Rhetoric Commons^™

Narrative, Lists, Rhetoric, Ritual And The Pentateuch As A Scripture, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

The Pentateuchʼs juxtaposition of different genres within a narrative framework provides some of the evidence for building source- and redaction-critical theories of the Pentateuchʼs literary history. Rhetorical analysis suggests, however, that such genre juxtapositions are characteristic of an ancient Near Eastern strategy of persuasion. The Pentateuchʼs inset genres, especially its lists of instructions and laws, generated most of its normative force that, together with its ritualization, led to its scripturalization as Torah.

The Rhetoric Of Law And The Epistle To The Hebrews, Theodore A. Holt Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Epistle to the Hebrews demonstrates a complex of what scholars label technical legal terms. Enlisting a series of word studies, this thesis attempts to uncover where the author learned the terminology in order to understand more about the anonymous author and the theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. This thesis examines terms in Heb 2:2-4; 6:13-18; 7:11-19; 8:13; 9:15-18; 10:9.

Facilitating A Pastoral Leadership Model For The Ulysses Church Of Christ, Warren Baldwin

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project intended to train leaders in principles of character-based leadership. I applied five principles drawn from Proverbs to the current situation of the Ulysses Church of Christ. The principles included community development, integrity, listening, ministering to the marginalized, and shepherding. I intentionally focused this character-based leadership training more on theological principles found in Proverbs than on skill development or leadership theories from the social sciences. I paid some attention to skill development and incorporated some principles from the social sciences, particularly psychology, but I placed greater emphasis on learning what …

Rhetorics Of Engagement Across And About Faith And Worldview Difference, John Maclean

Theses and Dissertations

Interactions across faith and worldview difference are becoming increasingly common in many communities and around the world. These interactions can be verbally or physically violent, and even deadly, or they can be beautiful and enriching, or they can be ignored, resisted or refused. In this dissertation I put scholarship that endorses a broader conception of rhetoric in conversation with my personal experience in interfaith relations and dialogue in order to discover better ways to study these interactions. I propose and develop two constructs, "rhetorical space" and "rhetorical stance", that I use to explore and analyze people's attitudes toward and experiences …

Fostering Healing Through Reconciliation In The Abernathy Church Of Christ, Randall K. Carr

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project is an exercise in addressing anxiety as a result of unresolved conflict in the Abernathy Church of Christ. In 2009 emotions escalated to a climactic point, leading a group of participants to separate from the Abernathy Church of Christ. The events surrounding this episode have played an influential role in shaping the narrative of the Abernathy Church of Christ. This project seeks to identify areas of residual pain in the existing narrative and move the congregation into a narrative of hope for the future of the Abernathy Church of Christ. The central theme is reconciliation and results from …

Cultivating The Practice Of Missional Hospitality For Small Groups At West Houston Church Of Christ, Kevin Stewart

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project in which I led a team to develop a plan to cultivate the practice of missional hospitality for small groups at West Houston Church of Christ. I used missional theology as a framework to give shape to the practice of hospitality. The project team met for nine weeks in the fall of 2014. The team practiced lectio divina focused on Luke 10, participated in theological reflection on missional hospitality, and fulfilled assignments to practice missional hospitality. These activities helped form the group spiritually and informed the development of a …

Evaluating An Oral Draft Of Luke 8:4-15 In Uduk, Jeremy N. Harrison

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the findings of a project in which I led a group of immigrants from South Sudan through the process of generating and evaluating an oral draft of Luke 8:4-15 in Uduk. The aim of this project was to provide a substantive field test of an oral translation methodology conducted among immigrants living in the United States who speak a language that lacks a translation of the entire Bible. The project involved facilitating basic translation training and conducting an oral drafting process with a team of three Uduk speakers. This project also involved evaluating the …

Redeeming Rhetoric: Augustine's Use Of Rhetoric In His Preaching Ministry, John A. Sypert

