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Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
Previous research on Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898) has focused on his role as an apologist of the Old South. Dabney, professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, was certainly an unreconstructed...
Those whom Jesus loved: The development of the paradigmatic story of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha through the medieval period
Description:
This dissertation examines the interpretation of the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany in the West from the earliest telling to the early sixteenth century. It begins by exploring the biblical texts from which later... Fully developed, the paradigmatic story of the Bethany family shaped the description of the characters, the narrative, and the application of the story to the life of the faithful. Dominating the medieval paradigm was the combination of...
Sphere sovereignty and the university: Theological foundations of Abraham Kuyper's view of the university and its role in society
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Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a leading figure shaping many facets of Dutch culture during and after his long life. In addition to exerting a profound influence on politics, ecclesiastical concerns, journalism, elementary and secondary... The problem taken up by this dissertation is the discovery and elucidation of Kuyper's concept of the nature, task, authority and role of the university in modern society as it is shaped by significant theological views he held.... Kuyper affirms the lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life and argues that he alone holds absolute sovereignty. He delegates limited authority to the various spheres of life, enabling them to carry out their God-given tasks. Each... The sphere of science, with the university as its primary institution, has the unique task to "think God's thoughts after him." It is to study and understand the structure of creation and the relationships between its various aspects. This scientific task of humanity cannot be the unified effort of all human beings. Because of sin and regeneration, there is an antithesis between the new humanity and the old. This results in two kinds of science, each based on...
Latin American liberation theology: Religion, poetry, and revolution in Nicaragua
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For almost two decades, Liberation theology has been in the forefront of Christian theological interpretations. Liberation theologians have opted for a theology that sides with the poor and which addresses matters relating to under... This dissertation examines the historical antecedents to Liberation theology and its crucial understanding of liberation, Christology and the Marxist analysis of social reality. It also studies the poetry and political praxis of...
A pilot study of Southern Baptists' attitudes towards the active use of art in the church: A prelude to future research
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An examination of contemporary literature related to Protestant attitudes towards the use of art in the church resulted in the development of two constructs pertinent to Southern Baptist churches. The first construct reflects a grounded... The key findings of this study were that the active use of art overcame the traditional objections to the permanent use of art, and that Baptists were overwhelmingly in favor of the use of art, whether permanent or active, as long as it...
This study is an attempt to interpret the theology of Paul Tillich as a Christian humanist. In this context, Christian humanism is understood as a philosophical stance which unites a horizontal (autonomous) and vertical (theonomous)... Is Christian humanism intellectually viable? A polemical attitude surrounds the entire debate. The secular humanist is as conviced as the theist that any union of the two is overshadowed by the many differences. The thrust of the... Christian humanism is functional in Tillich as a philosophical stance. The redefining of metaphysical inquiry into ontology, the development of theonomy, the theory of symbol, and a holistic outlook are crucial to both Tillich's... The ease with which Tillich moved through the entire range of Christian theology is reflective of his Christian humanism. This is especially true as Tillich dealt with Christology, ethics, and world religions. When he dealt with these... In the final analysis, Christian humanism is interpreted as the most viable form of theology. Tillich courageously worked within this rubric, and left a powerful model for present-day theology.
One of the most interesting features of the late Norman Perrin (d. 1976) as a scholar is the fact that he changed his mind a number of times about a number of issues. This study uncovers some of the factors behind those changes, sets his... Chapters I and II bring into focus, and posit a reciprocal causative relationship between, the methodological and theological perspectives which governed his research. They demonstrate that his scholarly development followed a pattern... The shifts in his theology moved him from a position where he viewed history as the basis for faith toward a position where history was not important for faith. While he was moving toward an ahistorical perspective, he never reached it, ... In addition to uncovering the internal factors mentioned above, this study views his shifts with respect to method and conclusions in the context of New Testament scholarship. Chapters III and IV discuss the particular exegetical conclusions he arrived at with respect to the Kingdom of God, parables, Son of man, and Gospel of Mark. His treatment of these issues is discussed in light of (1) the twin issues of...
