Practical Theology 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 …

Cindy, Ken Clatterbaugh

Sophia and Philosophia

Cindy Norton sang loud in slightly accented Spanish. The song was “Perfidia” (“Wicked Woman”). She remembered the melody, and the Spanish language radio reminded her of the lyrics, although she could hardly hear the radio or herself above the grinding, popping, and rattling of her Volkswagen Rabbit. Her radio picked up only one station.

The Practicality Of Statistics: Why Money As Expected Value Does Not Make Statistics Practical, Sean Reimer

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis covers the uncertainty of empirical prediction. As opposed to objectivity, I will discuss the practicality of statistics. Practicality defined as "useful" in an unbiased sense, in relation to something in the external world that we care about. We want our model of prediction to give us unbiased inference whilst also being able to speak about something we care about. For the reasons explained, the inherent uncertainty of statistics undermines the unbiased inference for many methods. Bayesian Statistics, by valuing hypotheses is more plausible but ultimately cannot arrive at an unbiased inference. I posit the value theory of money …

Consideration Of The Church's Identity And Mission, Predicated On The Church Be-Ing 'Ligamen' (Bond), C. A. Chase

School of Theology and Seminary Graduate Papers/Theses

In 1965, the Roman Catholic Church, in Gaudium et spes, declared to the world: this community realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds (GS 1). Shifting her identity from being one in opposition to the modern world, she announced the possibility of becoming the very bond (ligamen) binding diverse human communities and nations of the world, whilst existing as a function, a light, an energy (GS 42). Framed against the classical understanding of ecclesia as a perfect society, and the fact that this was no longer realistic in …

"Another Way": The Pneumatology Of Deleuzean Minoritarian Communal Interpretation In Scripture, The 16th Century Radical Reformation, And Alternative 21st Century Anabaptist Community, Jeremy Garber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a constructive theology of the Holy Spirit called the "pneumatology of minoritarian communal interpretation," the alternative creation of meaning within an oppressive majority context. It illustrates the convergence of Deleuzean philosophy with Anabaptist pneumatology and media communal interpretation theory in three particular locations: 1) selected mentions of the Holy Spirit in the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament; 2) the 16th century Radical Reformation; and 3) "Another Way," a 21st century alternative Anabaptist group focused around the spiritual discussion of art and popular media. Chapter One outlines the three theories. Chapter Two examines the Holy Spirit in …

Preserving Moral Recognition In The Face Of Aggression: Aikido As A Practice Of Physical Intersubjectivity, Charles W. Wright

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Practitioners of Aikido advance the claim, peculiar to many, that martial training can support moral action. This essay examines the claim by exploring communicative structures implicit in the response to attack made possible by this art's techniques. This exploration reveals three dimensions of intersubjectivity embedded in the practice of Aikido, dimensions that explicate the ethical imperative of the art.

Sense-Making Bodies: Feminist Materiality And Phenomenology In Constructive Body Theologies, Heike Peckruhn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Constructive body theology provides an ethical commitment to and a set of analytical principles for understanding bodily experience. If we insist upon the theological value of embodied experience, how can we give an adequate account of it? Are feminist appeals to the senses useful in developing theological truth claims based in embodied experiences? Feminist theologies which explicitly seek to overcome body/mind dualisms often reinscribe them when they neglect to attend to perception as a critical element of bodily experience. Phenomenological analyses of perception (such as suggested by Merleau-Ponty) strengthen and refine our conception of embodiment. Grounding constructive theology in experience …

A Comparative Study: Traditional Evangelical Friends Pastors With Contemporar Evangelical Pastors For Twenty-First Century Application, Thomas Crawford

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This is a study of the dominant views of traditional evangelical Friends pastors and contemporary evangelical pastors. A comparative study of lifestyle, methods of ministry, and primary doctrinal beliefs is used to discover areas of agreement, differences, and points critical to successful leadership for Evangelical Friends pastors. Being a pastor and denominational leader in the Evangelical Friends Church-Eastern Region for the past 32 years gives the author a critical interest in this study. Every church and denomination wants to effectively reach people for Christ. The author and Evangelical Friends are no different. Academic research is combined with interviews of evangelical …

An Apologetic To Sun Hwan Pyun's Dialogue Theology As A Liberation Theology Of Religions, Youngchan Kim

Masters Theses

Sun Hwan Pyun was a professor at Methodist Theological University. As a theologian, he grappled with two important theological questions: "Is Christianity an exclusive religion?" and "Is Christianity only a religion for the upper class?" Regarding the exclusivism of Christianity, Pyun searched for an answer in ecumenical-religious pluralism. As an answer for "is Christianity for the poor", he accepts Minjung liberation theology. Pyun wanted to combine these two theologies and, subsequently, referred to his dialogue theology as a liberation theology of religions. The purpose of this thesis is to search for the theological and biblical answers to these theological questions …