Liberty Theological Review

The art and practice of rhetoric occupied a fundamental place in the ancient Roman world. It is thus not surprising that Augustine (354-430 AD) was deeply committed to the art of speaking well. He spent his youth mastering the theory of rhetoric, putting into practice what he had learned during a preaching career of almost forty years. This essay examines elements of rhetoric in Augustine’s preaching, arguing that he purposely appropriated common rhetorical elements in his preaching for the purpose of making Scripture both plain and compelling to his audience. Augustine’s training in rhetoric is summarized, followed by an overview …

Youth Narratives Of The Conflict In Northern Uganda, Ellen Eichelberger

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Narratives are an essential method of communication that create windows into human experiences. Narratives are also responsible for generating the societies in which they are told, or are shaped indelibly by the societies generated by more powerful narratives. In a post-conflict environment where society has been destroyed by decades of violence, the power of narratives to influence society is heightened. Such a postconflict environment is that of northern Uganda, as it emerges from the violence of the war between the LRA and the UPDF. Due to the heightened powers of narratives, it is necessary to give attention to what those …

Facilitating Holistic Spiritual Formation At The Northside Church Of Christ In Laredo, Texas, Kirk R. Cowell

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes a project to facilitate holistic spiritual formation at the Northside Church of Christ in Laredo, Texas. A program consisting of seven weekly sessions of intergenerational religious experiences was enacted at the church in hopes of catalyzing growth in the cognitive, relational, affective, and behavioral domains. These sessions were constructed on a foundation consisting of the experiences of the non-class Churches of Christ—a group of congregations that has historically rejected the Bible class model—and informed by the intergenerational formation literature. Evaluation of this project showed relational and affective growth greater than what the congregation had experienced with the …

Islamic Feminism: A Discourse Of Gender Justice And Equality, Breanna Ribeiro

Senior Theses

This paper examines Islamic feminism using structural methodology and the phenomenological approach to examine the component of Muslim feminists' activism that utilizes ijtihad and tafsir to reinterpret patriarchal rhetoric and highlight Islamic discourses that validate gender equality. These scholars and activists critically analyze Islamic theology by employing hermeneutics in order to produce Islamic exegeses that affirm social justice, gender equality, and liberation. Religion plays a critical role in building collective cultural identities; therefore, examining sacred texts' representation and prescription of gender roles and mores generates an understanding of the gender order in the community of believers, while simultaneously exposing contextual …

Developing An Intentional Mentoring Model For Disciple Formation At The Mayfair Church Of Christ, Jason Bybee

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project to lead a team in the development of an intentional mentoring model for disciple formation at the Mayfair Church of Christ. This intervention involved the team members in a series of sessions during September and October 2013. Project sessions were designed to provide participants an intentional mentoring experience through exposure to four core practices: exploration of the biblical text, appreciative inquiry exercises, communal sharing, and prayer. Sessions were informed by (1) an understanding of discipleship as following behind Jesus and walking alongside our fellow sojourners, (2) the nature of …

Moore Of Feminine Style: A Rhetorical Examination Of "Wednesdays With Beth", Terrie Meeks

Masters Theses

Beth Moore is a best-selling author of books and Bible studies, a speaker to crowds that fill places like the Georgia Super Dome, as well as an international speaker, a radio and television personality, and she is achieving this milestone as a woman, in a world lit with male stars. Through all of these venues it is estimated that Moore speaks to hundreds of thousands of people each year. One of Moore's most recent ventures is speaking on Life Today with James and Betty Robison. Each week features an episode of "Wednesdays with Beth." Using Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's theory of …

Preaching That Leads To Transformation At The North Street Church Of Christ In Nacogdoches, Texas, Curtis Barbarick

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project to develop a process whereby the sermon would be enhanced for listeners at the North Street Church of Christ in Nacogdoches, Texas, so that preaching would be more effective in leading to transformation. The theology and methodology of John Wesley were utilized as a lens by which to think about and implement this practice.

