History of Christianity Commons^™

Focus On The Busy Intersections Of Culture And Cultural Change, Laura Elder

Journal of Global Catholicism

The dynamics of religious resurgence reveal the important ways that religious ritual and performance are meaning making spaces which are not self-contained or cut off from the rest of culture, but rather are a key locus of cultural change. A renewed emphasis on the busy intersections of meaning making – as rituals are connected, disconnected, and reconnected to other domains of social life – would improve the utility of the Catholics & Cultures website for understanding global cultural change. And a renewed emphasis on cultural change would also provide a better means for exploring reflexively by seeking to understand both …

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …

Infectious Ideas: Why Do Radical Innovations Take Root?, Steven Pfaff

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

"Living in the midst of a pandemic, we have all become familiar with the idea of contagion. An epidemic spreads through exposure to an infectious agent, like a novel virus. In a basic contagion model, the spread of a disease is a function of contact with the agent and its degree of infectiousness. Epidemiologists often model the risk of contagion as a function of contact (or frequency or level of contact) with the infected and the agent’s virulence.

When it comes to triggering radical institutional change, do ideas work the same way?

In a recent article, a team of …

Reading The Old Norse-Icelandic Maríu Saga In Its Manuscript Contexts, Daniel Najork

Northern Medieval World

Maríu saga, the Old Norse-Icelandic life of the Virgin Mary, survives in nineteen manuscripts. In the extant manuscripts Maríu saga rarely exists in the codex by itself. This study restores the saga to its manuscript contexts in order to better understand the meaning of the text within its manuscript matrix, why it was copied in the specific manuscripts it was, and how it was read and used by the different communities that preserved the manuscripts.

Martin Luther And The Creation Of The Myth Of Modernity, Christine Helmer

Consensus

No abstract provided.

Landscape Theology: Exploring The Outfields Of The Telemarkian Dream Song, Thomas Arentzen

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

The article explores the Norwegian ‘national ballad’ Draumkvæde (the Dream Song) in Maren Ramskeid’s version. This work has traditionally been interpreted as a folklore adaptation of medieval visionary literature such as the Vision of Tundale, related to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The ballad, however, lacks demons and devils and infernal torture – it is even almost completely devoid of human beings. Instead it tells of a corporeal encounter with an imagined natural landscape. This dreamscape of the song is intimately intertwined with the local terrain of the singer. Maren Ramskeid engaged her own landscape in Telemark, the …

Somewhere I'Ve Never Been-Part Iii, John Lanci

JRCA Pedagogy

In this essay, I propose that we examine the implications of a shift of fundamental importance, a shift in the way we see ourselves in the classroom and the difficult changes we need to make in the power relationships traditionally at play in our work.4 What follows is not an analysis of power relationships in general, but thoughts about how power flows in the classroom, and how we might modify that flow to encourage more effective teaching and learning. My point: If we empower students to become not passive listeners but active collaborators, they will be more likely to invest …

The Old Boys Club: Podcast Transcripts, Codi Yhap

Charles Rice Post-Graduate Research Fellowship

My name is Codi Yhap and I’ll be your host/audio tour guide for the next few weeks as we dive into the history of the Young Men’s Christian Association. Join me as we explore the organization’s transformation from Bible study group to one of the oldest and most recognized non-profit organizations. Welcome to The Old Boys Club. Episodes include: The Old Boys Club, Eclipsing Confederacies, His House Upon a Rock, The Body of Christ, and The “Girl Problem.”

Becoming A Community Of Disciples: Guidelines From Abbot Benedict And Bishop Basil, Greg Peters

Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics

The Rules of Benedict and Basil show us how to live in community with one another. Though written for monasteries over 1500 years ago, these Rules contain timeless wisdom about Christian community.

Greg Peters has combined and reorganized the Rule of Benedict and the Rule of Basil for modern readers so that we too can meditate on, enjoy, and apply the insights of two of the most influential Christians ever to have lived.

Old Meets New: Bringing Ancient Studies To Life In The Hybrid Classroom, Shane M. Thompson

JRCA Pedagogy

The 2020-2021 academic year will forever be remembered as the “COVID-year,” which, in academia, forced instructors to rethink the ways we have taught for generations. Personally, the Fall 2020 semester presented an opportunity to teach fully in-person classes (in a Hyflex model as not all students were able to attend), fully online classes, and – the most foreign to us – hybrid classes. As the hybrid model is one with which almost no one had any experience, I will focus my reflection on one particular hybrid course, urging instructors to incorporate Active Learning strategies into their courses – both hybrid …

Praying The Psalms With Augustine And Friends, Carmen Joy Imes

Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics

The Psalms teach us how to pray. Many saints over the past three millennia have come near to God by praying the Psalms, and this volume introduces us to some of their greatest thoughts on them.

