and political behavior contradicting the will of the Church. The sickly tenth daughter of a German aristocratic family, Hildegard was born 44 years after …

Re-Emerging Pietism: The Emerging Church As Postmodern Pietism, Tysen Dauer

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Germany in the seventeenth century was ripe for religious reform: the Thirty Years War had created doubts about the correctness of contemporary religious institutions, theologians of most denominations were engaged in abstract, scholastic theological controversy, and inter-denominational conflict was increasingly off-putting. It was into this climate which Pietism emerged as an alternative way of doing religion. Its central tenants were: (1) a more extensive use of Scripture, (2) a reinvigorated spiritual priesthood, (3) an emphasis on orthopraxy, (4) irenic conduct in religious controversies, (5) the establishment of seminaries as centers of personal spiritual cultivation, and (6) sermons emphasizing faith and …

The Heliand: The Warrior's Strength And The Transcendence Of Faith, Nathanael Rhody

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

The research project centered on the literary text, Heliand, a biblical paraphrase of the Gospel originally written in Old Saxon in the 9th century. Throughout this period, Christianity was steadily spreading to the pagan lands of northern Europe. Because this initially involved a form cultural clash between the Christian and Germanic world-views, Christianity is often thought to have been an overt replacement of the earlier traditional folk-culture of these lands. The Heliand, though, expresses differently by drawing parallels between the old Germanic warrior culture and the Christian faith. The project examines how this is accomplished by exploring deeper into the …

Love Your Enemy? Reflections At The Centenary Of World War I, Denis Kaiser

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Saints In The Land Of The Porcupine: A Study Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In The Ashanti Region, Ghana, Garrett Nagaishi

Library Research Grants

Known by its Akan name, kotoko, the porcupine is the national animal of Ghana and a proud symbol of both peace and power. While harmless and amiable when left undisturbed, the porcupine can be a formidable opponent when it feels threatened. Ghanaians do not hesitate to identify with the porcupine, naming both their national airport and national football team after the animal. The Ashanti, once one of the mightiest empires in West Africa and today a symbol of power and pride in Ghana, revere the porcupine for its courage and dignity in the face of adversity. Latter-day Saints living …

A Pre-Methodological Theology For Biblically Proper Ecclesiological Health, James Woods

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The American church is in a dramatically noticeable decline, with many resources offering superficial remedies and solutions but rarely digging below the surface to evaluate the structural integrity of the foundation. This paper will evaluate the foundation as to how it has been altered over the last two thousand years, as well as identifying three main foundational attributes of the first century church that must be in place for the twenty-first century church to be on target biblically. The thesis will be corroborated by utilizing two different, yet related surveys administered to both pastors and congregants, as well as by …

Confessional Politics And Religious Identity In The Early Jesuit Missions To The Ottoman Empire, Robert John Clines

Dissertations - ALL

In its first century, the Society of Jesus undertook numerous missions to the various Christian communities of the Ottoman Empire. In each instance, the Jesuits faced obstacles to their efforts to Catholicize the Christian Orient. Through an examination of the Jesuit experience in the early modern Ottoman Empire, I argue that particular historiographical trends concerning confession-building, early modern empire-building, and globalization need to be revised. First, rather than seeing the consolidation and alliance of religious practice and political allegiance as institutionally forced through negotiation and resistance, I argue that the unique experiences of individuals demonstrate how confessionalization was not just …

The Pagan Pudicitia Of Early Christian Roman Women, Iris Rebecca Petty

Masters Theses

Accessing the everyday experiences of late antique non-elite Roman women in the Latin west is limited by sources and issues of authorship. Interdisciplinary scholarship, however, has opened up new avenues in recent years through which these women’s experiences may be studied. When literary-historical questions are asked of these sources’ authors, audiences, motives and intents, the answers provide insight into the roles women and femininity played in early Christianity. By examining an array of late antique Roman representations of good classical women, a unique continuity is seen in the transition from pagan to Christian Rome. The Latin patristic writers capitalized on …

Mt. Vernon United Baptist Church Of Christ - Butler County, Kentucky (Mss 507), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 507. Minutes, financial reports, membership lists, articles of incorporation, deeds, etc. for Mt. Vernon United Baptist Church of Christ in Butler County, Kentucky, now Mt. Vernon Missionary Baptist Church.