Goodness, Thomas G. Plante

Psychology

And what does the Lord require of me? To love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with God. -Micah 6:8

This quote from the Hebrew Bible has been one of my favorite quotes from sacred scripture in the Judea-Christian tradition for a very long time. It well summarizes how we should live. It well articulates how to live a good life. In this brief and simple statement in response to what God wants of us, it makes clear that there are three things that we should do throughout our lives if we want to follow the dictates of the God …

Virtue Ethics, Nikki Coffey Tousley, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Virtue ethics emphasizes the development of moral excellence in terms of character qualities called virtues. Virtue are (1) habituated dispositions involving both an affective desire for the good and the skill to both discern and act accordingly; (2) learned through practice within a tradition (i.e., a historical community with a rich account of the "good"); and (3) directed toward this tradition's particular conception of the good (making virtues "teleological"). From a Christian perspective, virtue ethics is an ethics of discipleship, which emphasizes the development of the habits, practices, and wisdom necessary to pursue the "good" exemplified by Christ. Reading Scripture …

Technology, Derek C. Hatch, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Technology takes many shapes. Things such as water heaters, cell phones, intercontinental ballistic missiles, high-defin ition television, and hybrid cars belong to the large family called "technological artifacts." In addition to artifacts, technology includes infrastructure (e.g., roadways, water and sewage lines, fiber-optic phone lines, Wi-Fi transponders) -- systems of technologies that enable the artifacts to function while the system itself remains, for the most part, out of sight and under the moral radar. Further, technology connotes a certain form of life, one not simply auxiliary to the existing social structure but also contributing to its very form (hence, the phrase …

Dynamical Similarity And The Problem Of Evil, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Discussions of evil commonly fault God for not “doing something.” Defenders of God respond that God had good reasons for not “doing something.” Detractors observe that if a human being can snatch the toddler from the path of the oncoming bus, why does not God snatch the bus from the path of the oncoming toddler? The underlying assumption in such discussions is that God’s “doing something” is similar to humans’ “doing something.”

If human beings bear the image of their Creator as the Abrahamic faiths maintain, it is natural to suppose that divine action is similar to human action. But …

Lucian Blaga On The Existence Of God, Michael S. Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Ethics As Grammar: Changing The Postmodern Subject, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Wittgenstein, one of the most influential, and yet widely misunderstood, philosophers of our age, confronted his readers with aporias—linguistic puzzles—as a means of countering modern philosophical confusions over the nature of language without replicating the same confusions in his own writings. In Ethics as Grammar, Brad Kallenberg uses the writings of theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas as a foil for demonstrating how Wittgenstein’s method can become concrete within the Christian tradition. Kallenberg shows that the aesthetic, political, and grammatical strands epitomizing Hauerwas’s thought are the result of his learning to do Christian ethics by thinking through Wittgenstein.

Kallenberg argues that …

Man And Knowledge: The Search For Truth In A Pluralistic Age, Winfried Vogel

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Philosophical And Scientific World Views On The Development Of The Theology, Norman R. Gulley

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

On Moral Grounds: The Art/Science Of Ethics, Daniel C. Maguire, A. Nicholas Fargnoli

Open-Access Books by Faculty

From the introduction:

Our age can lay claim to a unique moral chaos. Modernity badgers us with perplexing moral questions: Can good ethics and good business ever coincide? Should medical science do all the things that it now can do? Is truth-telling always a virtue? If it is, how can one maintain professional or personal confidentiality? Is honesty always the best policy? What are the proper criteria for the journalistic media when it comes to reporting the real news and avoiding sensationalism? Should there be an “ethics committee” in government, in business, in hospitals, in law firms, or in financial …

Foreword To Antonio De Nicolas Powers Of Imagining, Patrick Heelan

Research Resources

Patrick Aidan Heelan, "Foreword" to Antonio de Nicolas, Powers of Imagining: Ignatius: a hermeneutic of St. Ignatius de Loyola using a new translation of his Spiritual exercises, his Spiritual diary, his Autobiography Autobiography, and some of his letters. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986). ix-xiv.

The Concept Of Character In The Apocalypse With Implications For Character Education, Beatrice S. Neall

Dissertations

Problem and Purpose

In the educational world of the 80s there is a renewed interest in moral education after nearly half a century of neglect. However, since most moral philosophers reject the teaching of objective moral values in favor of subjectivity, Christian educators have felt the need to restate the principles of character education to harmonize with biblical truth. This study analyzes the concept of character in the Apocalypse against a background of humanistic philosophy originating in Plato and Aristotle, noting in each system the concepts regarding the norm of character, the nature of man, the nature of good and …

The Evils Of Socialism, W.F. Lemmons

Stone-Campbell Books

No abstract provided.

Civil Government. Its Origin, Mission, And Destiny, And The Christian's Relation To It., David Lipscomb

Stone-Campbell Books

No abstract provided.