The intervention involved a six-week session with a focus group that represented a cross-section of the congregation. Participants in this group were asked to engage in a lectio divina exercise on a particular text daily, …

Elder Selection: Engaging The Monterey Church Of Christ In A Collaborative Elder Selection Process, Benjamin D. Pickett

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the outcomes of a project intended to foster greater collaboration at the Monterey Church of Christ in its selection of elders. The intervention involved the engagement of the Monterey Church in a process that involved multiple steps. These steps involved engagement with teachers in the context of a teacher training seminar, with Bible classes in a series of Bible lessons, and with elders, elder nominees, and their spouses in order to discern the perceived degree to which Monterey members participate in the elder selection process. The Bible lessons presented an alternative model for theological …

Witnessing The Web: The Rhetoric Of American E-Vangelism And Persuasion Online, Amber M. Stamper

Theses and Dissertations--English

From the distribution of religious tracts at Ellis Island and Billy Sunday’s radio messages to televised recordings of the Billy Graham Crusade and Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, American evangelicals have long made a practice of utilizing mass media to spread the Gospel. Most recently, these Christian evangelists have gone online. As a contribution to scholarship in religious rhetoric and media studies, this dissertation offers evangelistic websites as a case study into the ways persuasion is carried out on the Internet. Through an analysis of digital texts—including several evangelical home pages, a chat room, discussion forums, and a virtual church—I investigate …

Extending Story Listening As A Practice Of Communal Formation At The Lake Orion Church Of Christ, Eric R. Magnusson

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project that explores the potential for extending a practice of story listening as a way of forming community across social circles at the Lake Orion Church of Christ in Lake Orion, Michigan. The intervention involved guiding a group of six participant-researchers, each of whom had previous experience in story listening, through six sessions in the fall of 2011. Each phase of the project was informed by a participatory social Trinitarian theology. The first three sessions were designed to empower participant-researcher pairs to facilitate story listening groups of four to five …

The Initiation Of Growth-Focused Relationships Involving Healthy Accountability At The Carbondale Church Of Christ, Stephen Shaffer

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

After several years of transition, the Carbondale Church of Christ is in the early stages of becoming a spiritual growth-focused community. However, the emerging growth community appears to reflect the prevailing cultural assumptions that growth is a personal, private, and an individual task. To shape this emergent growth culture, this project initiated a group of congregational opinion leaders, organized in pairs, into the practice of growth-focused relationships involving healthy accountability. The initiation involved a theological orientation followed by a four-week healthy accountability praxis.

The theological framework of the project involved three main aspects. First, the project used the body image …

Aaron And The Golden Calf In The Rhetoric Of The Pentateuch, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

In the Pentateuch, the contrast between law and narrative, or more precisely, ritual instructions and ritual narrative, is nowhere more stark than in the relationship between the Golden Calf story (Exod 32-34) and the instructions for building the Tabernacle (Exod 25-31, 35-40). The former vilifies Aaron by placing him at the center of the idolatrous event while the latter celebrates Aaron and his sons as divinely consecrated priests. Though source criticism has long since distinguished the authors of these accounts, it does not explain the intentions behind a literary juxtaposition that is too stark to be anything but intentional. Nor …

Implementing A Discernment Phase For Those Nominated In The Shepherd Selection Process At The Cinco Ranch Church Of Christ, Aaron Walling

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project that implemented a discernment phase for those nominated in the shepherd selection process at the Cinco Ranch Church of Christ. Occurring in the fall of 2010, this project involved nominees in a series of six one-hour, thirty-minute sessions designed to establish the theological foundations for shepherding and to explore its practical expression at Cinco Ranch. For the theological component, this project primarily utilized Ephesians 4:11-16, and for the practical side, it incorporated group interactions with those serving as shepherds along with the review of guiding leadership documents. The project‟s …

Crafting A Congregational Narrative For The College Church Of Christ In Fresno, California, Jason W. Locke

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes a ministry project in the College Church of Christ in Fresno, California. In this project I led the congregation through a narrative crafting process in order to clarify the church’s identity and increase its capacity for mission. In recent decades, the College Church moved away from some of its founding characteristics yet failed to clarify a new sense of identity. It subsequently had difficulty acting with a unified sense of purpose and instead moved increasingly toward fragmentation.

