Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons^™

“Our Heaven Begun Below”: A Contemporary Theology Of Eucharistic Sacrifice In The Wesleyan Tradition, Geoffrey C. Moore

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

In 1984, The United Methodist Church adopted a new eucharistic rite which asserts that Christians “offer ourselves…as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us.” The language of sacrifice employed here is much stronger than that of any of the previous rites used by the Church, or any of its successors, as far back as the first English rite written by Thomas Cranmer. While the Cranmerian rite calls for a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, the new rite calls for the communicant to offer themselves as a “holy and living sacrifice,” a change which calls for …

Music And Communal Division During The French Wars Of Religion, Cameron G. Wade

Honors Theses

This Senior Honors Thesis explores the social and cultural impact of confessional musical composition and performance on the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598). Because Huguenots and Catholics identified with and were widely identifiable by their respective musical styles, cultural divisions between each confession were emphasized by differences in music. This capacity of sacred and confessionally-influenced secular music to highlight and reinforce societal divides is evidenced by the interconfessional violence that accompanied the public performance of sacred music in cities as well as the pressures imposed on composers to create music which clearly aligned with their respective confessions. As the wars …

Ephesians And Ecumenism, Toby Eisenberg

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Christian ecumenism has made great strides during the twentieth century but is now widely seen as needing a new path. Avery Dulles has proposed an “exchange of gifts” notion of dialogue in which the participant churches share their understanding of the Christian life and all of the reasons they have for holding their particular doctrines and practices, drawing on whatever normative sources they believe are appropriate. The approach enables the participants to bear testimony in love in the hopes that they may better understand and appreciate each other more fully, thereby opening a path to increased doctrinal consensus and thus …

The Unmarried (M)Other: A Study Of Christianity, Capitalism, And Counternarratives Concerning Motherhood And Marriage In The United States And South Africa, Haley Feuerbacher

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

A reified and patriarchal form of Christianity that emphasizes “family values” – that is, adherence to the formula of a male-headed, heterosexual, capitalist, nuclear family, characterized by distinct, complementary, and hierarchical gender roles as essential to the well-being of individuals, one’s nation, and the ecumenical Church - over “community values” has become a happy bedfellow of the market system and neocolonialism, extending its reach worldwide through globalization. The result is that single mothers constitute the most economically oppressed demographic internationally across all race and ethnic categories. Using Constructivist Grounded Theory and a postcolonial feminist theological lens to collect, retell, and …

Augustine's Concept Of Volition And Its Significance For The Doctrine Of Original Sin, Scot Bontrager

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Augustine has been credited as the inventor of the concept of volition (the will), and yet it is not clear from this claim exactly what his concept of volition is. His understanding of the human person, especially his theory of volition, has had profound implications for much of the theological work which followed. This thesis examines various concepts which influenced Augustine’s notion of volition, contemporary ways of understanding volition, and what Augustine himself believed about it. Since the will is central to Augustine’s description of the human person and the human condition a careful examination of the concept is necessary …

The Greater Torment: Religious And Secular Desire In The Poetry And Criticism Of T.S. Eliot, Katie Buonanno

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

The Quest Of Vision: Visual Culture, Sacred Space, Ritual, And The Documentation Of Lived Experience Through Rock Imagery, Aaron Robert Atencio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This document will approach the multifaceted concepts that arise through the study of rock art and the cultivation of culture and belief through vision. Through this document the audience will encounter conceptual ideas regarding belief systems, ritual, experience, cognition, sacredness, and space/landscape — and how these are all essential dynamics that take place in the processes that cultivate the Shoshone visual culture. This document will employ an anthropological lens on the mentioned subject matters, while also approaching these concepts with an interdisciplinary curiosity of how they intermingle; creating a cohesive experience that focuses on these processes which empowered these people[s] …

The Emperor's New Clothes: How The New Atheists Are Reminding The Humanities Of Their Place And Purpose In Society., David Ira Buckner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation will examine the social and intellectual impact of the so-called “New Atheism” as evidenced by the writings and public careers of its four principal protagonists: evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, philosopher Daniel Dennett, journalist Christopher Hitchens, and neuroscientist Sam Harris. I will argue that the New Atheists together provide an account of reality philosophically superior to that of theism, including those superficially sophisticated variations espoused in the writings of scholars William Lane Craig, John Lennox, Allister McGrath, Alvin Plantinga, etc. Yet, even if this were not so, I would still contend that the accessible, informative, and provocative style of …