Observations On The Performative Force Of The Qyama And The Ihidaye, And Its Pertinancy Today, C. A. Chase

School of Theology and Seminary Graduate Papers/Theses

Using contemporary social and art theory, with particular emphasis on the notion of performative, this paper examines the historical and theological context of a unique social and ecclesial phenomenon in 4th century Syria—the Sons and Daughters of the Covenant. By observing these committed laity as a ‘living performance,’ an exploration of the identity of the faithful, both severally and as a community, may be undertaken. This paper focuses on the relation of such a performative to notions of Christology and anthropology, with an eye towards today’s laity and their seeking for identity in a complex world of competing shifting …

Getting Into The Meat Of The Word Of Wisdom, A. Jane Birch

Faculty Publications

Doctrine & Covenants Section 89 is known as the "health code" for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In verse 13 of this scripture, the Lord states, “it is pleasing unto me that they [flesh of beasts and fowls of the air] should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine” (D&C 89:13). Judging from the variety of interpretations this single verse has inspired, it would appear to be deeply enigmatic. Interestingly, most interpretations have been put forward with little supporting evidence. This article is the first comprehensive analysis of the …

Ecclesiastical Deadlock: James White Solves A Problem That Had No Answer, George R. Knight

Faculty Publications

Church organization was one of the hardest fought battles in Adventism’s early decades. Extending nearly 20 years, the struggle not only eventuated in aspects of church order not suggested in Scripture but provided a key hermeneutical principle for deciding other topics not made explicit in the Bible. In the process, James White, and many others, experienced a hermeneutical metamorphosis, a necessary transformation that allowed Seventh-day Adventism to develop into a worldwide force.

Emerging From The Shadows: Civil War, Human Rights, And Peacebuilding Among Peasants And Indigenous Peoples In Colombia And Peru In The Late 20th And Early 21st Centuries, Charles A. Flowerday

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Peacebuilding in Colombia and Peru following their late-20^th and early 21^st century civil wars is a challenging proposition. In this study, it becomes necessary as indigenous peoples and peasants resist domination by extractive industries and governments in their thrall. Whether they protest nonviolently or rebel in arms, they are targeted for human-rights violations, especially murder, disappearance and displacement. The armed actors, state, insurgency, paramilitaries or drug traffickers, destroy civic institutions (local or regional government) and the civil (nonprofit) sector and replace them with their own authoritarian versions. Therefore, peacebuilding has emphasized rebuilding civic institutions, civil society and local …

Retrieving Ember Days, Roger Pieper

Obsculta

No abstract provided.

The Octave Day Of Christmas: Historical Development And Modern Liturgical Practice, Christopher Labadie

Obsculta

The octave day of Christmas has had a wide variety of commemorations attached to it throughout the Christian era. This work sought to trace the historical development of the feast, beginning with an ancient Marian feast from the Church at Rome. I explore some of the liturgical rites associated with this feast, and the subsequent development of the Feast of the Circumcision. I conclude the paper with a discussion of some of the more recent commemorations tied to the octave and then examine the current liturgical practices according to the Roman Missal.

Welcome By Way Of A Proem, Obsculta Editors

Obsculta

No abstract provided.

South Carolina Conference Journal 2014, United Methodist Church. South Carolina Conference

South Carolina Conference Journal

THE JOURNAL OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE OF The United Methodist Church Southeastern Jurisdiction

VOLUME I 2014

Price: $30.00 per year paid in advance by subscription only (Volumes I and II included)

Edited for the Conference by KENNETH L. NELSON Secretary of the Annual Conference

Florence Civic Center Florence, South Carolina

June 1-4, 2014

Review Of Baptismal Imagery In Early Christianity: Ritual, Visual, And Theological Dimensions, Robin M. Jensen, Denis Fortin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Pavel Tretiakov’S Icons, Wendy Salmond

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Between 1890 and his death in 1898, the Moscow art collector Pavel Tretiakov acquired sixty-two icons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With this comparatively late entry into the world of icons, Tretiakov laid the foundation for one of the world’s greatest collections of medieval Russian paintings. Why is it, then, that Tretiakov’s icons are today so rarely mentioned and so hard to find? The most practical explanation is that they were simply swallowed up into the vast repositories of the reorganized State Tretiakov Gallery in 1930, along with thousands of icons from churches and private collections nationalized afer 1917. …

A Mixed-Methods Study Of The Variables That Influence Florida Southern Baptists' Affirmation Of The Inerrancy Of The Bible, David A. Mcgee

Faculty Dissertations

The culmination of the resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was finalized by adopting the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BFM 2000). The SBC had discovered in the 1970s and 1980s that belief in the inerrancy of the Bible was not being affirmed by their leadership, particularly within their six seminaries. After a twenty plus year battle, the SBC attempted to affirm in more precise language the inerrancy of the Bible through the BFM 2000. However, this raises the question, how has this firm commitment to the inerrancy of the Bible, as affirmed by the leadership, translated to the …

What's Wrong With The Christian West, Joseph Studemeyer

Senior Theses

Western Christian groups are losing significant numbers of adherents in the area formerly known as Christendom (Western Europe and European-dominated former colonies), a trend which seems to be quickening with time. In addition, the same Western Christian denominations are in the midst of an unprecedented period of fragmentation, with many splitting over questions of doctrine and practice. More controversially, traditionalists both within the Western churches and outside of them have claimed that the Western denominations are also experiencing a qualitative decline, asserting that the Christianity of the West has been doctrinally compromised. This thesis posits an underlying philosophical reason for …