Covering all 150 psalms, this companion to the "Prayerbook of the Bible" contains key devotional readings from the Great Tradition as well as space for journaling our own prayers. This book will help us learn to pray as Jesus prayed—after all, He quoted from the Psalms more often than any other book.

Christian Mission And Poverty: Wisdom From 2,000 Years Of Church Leaders, Andrew T. Draper

Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics

Christianity is the faith of the poor. As Christians, we worship the Lord Jesus Christ, who “though he was rich, yet for your sake became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). This same Jesus taught his followers that the kingdom of heaven belongs to “you who are poor” and “the poor in spirit” (Luke 6:20; Matt 5:3). He also proclaimed that judgment before his throne will hinge on how his followers treated those who were hungry, thirsty, strangers, unclothed, sick, and in prison—the ones he calls “the least of these my brothers” (Matt …

Signs And Christology In John 6:1-21 In Light Of Jewish And Greco-Roman Frames Of Reference: Prophet, King, And Revealer Of God, Craig R. Koester

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Elizabeth Clarke And Robert W. Daniel, Eds., People And Piety: Protestant Devotional Identities In Early Modern England, Brooke Conti

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 63, No. 1

Restoration Quarterly

PDF of the cover of Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 63, No. 1.

This repository hosts selected Restoration Quarterly articles in downloadable PDF format. For the benefit of users who would like to browse the contents of RQ, we have included all issue covers even when full-text articles from that issue are unavailable. All Restoration Quarterly articles are available in full text in the ATLA Religion Database, available through most university and theological libraries or through your local library’s inter-library loan service.

Removing God From Public Schools-Beneficial Or Not, Angela Kay Constantine

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Despite the Constitution allowing for the removal of religious conceptions from public schools, the perspectives of most United States middle school-age kids show that the cultural shift towards scientific naturalism as the de facto worldview has impacted worship music in the Church. The worldview is one of worship that presents more as a concert than that of praise. The data, such as suicide statistics, show that there is a correlation between a negatively shifted moral valuation and the aversion, or inability, for the subject of God to be approached in the school setting (i.e., the science classroom) - even where …

Saving The Nation: Chinese Protestant Elites And The Quest To Build A New China, 1922-1952, Thomas H. Reilly

Faculty Books

While Protestant Christians made up only a small percentage of China's overall population during the Republican period, they were heavily represented among the urban elite. Protestant influence was exercised through churches, hospitals, and schools, and reached beyond these institutions into organizations such as the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) and YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association). The YMCA's city associations drew their membership from the urban elite and were especially influential within the modern sectors of urban society. Chinese Protestant leaders adapted the social message and practice of Christianity to the conditions of the republican era. Key to this effort was …

How Bavinck Responds To The Challenges Of The Theory Of Evolution: The Primacy Of Biblical Revelation, Isaias D'Oleo Ochoa

CTS Student Publications and Creative Works

In his discussion of evolution, Bavinck offers a modified theory of development, rooted not under a mechanistic and naturalistic worldview, as Darwin does, but under a “theistic-friendly” framework. This article argues that Bavinck’s discussion of evolution as a whole endorses a modified Aristotelian/ Thomistic framework in order to understand the theory of development, and thus overcomes the challenges raised by Darwin’s naturalistic worldview to biblical revelation.

Chreia And Lives Of Saints: A Study Of Hagiography As An Evolved Rhetorical Genre In Late Antiquity, Seth Fisher

Masters Theses

Hagiography has often confused historians over what practical application this genre of Christian literature has when read as primary sources. In this project I will show that hagiography can read as an evolution of an earlier pagan style rooted in the paideia of ancient scholars. Chreia exercises were performed by students of paideia in order to instruct them on how to write about figures worth emulating such as Diogenes or Alexander the Great. Christian authors did not participate in a hermetically sealed education system but took part in the same schooling as their pagan peers. Hagiographies are structurally and functionally …

America: A Bipolar Nation--The Lamb Or The Dragon, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Historical Christological Heresies, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

How Martin Luther Transformed Marriage, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

An analysis of Luther’s views on marriage and family will reveal that Luther’s reformation was not just theological but also profoundly sociological. His rejection of celibacy as a form of superior spirituality, his elevation of marriage and family life to the arena of spirituality, his moderate ideas on divorce are now commonly accepted views among the Christian community.

Katharina Von Bora, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.