The Presbyterian Enlightenment: The Confluence Of Evangelical And Enlightenment Thought In British America, Brandon S. Durbin

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Eighteenth-Century British American Presbyterian ministers incorporated covenantal theology, ideas from the Scottish Enlightenment, and resistance theory in their sermons. The sermons of Presbyterian ministers strongly indicate the intermixing of enlightenment and evangelical ideas. Congregants heard and read these sermons, spreading these ideas to the average colonist. This combination helps explain why American Presbyterians were so apt to resist British rule during the American Revolution. Protestant covenantal theology, derived from Protestant reformers like John Calvin and John Knox, emphasized virtue and duty. This covenant affected both the people and their rulers. When rulers failed to uphold their covenant with God, the …

Living Through Terror And Terror Through Living: The Biopolitical Dimensions Of Religion, Security, And Terrorism, Donnie Featherston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent emphasis and attention by thinkers, media pundits, and politicians on terrorism requires new, critical evaluation of the processes by which terrorism is understood. By investigating the concept of biopolitics, as developed specifically through Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, new insights into the interactions between terrorism, politics, and religion can emerge. Most notably, the attempts to explain terror as simply an economic problem, an excessive form of violence, and/or as religious fervency gone awry rely on embedded biopolitical concepts. The continual attempts to solve terrorism through increased biopolitical strategies, thereby making terrorism a problem for biopolitics, only further substantiate the …

Toward Unity, Acceptance, And Empowerment: Bridging The Chasm Between Women Laity And Clergy In The A.M.E. Church, Rhonda Yvonne Green Harmon

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

A B S T R A C T

Rhonda Green Harmon

B.S., Texas Southern University, 1980

M.Ed. Texas Southern University, 1989

M.Ed. Principal Certification, University of Houston, 2002

M.Div. Houston Graduate School of Theology, 2012

“Toward Unity, Acceptance, and Empowerment:

Bridging the Chasm between Women Laity and Clergy in the A.M.E. Church”

This Doctor of Ministry project/practicum endeavors to initiate and engage dialogue between clergywomen and laywomen in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church for the purpose of uniting, empowering, and fostering acceptance among all women. It addresses the ways that internalized patriarchy has hindered relationships between women. The main …

Leonard Cohen's New Jews: A Consideration Of Western Mysticisms In Beautiful Losers, Alexander Lombardo

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines the influence of various Western mystical traditions on Leonard Cohen’s second novel, Beautiful Losers. It begins with a discussion of Cohen’s public remarks concerning religion and mysticism followed by an assessment of twentieth century Canadian criticism on Beautiful Losers. Three thematic chapters comprise the majority of the study, each concerning a different mystical tradition—Kabbalism, Gnosticism, and Christian mysticism, respectively. The author considers Beautiful Losers in relation to these systems, concluding that the novel effectively depicts the pursuit of God, or knowledge, through mystic practice and doctrine. This study will interest scholars seeking a careful exploration …

Guru Nanak: Life, Lessons & Relevancy, Rajdeep Singh Dosanjh

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This senior project is centered on understanding the thought of Nanak the founder of Sikhism. It consist of historiography of Nanak, and understanding the core of Nanak's thought as centered around G-d's Immanence

Refractions Through The Secular: Islam, Human Rights And Universality, Zara Khan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Universal human rights (HR) are often theorized as philosophically neutral. Because they do not espouse any particular theory of the human being, it is argued, they can be reasonably appropriated by all. In this thesis, I explore HR’s universality claim, by focusing on the discourse’s secular foundation. In the universal human right to freedom of religion, I find a distinctly modern grammar of ‘religion,’ one that separates ‘religion’ from politics and power, law from morality, and the public and private realms. The modern concept of religion also espouses a secular theory of the human, insofar as the human is defined …