Response To 1 Timothy 2:11-12 Or Its Parallel, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 By Three Sixteenth-Century Protestant Women Theologians: Argula Von Grumbach, Marie Dentiére, And Anne Askew, Katharine German Hall

LMU Theses and Dissertations

The Protestant women who engaged in theology and biblical scholarship throughout the sixteenth century faced numerous barriers entering into and being heard within their Protestant movements. Because Protestants recognize Scripture as the primary authority on matters of faith, 1 Timothy 2:11-12, along with its parallel in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, provided a unique impediment to sixteenth-century Protestant women theologians. These women faced the burden of both affirming the authority of Scripture and simultaneously contravening the biblical prohibition against women teaching. Many women theologians of the time; including Argula von Grumbach, Marie Dentiére, and Anne Askew; addressed this issue in their writings. …

Sewing New Theological Cloth On An Old Liturgical Cloak: New Theological Expressions & Tensions Created By The Liturgical Reforms Of Vatican Ii In The Liturgy Of The Hours, Stephen J. Picard

LMU Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Book Review: A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, And Parishioners In Anglican Virginia, 1690-1776 By J. Nelson, Laverne Smith

Eruditio Ardescens

Reviews J. Nelson's work on Anglicans in Virginia during the colonial period.

Printing And Protestants: An Empirical Test Of The Role Of Printing In The Reformation, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

The causes of the Protestant Reformation have long been debated. This paper seeks to revive and econometrically test the theory that the spread of the Reformation is linked to the spread of the printing press. I test this theory by analyzing data on the spread of the press and the Reformation at the city level. An econometric analysis that instruments for omitted variable bias with a city's distance from Mainz, the birthplace of printing, suggests that cities with at least one printing press by 1500 were at minimum 29 percentage points more likely to be Protestant by 1600.

A Hope For The Church Of Christ: The Influence Of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Seminary At Findenwalde On The Church In Nazi Germany, 1935-1940, Gerri Beal

Theology Projects & Theses

The rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930’s, and a subtle, self-promoting heresy from within the German church imperiled the existence of the German Evangelical Church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer recognized and understood both threats, and believed the latter to be even more dangerous to the church than the threat Nazism itself. The purpose of this paper is to show that Bonhoeffer saw that the church in Germany was failing to answer the internal threat posed to the German Evangelical Church by the heretical teachings that were inherent in the “German Christian Movement”. We will argue that he determined to stem …

Noetic Apologetics: A Contemporary Approach In Comparison To Historic Apologetic Methods, Enuel Hernandez

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Many are intrigued by the fundamental questions of life. Questions of origin, moral, and purpose are just a few of these. Christians have endeavored throughout the centuries in the task of apologetics to give sound answers to these questions. The history of Christianity has shown that apologists answered objections and inquires about their religion. Many techniques have emerged to direct apologists in explaining their faith. However, there seems to be no unifying process for doing apologetics. This study examines the different apologetic methods and exposes their strong and weak points in order to develop a more efficient strategy. The research …

Tundale’S Vision: Socialization In 12th Century Ireland, Michael W. Deike

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this project is to explore the historical image of Hell in Medieval Europe as an agent of socialization for illiterate Christian communities. The project focuses on a literary work, Tundale’s Vision, written in 1149 C.E in Cashel, Ireland. Tundale’s Vision came from a genre of vision literature derived from popular oracular folk tradition surrounding the image of Hell that served the purpose of socializing Christian communities to certain social norms and stigmas presented by the author. Vision literature would be used by preachers in vernacular sermons throughout the Medieval period in order to reinforce moral and social …

The Fathers' Faith, The Children's Song: Missouri Lutheranism Encounters American Evangelicalism In Its Hymnals, Hymn Writers, And Hymns, 1889-1912, Jon Vieker

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Jon D. Vieker, "The Fathers' Faith, the Children's Song: Missouri Lutheranism Encounters American Evangelicalism in Its Hymnals, Hymn Writers, and Hymns, 1889-1912." Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2014. 581 pp.

This dissertation offers an accounting of the hymnological sea change in the Missouri Synod as it transitioned from German into English toward the end of the nineteenth century. It explores how this immigrant, Lutheran church body brought a large portion of its German hymnody into English, while at the same time appropriating a substantial number of English-language hymns from the surrounding ecclesial culture of American Evangelicalism.

The dissertation is divided into …

A Case Analysis Of The Foundational Ministry Principles Of Rev. Jerry Falwell From 1956-1966, Iain Lyttle

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research examines principles employed by Dr. Jerry Lamond Falwell between 1956 and 1966 and the early developmental stages of his church, Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC). The foundation built during these formative years facilitated precipitous growth within the church plant for decades, allowing TRBC to become one of America’s most prominent megachurches and to found Liberty University, the world’s largest evangelical university. As church plants are more likely to fail than to succeed, this research aimed to investigate key characteristics of a church planter who was highly successful, which can be replicated. Using primarily twenty-three interviews of TRBC congregants …