Data for crafting the new narrative came from three weeks of group interviews. My research team conducted these interviews in …

Discerning A Vocational Theology Of Marriage For The Smyrna Church Of Christ, Daniel F. Camp

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this project was to discern a vocational theology of marriage for the Smyrna Church of Christ in Smyrna, Tennessee. Through a group discernment process, the participants studied Genesis 1-3 and 2 Corinthians 5 as a basis for understanding God’s design for marriage at creation, the effects of sin on the vocational aspect of the marriage relationship, and the call of Christ for husbands and wives to participate in the resurrection life through the ministry of reconciliation. At the end of the discernment process, the participants articulated a theology statement for the church that examined our current context …

A Burkean Analysis Of Jehovah's Witness Apocalyptic Rhetoric, Katherine Elizabeth Kacarab

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis uses principles from Burke's Rhetoric of Identification to examine how apocalyptic prophecies foster and maintain an apocalyptic group identity. Jehovah's Witnesses were used as a sample apocalyptic group because they comprise a group with a heavy textual and symbolic focus on the apocalypse.

Attending To Local And Diverse Communities: Toward A Theological Learning Community For A Missional Era, Patricia Taylor Ellison, Patrick R. Keifert

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ua3/1/3 President's Office-Cherry - Scrapbooks, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings, articles and publications of interest to WKU President Henry Cherry. These include education religion, state and national politics, prohibition and Western Kentucky University.

Using Ezra's Time As A Methodological Pivot For Understanding The Rhetoric And Functions Of The Pentateuch, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

The Persian period saw the transformation of pentateuchal materials into a scripture, the Torah. The story of Ezra exemplifies that transformation by its description of his manipulation of the physical scroll, his oral reading of it before the people of Jerusalem, and his arrangement for its professional translation/interpretation by Levites. These rituals have characterized the function of the Torah (and other scriptures) from that time forward. The Persian period, however, also marks a major change in the nature of our evidence for the form, contents and meaning of pentateuchal materials. The only historical evidence from before the time of Ezra …

The Rhetoric Of Sacrifice, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Analisis Gaya Bahasa Pujian Dan Celaan Dalam Al-Quran., Azhari Hamzah

Student Works (2010-2019)

This research is done to study, analyse and explain one important aspect of the Arabic Language, which is the Glorifying and Reprimanding Language Style. In this research the writer chooses all the glorifying and reprimanding verses in the Holy al- Quran. There are two types of glorifying and reprimanding language style in the al- Quran, the written and the unwritten. The written type of glorifying and reprimanding is syntax studies while the unwritten type is semantic. The focus of this research is only on the written type. Therefore, it is done based on the Arabic Language syntax. This research divides …

Analisis Isti'arah Dalam Kitab Riya:D Al-Sa:Lihi:N., Mohamad Syukri Abdul Rahman

Student Works (2010-2019)

This research studies the concept of al-’Istica:rat in the hadith in Riya:d al-Sa:lihi:n. In general it concerned with the rhetoric of the Prophetic tradition particularly the concept of al-’Istica:rat and its impact in understanding the meaning of the Tradition among Muslim scholars in Peninsular Malaysia. It covers all aspects of the study; the theoretical and the analytical aspects as well as the field research. As for the theoretical aspect of the study, it discusses the important aspects of the rhetoric of the hadith. Among others, it discusses the definition of al-Baya:n al-Nabawiyy and the characteristic and the speciality of …

Diabolical Ventriloquism: A Case Study In Rhetorical Transcendence With C. S. Lewis’S Infamous Imp Screwtape, Daniel J. Coyle

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Most religious discourse is predicated on the assumption that our choices in life have eternal implications. For those who subscribe to a belief in an afterlife, rhetoric which exploits eternity to form attitudes and induce actions can be especially persuasive. This study performs a detailed analysis of a particularly compelling case of the rhetoric of eternity during the twentieth century: C.S. Lewis‘s fictional demon Screwtape. In The Screwtape Letters and ―Screwtape Proposes a Toast,‖ Lewis offers readers an eternal, though diabolical, perspective of the ―modern‖ intellectual climate during the twentieth century. By puppeteering a demon in prose, Lewis satirically lampoons …