The Intersection Of Grief And Religion: How Religious Beliefs Impact The Experience Of Complicated Grief In College Students, Brenna Snively

Psychology Honors Papers

This study evaluates how religious beliefs affect the experience of complicated grief. Students at Ursinus College were asked to complete a survey with questions relating to religious beliefs as well as symptoms of complicated grief and questions regarding the loss of a loved one. This information was utilized to evaluate the relationship between strength of religious beliefs and complicated grief. The research was unable to support the hypothesis that religion affected complicated grief however there was evidence that aspects of religion, such as believing in the afterlife, may affect experiences of complicated grief.

Naturalist Thomas Hardy's Inadvertent Support Of The Gospel Narrative When Portraying Sexual Abuse And Shame In Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Hannah Carmichael

Master of Arts in Classical Studies

In his novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the naturalist author Thomas Hardy attempts to critique the 19th-century Christian perspective on sexual abuse. Instead, he inadvertently critiques legalism, exposing it as the antithesis of true Christianity. Secular scholars believe that Hardy’s novel is blaming the Victorian era’s sexual ignorance for the stigma and shame surrounding sexual abuse. Christian scholars believe that Hardy’s naturalistic worldview simply lacks a moral standard. However, I believe that Hardy’s novel exposes an issue far deeper than sexual ignorance and lacks something far more substantive than a moral standard; his novel addresses the devastating consequences of …

Women In Religious Leadership Roles, Amanda Wadkins

MSU Graduate Theses

The experiences of women in leadership have been well studied in academia, but there remains a gap in the literature regarding and understanding of the experiences of women who are in religious leadership roles. I examined what challenges these women experience in their roles, and how they make sense of those challenges, using the constant comparative method of data analysis to analyze interviews with 12 women who have leadership roles within their protestant church or nonprofit organization. The results indicate that these individuals experience challenges that are consistent with past research on women in leadership. However, the results also illustrate …

A Phenomenological Investigation Of The Meaning Making Experiences Of Christian Women Who Had An Abortion, Anne E. Stocker

Dissertations

Whether or not a woman should have an abortion is a hotly debated topic, and little information is known about how women make sense of their abortion experiences. Even less is known about how women make sense of abortion experiences in the context of their religious or spiritual belief system. This qualitative study explores the phenomenon of how women who have had an abortion make meaning of their abortion experience in the context of their Christian identity. This phenomenon was explored via research questions related to a woman’s experience of having both an abortion history and a Christian identity, how …

Experiences Of Appalachian People With Conflicting Christian And Lgbtq+ Identities, Zacharias Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the experiences of six LGBTQ+ individuals living in Appalachia who have felt conflict between their LGBTQ+ and Christian identities. Using data from six one-on-one intensive interviews, the study examines the various kinds of conflict participants experienced, the strategies they used to manage those conflicts, and the role that Christianity played in their lives. The author found that participant conflicts were grounded in struggles to find acceptance from others while living authentically, to reconcile ideological disputes with the church, and to accept themselves as LGBTQ+ and/or Christian. Included among their various management strategies were finding accepting people and …

Handbooks, Policies, And Power: Discursive Language And Lgbtqia+ Representation In Christian University Handbooks, Kaitlin Merlino

Honors Projects and Presentations: Undergraduate

For many years, tensions have existed between Christianity and the LGBTQ community, most apparent in contexts such as politics and education. One site of conflict is within the realm of Christian higher education, specifically in regards to campus-wide regulation of same-sex behaviors. This research examines the language in sexuality-based rules as communicated in four Christian universities' handbooks. Bakhtin & Holquist (1981) demonstrate the innate tension between dialogue and the social context within which it is understood. Therefore, since language is not neutral, the words creating these rules are in themselves a site of tension for the university, its contributors, its …

Nationalist And Non-Nationalist Christianity In The United States, Aaron Epperson

University Honors Theses

Christian nationalism has broken into the American news cycle over the last few years through its connection to former President Donald Trump, and it's closely associated with violent events like the January 6th insurrection and the Charlottesville, VA, Unite the Right rally. However, its close association with Trump and depiction in a 24-hour news cycle makes defining what Christian nationalism is--and is not--difficult for those unfamiliar with nationalism and the broader American Christian tradition. This paper hopes to briefly explore what Christain nationalism is within the United States through an exploration of nationalism itself and a discussion of nationalist and …

Arendt And Christianity: On Love And The World, Logan Andrew Daly

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Hannah Arendt criticized the Christian faith for what she saw as an inherent wordlessness or ascetic attitude. She believed this focus on the afterlife was an afront to her political philosophy and kept people from participating in the public sphere. This thesis is a selective exploration of Arendt’s criticisms against the Christian faith and aims to show that there is a way of reconciling the respective belief systems, allowing an Arendtian to benefit from Christian ideas and a Christian to improve themselves with the assistance of Arendtian concepts. The project is split into two chapters. Each chapter focuses on a …