Thinking Nature, "Pierre Maupertuis And The Charge Of Error Against Fermat And Leibniz", Richard Samuel Lamborn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to defend Pierre Fermat and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz against the charge of error made against them by Pierre Maupertuis that they errantly applied final causes to physics. This charge came in Maupertuis’ 1744 speech to the Paris Academy of Sciences, later published in different versions, entitled Accord Between Different Laws Which at First Seemed Incompatible. It is in this speech that Maupertuis lays claim to one of the most important discoveries in the history of physics and science, The Principle of Least Action. From the date of this speech up until the end …

Berkeley And The Mind Of God, Craig Berchet Knepley

Theses and Dissertations

I tackle a troubling question of interpretation: Does Berkeley's God feel pain? Berkeley's anti-skepticism seems to bar him from saying that God does not feel pain, for this would mean there is something to reality 'beyond' the perceptible. Yet Berkeley's concerns for common sense and orthodoxy bar him from saying that God does have an idea of pain. For Berkeley to have an idea of pain just is to suffer it, and an immutable God cannot suffer. Thus solving the pain problem requires answers to further questions: What are God's perceptions, for Berkeley? What are God's acts of will? How …

Finding A Resolution : Religion's Role In Resolving Man's Internal Dyad., Marianna Michael

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

A Basis Of The Civil War: The Theological Views Of Nineteenth Century Christians On The Justification Of Slavery, Shaniqua Janeè Wells

Honors Theses

Views on the morality of slavery have produced a paradox within the Christian community. Historically, the issue of slavery has been analyzed tremendously by means of economic and cultural factors. The religious analysis of the institution of slavery has been overshadowed by secular motives. This paradox on the morality of slavery causes disunity within the Christian faith. Christianity, as a monotheistic religion, emphasizes the purpose that one God has for His people. Therefore, the multiplicity of views on God’s intentions for the treatment of human beings cannot be allowed in the Christian community. The abolitionists’ and activist’s views must be …

Explaining Consciousness: An Argument Against Physicalism And An Argument For Theism, Benjamin Dobler

Honors Projects

Consciousness, the mental phenomenon of our subjective experience of the world, has long been the subject of philosophical debate. The world we experience is full of sights, sounds, taste, smells, and feelings--phenomenal experiences. As the vehicle of phenomenal experience, consciousness is one of the most familiar and readily accessible features of our world, and perhaps the hardest to deny. Yet science tells us that our world is entirely composed of matter and energy, and physical phenomena can be explained as just that. In Part I, I argue that consciousness stands wholly at odds with this scientistic worldview, providing evidence against …

The Gospel In Singapore - The Impact Of Civil Religion And Civil Law, Mark Madson

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Madson, Mark, J. “The Gospel in Singapore: The Impact of Civil Religion and Civil Law.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2015. 240 pp.

The author explores the development of civil religion in the Republic of Singapore, paying special attention to its sources in English common law, Confucianism, and the Peoples’ Action Party (PAP) ideology of economic pragmatism. Colonial and modern civil religious law, including the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act of 1990, serve as the basis for analyzing the interaction of the state and traditional religious traditions. The Singapore Story, as told by Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP, provides a …

Can All Religions Live In Peace?, Antony Das S. Devadhasan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Can All Religions Live In Peace?

Religion is identified as one of the main factors that divide humanity. Pluralists like, John Hick identify the conflicting truth claims or the doctrines of different religions as the basis for religious exclusivism. Hick accuses the exclusivists of being epistemically arrogant and morally oppressive. His remedy for eradicating exclusivism is that every religion with conflicting truth claims should reinterpret these claims so as to share an outlook with other religions. Alvin Plantinga, a critic of Hick, contradicts Hick on behalf of a believer or an exclusivist.He argues that for a believer his beliefs are …

The Grammar Of Choice: Charles Dickens's Existential Idea Of Religion, Hai Na

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation challenges the received opinion that Charles Dickens's religious thinking is merely sentimental and philanthropic. Instead, I argue that there is in his works a very consistent "existential" sense of religion, especially in his mature novels. To be religious for him does not lie in the adherence to dogma or the study of theological arguments, but in the crucial choices people make every day. In order to illustrate this "existential" sense of religion, I analyze, in the first chapter, relevant works by Kierkegaard, Carlyle, George Eliot, and Dostoevsky, in order to establish the context in which Dickens's religious views …