Monotheism, responsibility and homosexuality: An application of H. Richard Niebuhr's ethical theory
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This dissertation applies H. Richard Niebuhr's ethical theory to homosexual relationships for the benefit of American religious communities and interested others. Chapter 1 argues that the Biblical passages which condemn homosexuality are of limited value because they view homosexuality in terms of rape, prostitution, and pederasty; there is never in mind a mutual, covenanted relationship, which... Chapter 2 explicates Niebuhr's theory, particularly the concepts of radical monotheism and human responsibility and its ability to reach specific conclusions on issues of war and sexuality. Chapter 3 analyzes the tradition in Christian ethics rejecting all same-sex relations, criticizing its dualistic understandings of human nature and sex-role stereotyped interpretive and valuational categories. Chapter 4 analyzes gay liberation, criticizing its divorcement of sex from its humanly fitting context and meaning, either undervaluing sex as an act of mere pleasure or overvaluing it as necessary for human fulfillment. Chapter 5 interprets homosexuality and sexual intercourse monotheistically. Sexual attraction stems from the complex matrix of forces beyond individual control which form human selves. Radical monotheism sees all of these as part of the...
Judy Chicago's "Dinner Party" and "Birth Project" as religious symbol and visual theology
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In the 1980s artist Judy Chicago's Dinner Party and Birth Project provoked extremes of praise and condemnation. The reason lies partially in the nature of both. Both break with the modernist formalistic position. Instead, in Post-Modern... Both The Dinner Party and The Birth Project function as symbols and the source of symbols for an emergent feminist alternative religious movement. In addition, both works function as visual counterparts of the more traditionally... Feminist theologians like Carol Christ, Mary Daly, or Naomi Goldenberg mention Chicago's work as a source of new symbols but these theologians do not test the adequacy of Chicago's works as symbols. Using theologian Paul Tillich's six...
The responsible community: Ecclesiology in the thought of H. Richard Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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This study clarifies the ecclesiologies of H. Richard Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Both Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer were theologians who wrote from within and for the church. Three questions are addressed in this dissertation. First, how do Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer define the nature of the church? Second, how do Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer understand the purpose of the church and its ministry? Third, what are their... After introducing the project, Niebuhr's and Bonhoeffer's respective ecclesiologies are described, analyzed, and compared. I argue in support of three hypotheses; first, ecclesiology is a consistently central concern in the theology of...
In Philosophical Crumbs, Soren Kierkegaard formulates a number of arguments against natural theology. By 'natural theology' I mean the attempt to provide arguments using reason and experience, without making appeals to divine revelation, ...
The doctrine of the Kingdom of God and issues related to war and peace in the political theologies of Reinhold Niebuhr and Juergen Moltmann
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Throughout the history of the Church, theologians have addressed the subject of the involvement of "God's people" in the problems of state, especially in matters of war and peace. They felt the tension which exists between the Christian... This dissertation seeks to address these and other theological and ethical concerns which are related to the Kingdom of God and issues concerning war and peace in the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr and Jurgen Moltmann. Both Niebuhr and... The theologians differ on the importance of certain doctrines; however, they share a great deal in common concerning which doctrines are central to their ethical positions. These doctrines include creation, history and eschatology. The... Important to this study is an analysis of selected theological positions of Niebuhr and Moltmann, particularly the Kingdom of God. This dissertation asks how the doctrine of the Kingdom of God and ethics in Niebuhr and Moltmann are...
A study in the theological anthropology of Henry Nelson Wieman: A reevaluation of his concept of creative interchange as a cultural paradigm in his post-1945 writing
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This dissertation presents a departure from the traditional approach to the study of Henry Nelson Wieman in three respects: (1) It focuses upon his post-1945 writing as a theological anthropology understood best when placed in the...
Scientists should speak about God: An argument for bringing scientists into theological discourse
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In what follows, I will argue that scientists should be brought into direct theological discourse. I have framed definitions for both theology and science in such a way as to respect substantive and functional priorities of various... Until recently science has been considered antithetical and irrelevant to theology. Historically the relationship between these two disciplines has been described in terms of conflict or separation due to incommensurability. This is one... I argue that science is indeed relevant to theological discourse because scientists--through their objectives, methods and quest for the fundamentum res--address the question "What is going on here?". Theologians employ scientific... Scientists make the greatest contribution to our knowledge with novel discoveries. These discoveries influenced the development of more informed theological models (i.e., immanent, prosaic, natural, process and theologies of nature).... Drawing upon both life sciences and physics I argue that science and theology must now enter into polylogue for the data that we contend with generates many levels (dimensions) for creative exchange. This exchange must occur for theology... Science continues to add to our understanding of "What is going on here?" and theology uses this information in the framing of world views. The scientist is now needed as the partner of the theologian for a more informed analysis and...
The present study revisits both historically and analytically the work of Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923), centering its interpretive lens primarily around his various theoretical and methodological contributions to Religionswissenschaft....