Christianity And Mental Health Counseling: Voices Of The Black-Negro American Experience, Kyle Preston Goodwin

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The narration of the lived experiences of Black-Negro Christian Americans in relation to mental health counseling services is vital because opportunities for researchers and clinicians to hear their voices instead of a story written for them by the leading culture is created. Specifically, when it comes to Black-Negro spirituality and religion as part of Black-Negro culture, it is one of the most beautiful and intriguing experiences that exists. A critical theory paradigm is being used for how knowledge is created and disseminated for the purposes of social change. Narrative Qualitative research is used to capture the Black-Negro voice, along with …

Decision-Making And Christianity: Black Queer Women's Mental Health, Deborah Coffy

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study investigated how Christianity affects Black queer women's decision-making regarding seeking mental health services. Those who felt they met the inclusion criteria completed a Basic Demographic Survey. After vetting these individuals, eleven female participants—who are both Black and queer—were asked to participate in an individual semi-structured qualitative interview. The interview focused on one's journey with mental health, societal and relationship influences, Black and LGBTQ+ identity, influences from conservative, traditional, or mainstream Christianity, and sense of self. Although Christianity may not have directly impacted most of the women in this study to seek mental health services, Christianity did have an …

White Savior Projects: An Examination Of The Antitrafficking Social Movement, Jennifer A. Cheek

Theses and Dissertations

For this dissertation, I conduct an ethnography of three antitrafficking programs; interview 38 activists and survivors of trafficking; and analyze organizational texts, websites, and social media. I examine the history of the antitrafficking movement. Among the three organizations, activists provide housing; food, clothing, and hygiene items; medical services; mental health services and counseling; mentorship; education for survivors; a 24-hour hotline; outreach; case management and referrals; training for law enforcement; a drop-in center; and education and awareness events. I examine activists’ diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing of sex trafficking, and other framing tactics, such as frame alignment, frame diffusion, frame resonance, …

The Yellow Qipao, Feibi Wang

Honors Projects

This is a creative project centered around the pre-production of a short film about queer Asian American Christianity and the research that went into it. The synopsis of the script written for the short film is a life in the day of Aspen. Aspen prepares for church and is indecisive of the clothes they want to wear, because they are gender non-conforming. They come out to their mom and there is conflict. My research going into this project consists of researching media representation of queerness, Asian American identity, and Christianity, and how the three identities intersect in Aspen’s life and …

Puritan Patriarchal Construction Of American Sexual Morality And Woman's Worth: A Daughter's Response, Savannah Mather

Honors Projects

While modern conceptions of Puritanism regard it as an artifact of American history, whose woman-killing theologies are long buried and forgotten, the bible in my father’s closet and the recently leaked Supreme Court draft to overturn Roe. Vs. Wade would argue otherwise. Cotton Mather’s favorite book Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion outlined both the ideals and detriments of the Anglo-American female identity. In this text, white women were taught to absolve themselves of the “nakedness” in dress Puritan settlers associated Indigenous people with. A woman’s ability to align herself to the ideals of chastity determined her own and her …

Noble Pagans And Satanic Saracens: Literary Portrayals Of Islam In Medieval Italy And Iberia., John Spencer Jones

Honors Theses

The medieval Christian world is generally associated with a kind of religious zealotry that would seem to preclude the development of nuanced understandings of the religious Other. The heightened interreligious contact in regions such as Iberia and the Italian Peninsula, however, made room for relationships with members of other faiths that resulted in more developed ideas about these other creeds. This honors thesis examines the portrayal of Islam in the Christian literature of medieval Italy and Iberia, dating from the late 11th century to the middle of the 14th century. It categorizes a few types of the literary “use” of …

Dissonance Between Christian Beliefs And Eating Habits In The South, Karli Dianne Stringer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to initiate understanding of how obesity in the South is still so prevalent even though the majority of inhabitants subscribe to a faith that discourages unhealthy lifestyles. Furthermore, the information presented in this research sought to fill the knowledge gap for communicators and educators concerning the dissonance between Christianity in the South and the unhealthy eating habits of Southerners. Grounded in the Cognitive Dissonance Theory, this study comprised of a semi-structured interview route in which Protestant evangelical Christians in the South (N = 11) participated in a descriptive study conducted by a committee …

In The Presence Of Evil: Demonic Perception Narratives, Victoria Jaye

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

I offer a new classification system for organizing, understanding, and validating the inhuman demonic encounter by organizing it through the senses the experience is activating. A demonic or inhuman spirit, which can be used interchangeably, is a spirit in that they exist without bodies, possess abilities greater than that of humans (rendering them inhuman), are hyperintelligent, react negatively to Christian religious iconography, and are malevolent in their behavior towards humans.