Awful/Awful: An Archive Of Light Embarrassments, Teysha Vinson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The difficulty of representing intangible religious ideas is at the core of Awful/Awful: An Archive of Light Embarrassments. Through an interest in how light is discussed in the Bible as a symbol for God and his fellowship, I make imagery that both repulses me and intrigues me but never do I get to the point where I feel the work encapsulates any answers. Instead, the photographs are questions, archived, unable to represent this light of God on their own without being trite or obtuse. The arranged work on the walls consists of these photographs plus a few ephemera from my …

Gays And God Can Commune Together, Timothy Dustin Pepler

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Thinking, With Heidegger, The Religion-Science-Theology Relation, David L. Carlson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work is an attempt to think the essential nature of the interrelationships among religion, science, and theology (RST) out of Heidegger's engagement with the question of Being. Three primary questions initially motivated this inquiry: First, how are the interrelations (if any) among religion, science, and theology to be understood? Second, is a relation of "dialogue," in some sense, possible among the three elements of the RST triad? And third, does theology have a rightful place in the public square dominated by the view that science serves as the "gold standard" for rationality and truth? The inquiry interweaves five threads, …

A Theological Inquiry Regarding The Practice Of The Eucharist In Cyberspace, Janice L. Duce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study looks at the Eucharist in cyberspace, beginning with a case study of a faith community who met with controversy after the group shared the ritual in cyberspace. Based on a qualitative study of the practice and its aftermath, the theoretical analysis includes the nature of the Internet itself and its capacity as a location for networked communities; its capacity to operate as a communication medium for a religious ritual; and the involvement of active users.

The users in this case were members of a religious community interested in preserving their Eucharist theological tradition. The first set of major …

The Religion Of Consumption And Christian Neighbor Love, Christopher Porter

Dissertations

Loyola University Chicago

THE RELIGION OF CONSUMPTION AND CHRISTIAN NEIGHBOR LOVE

Consumerism is a word frequently used in various disciplines to express the variety of attitudes, motivations, and practices found among the middle and upper classes. It drives the global economy and influences individuals' socio-psychological perceptions. Some have gone so far as to call consumerism a religion, yet they have not substantiated this claim. This dissertation offers a framework that accounts for consumerism as a religion both as a person's ultimate concern and as a structuralized belief system. As such, it prescribes moral values that shape how people respond to …

The Spiritual Impulse To Turn Within And The Engagement In A World Of Action, Jared A. Rodriguez

Senior Theses and Projects

In this essay, I will compare three modern, contemporary thinkers, Thomas Merton, Mahatma Gandhi and Jiddu Krishnamurti. These three come from relatively different theological backgrounds. Thomas Merton is a Catholic monk, Mahatma Gandhi is a traditional Hindu with sentiments that come from Buddhism, and Krishnamurti, from birth was predetermined to belong to the Theosophists as their new World Leader. The underlying themes that connects these three profound figures together is, first, their transcendentalist approach in understanding the self, the cosmos, and the profane world by methods of contemplation, meditation and silence. Second, they are connected by a familiar personal spiritual …

Gender Analysis Of Politics, Economics And Culture Of Korean Reunification: Toward A Feminist Theological Foundation For Reunified Society, Jin Sung Cholee

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In this study, I have focused on the process for an eventual reunification of North and South Korea. In this process, Korean political, economic, cultural and religious issues are necessarily present. My study focuses on cultural and religious factors. I adopt the German reunification as a case study. The German reunification process provides Koreans with lessons about the negative changes in the status of German women since the German reunification caused extreme instances of the loss of status and economic opportunity for women. German reunification shows that the unequal situation and systems in society were not only due to political …

Racial Prejudice, Homophobia, And Sexism As A Function Of Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Religious Values, Religious Pressures, And Religious Orientation, Dixie Turner

Doctoral Dissertations

Past literature is ambiguous regarding relationships among different religious variables and prejudice. The purpose of this study was to clarify complicated relationships among religious pressures, religious fundamentalism, Christian orthodoxy, intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientation, quest orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and the outcome variables of racial prejudice, homophobia, and sexism. Two models, a developmental model and social learning model, were proposed in this study and were tested using structural-equation modeling. Participants were 310 self-identified Christian students. Several predicted paths were deleted in both models because they did not contribute to good fit. Three predictor variables: Christian orthodoxy, extrinsic religious orientation, and religious …