In 2015, Pope Francis published his second encyclical entitled Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. The encyclical’s primary purpose was to address the widespread inequality, poverty and injustice that threatens to worsen as we...
The reaction of the Church of the Nazarene to the historical critical method of Biblical study
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The reaction of the Church of the Nazarene to the historical critical method of Biblical study has been displayed several ways. This dissertation addresses the issue as it emerged in three areas, which are clearly focused. Three voices... The first reaction can be observed in the formation of the Doctrine of Inspiration within the Church of the Nazarene amid the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. A second reaction can be found in the controversy surrounding the advent of the Revised Standard Version (1952) and the New International Version (1978) of the Bible. These modern translations utilize historical critical methods and... A third reaction to the Historical Critical Method of Biblical Study can be viewed in the relationship between Critical Biblical scholars and the church. The tension between the church and its critical scholars exhibits the reaction of... A solution is suggested that would enable the church to work with critical scholarship instead of react against the discipline. This solution calls for a corrective voice which would embody mutual trust between the voices so that a...
Myth and icon: The cosmology of C. S. Lewis' "Space Trilogy"
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Oxford Medieval Renaissance scholar C. S. Lewis wrote that a true literary myth uses a temporal series of images to build up in the reader's mind a single atemporal intuitive impression of the relationships of Man, Nature, and Super-Nature. This dissertation demonstrates that underlying Lewis' own Space Trilogy is a literal image, one which is picturable. The Trilogy thus represents a literary "icon, both in form (as an artistic portrayal of a single object of... Lewis accomplishes this effect by conferring upon every detail of his stories a meaning beyond its immediate role in the storyline. Such significance is assigned from a modified medieval cosmology. These clusters of details are found to align themselves along three mutually perpendicular coordinate axes of North-South, East-West, and Up-Down. When they are plotted as vectors in a three-dimensional abstract literary space, a... This picture is that of a central tree in a walled circular garden which forms the summit of a mountain. This first iteration is of a much more elaborate design constructed according to the medieval cosmological principles of the... I believe that, for craftsmanship and self-consistency, C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy represents in myth a parallel achievement to Dante's Divine Comedy in allegory.
The place of Roscelin in the development of anti-realism
Description:
Roscelin of Compiegne (ca. 1050-ca. 1121) usually is regarded as the founder of nominalism. I show that Roscelin did not originate this position on the question of universals, but instead is an early Mediaeval representative of a... In the first chapter I trace the origins of anti-realism to the relativistic humanism and empiricism of the Sophists. I lay out Plato's early theory of Forms as a response to the Sophists, and then I examine Aristotle's criticisms of the... Chapters II through IV trace the development of the question of universals as a distinct philosophical problem, and anti-realism as an answer, in the context of Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, and Roman Grammatical traditions. I examine... In Chapter V, I take a close look at the only book devoted to Roscelin's life and thought, Roscelin Philosophe et Theologien, written in 1911 by Francois Picavet. I show that there was a tradition of dialectical anti-realism of which... By showing that Roscelin was not the originator of anti-realism, I am suggesting that an examination of the early Mediaeval debate on universals in light of its descent from much earlier traditions demonstrates the philosophical richness...
SIN WITH A FEMININE FLAIR: FAILING TO SELF-ACTUALIZE (WOMEN, RELIGION)
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This dissertation explores the concept of sin in Feminist Theology. Feminist Theologians are the women--and a chorus of men--trained in theology and concerned about the oppression of women in the religious arena. They divide into two... All Feminist Theologians affirm sexism is sin and the institutional church "chief sinner" by action and attitude. It is in discussion of the consequences of sexism that Feminist Theologians contribute something new to the field of... But Reformists take seriously the Biblical view of sin (ch.2), and the Biblical message of equality between male and female. They insist selflessness is not what God intended. In particularly feminist scholarship, explored in chapter... An appendix, Psychological Support For Selflessness As Sin, explores the uniqueness of human being and the sickness of dependence using the works of Rollo May, Eric Fromm, Abraham Maslow, and Lawrence Kohlberg.
Divine command metaethics comes in various forms. In this paper I examine three previously proposed relationships between morality and divine commands - Analysis, Causation, and Reduction - and determine that the Reduction view is most...
This dissertation contends that scholars should incorporate a concern for the suffering of those most vulnerable as a criterion for evaluating the merits of works of theological ethics. It does so by considering four case studies in...
Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