The system I have created is organized by the sensory perceptions of the narrative (i.e. sight, sound, smell, and feeling of the demonic presence) then is divided further by the …

Clinically Healing By Faith For Black Christian Women: A Proposed Model For Collaborative Religious And Psychological Treatment For The Aftermath Of Infidelity, Aldra Forrester

Dissertations

Infidelity rates are high in the United States and one of the leading causes for divorce between married couples. Research indicates that the Black community has a higher proclivity to infidelity compared to Whites. Black women have a higher chance of ending up in undissolved marriages than other races (Jarama et al., 2007). Previous studies have explored reasons behind the increased rates of high marital instability among Black women, including: the sex ratio imbalance, high mortality, and incarceration among Black men. Since African Americans are considered more religious than the general population, this literature review identified the need for an …

Identification Of Cultural Differences And Their Effects On International Relations: A Novel Approach, Stephen W. Jones

Dissertations

International Relations suffers from underspecified treatments of culture that risk reifying, essentializing, or ignoring the effects of cultural differences in the conduct of relationships between states. Following a review of the development of the culture concept, this interpretivist, epistemologically critical realist, dissertation introduces intercultural adaptive frameshifting from the intercultural communication literature. To assess whether culture has effect within an epistemic community, four frameworks are evaluated within a non-IR field (global Christian reasoning). Speech act theory is used to assess meaningful affect through illocutionary and/or perlocutionary divergence based on cultural difference.

Following the findings that such cultural differences do in fact …

"It's Like Being Pulled In Two Directions": Experiences Of Transgender Latter-Day Saints, Morgan Monet

Theses and Dissertations

This study qualitatively examined the experiences of transgender individuals who also identify as active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (N=10). Researchers took an interpretive phenomenological approach to elicit factors which allow trans Mormon folks to hold their apparently conflicting religious and gender identities simultaneously (and the consequences of doing so). Overall, we aimed to answer the broad question, “what is it like to be transgender and Mormon?” Following a process of semi-structured interviews, transcription, and coding, the broad categories which seemed to connect many elements of the trans/Mormon experience were 1) a sense of being …

Can Science And Christianity Coexist In The Medical Profession?, Wuxia Zhang

Honor’s College Freeman Research Journal

I know my choice of thesis question seems strange for a biology major. Like many of my Honor College brothers and sisters, I could have chosen to stay within the lines of my degree focus. I am admittingly noting that my thesis borders dangerously on a philosophical or moralistic debate. Refreshingly, I hope to defend neither nor endorse a particular sway of opinion. I am simply using this vehicle as a measuring device that challenges and explores an unavoidable dilemma faced by any scientific professional of faith, presumably. I pose this question in terms of Christianity simply because it is …

Community And Idolatry: San Francisco Cajonos, Yalalag, And Betaza Through The Criminal Court Of Villa Alta, 1700-1704, Jessica Mitchell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The trials of San Francisco Cajonos and Betaza and Yalálag heard in Villa Alta’s criminal court depict many important facets of life in Colonial Oaxaca, and they especially paint the picture of community, how it was defined and how it operated in reality. Looking specifically at these two rich examples in Villa Alta’s criminal court, at the time, idolatry – native religion, rituals, and devotions defined by Catholics as idolatrous -- helped shape the lines of community and defined who belonged in which space. It also highlights how betrayal and revenge were construed by a community and the response for …

Reflecting On Our Terrain: How People And Places Create A Spirit Of Home, Meagan E. Harkins

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the nature of home. It situates the idea of home, both as a physical place and a spiritual state, where the subjects of these stories find belonging. Fourteen interviews were conducted, from December 2020 through February 2021, resulting in a series of longform stories. Eight interviews were recorded with immediate family and childhood friends in my hometown, the suburbs of Orlando, Fla. The balance of the stories derived from Zoom interviews, culminating in a 1,200-mile road journey to South Carolina, for the remaining ones.

What emerged from these oral history interviews and ensuing longform pieces are three …

Gender Ideology, Gender Consciousness, And Identity Among Conservative Baptist Women: An Intersectional Perspective, Marina I. Rivera Ramos

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In this qualitative study, I interviewed 13 women from two separate conservative Baptist congregations in Central Florida, one English-speaking and the other Hispanic. The purpose of this research was to explore the ways in which conservative Baptist women develop their identity as women, the gender ideologies they espouse, their experiences in ministry, and the possibility that they can achieve gender consciousness without aligning with feminist principles. In addition, my research employs an intersectional perspective to demonstrate differences in the experiences of white women and women of color in the church. This study consisted of semi-structured interviews with women from both …

An Exploratory Scale Of Christian Privilege: The Development Of A Scale To Measure The Attitudinal Constituents Of Christian Privilege, Brier S. Gallihugh

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Research surrounding measures of privilege awareness commonly involve White privilege awareness. However, relatively few (i.e., Privilege and Oppression Inventory) look other forms of privilege (i.e., heterosexual, sexism, religion). As such, this study looked to create a more extensive scale that would assess Christian privilege awareness among Christian participants. Items were adapted from theoretically analogous White privilege scales in addition to literature on Christian privilege. Using a sample of 391 participants recruited from Facebook, Reddit, SONA and Twitter, an exploratory factor analysis was run on a 28-item scale. The analysis suggested that a final 21-item, two-factor solution was the best fit …

Ecological Repentance, Emmanuel Salem

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In an age ripe with discovery and analysis regarding anthropogenic pollution and the resultant climate change, a causal ideological explanation is naturally sought. This paper seeks to delve deep into the Christian religion and its relationship to the current climate crisis, as well as discuss whether or not predictions and speculative assertions professed in the famous essay by Lynn White, Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis, hold up when surveyed with a more critical and thorough evaluative lens. This conversation is undertaken under three core considerations: biblical cosmology, what has happened in the world of Christian bioethics since White’s time, …

Second Generation Christian Korean Canadians: Exploring Their Lived Experiences Of Mental Health Issues And Services, Kyoung Jung Kim

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Abstract

This study explores the lived experiences of second-generation Christian Korean Canadian young adults with mental health issues (MHI) and their use of health services (MHS). In addition, this study asked this cohort to discuss their beliefs about the views their parents held about MHI and MHS. All research participants were born and raised in Canada by Korean born immigrant parents. This study was descriptive, phenomenological, and qualitative in nature; it consisted of in-depth interviews with six male and six female participants. In their experience with MHI, seven participants experienced fear and sadness (depression and anxiety) and three of them …

Relational Engagement At The Intersection Of Personal And Professional Identities: A Phenomenological Exploration Of The Experience Of Christian Therapists, Aaron Smith

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Though Christian spirituality and therapeutic relationships are unique subjects, commonly found throughout literature pertaining to each topic is an emphasis on how people ought to approach and participate in relationship with one another. In other words, each subject represents a unique tradition of relational engagement. For therapists who practice Christian spirituality, it is possible, if not likely, that both traditions impact how they go about engaging with clients. Despite this, there is a lack of material exploring the experience of relational engagement when these traditions intersect. For this reason, I set out to explore what this experience is like for …

Losing My Religion (And It Doesn’T Feel So Good) How Alcohol, Drugs, And Religion Affect Hookup Enjoyment Among College Students, William Christmann

Sociology Senior Seminar Papers

In Western media, drugs, alcohol, and casual sex are widely regarded as essential facets of the college experience. It is not only accepted but expected that students will experiment with drugs and explore their sexuality throughout their undergraduate careers. Students who come from religious backgrounds that position such behaviors as against their fundamental beliefs are put in a tricky predicament. How do they participate in behaviors that go directly against their religious ideals? In the current study, I explore the questions “do drug and alcohol use affect college students’ enjoyment of a hookup, and how strong of a role does …

An Inconsistent God: Attachment To God And Minority Stress Among Sexual Minority Christians, Adam David Anthony Maughan

Masters Theses

Having a secure Attachment to God (ATG) has been found to be related to better mental health and well-being for Christian individuals and has been shown to have a buffering effect against stressful life events for this population. However, the ATG literature has failed to examine the experiences of Christians who also identify as sexual minorities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, pansexual, same-sex attracted, or another non-exclusively heterosexual identity). Sexual minority Christians (SMCs) experience unique minority stressors related to prejudice, discrimination, and stigma associated with their sexual identities, and this minority stress has negative implications for their mental health and well-being. …

Talk This Way: A Look At The Historical Conversation Between Hip-Hop And Christianity, Joshua Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christianity and Hip-Hop culture are often said to be at odds with one another. One is said to promote a lifestyle of righteousness and love, while the other is said to promote drugs, violence, and pride. As a result, the public has portrayed these two institutions as conflicting with no willingness to resolve their perceived differences. This paper will argue that there has always been a healthy conversation between Hip-Hop and Christianity since Hip-Hop’s inception. Using sources like Hip-Hop lyrics, theologians, historians, autobiographies, sermons, and articles that range from Ma$e to Tipper Gore, this paper will look at the conversation …