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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.
The abolition of slavery during the American Civil War did not end the antislavery ambitions of many liberal Christian reformers. As four million African American slaves transitioned from bondage to freedom, Unitarian and other Christian...
This dissertation offers an answer to the question of how the Midwest, specifically the middle Mississippi Valley, came to be the American heartland. In this dissertation, I argue that evangelicalism was instrumental in the making of the...
This project is an examination of the War against al-Qaeda from the field of religious ethics. In response to September Eleventh, the United States has spent the last decade fighting a war against a diffuse and elusive network of...
This project explores the relationship between American biblical archaeologists in the mid-twentieth century and the most pressing political issue of the context in which they lived and worked, Zionism. It focuses on a set of American...
In the inchoate field of comparative genocide studies, religion and sexual violence remain largely understudied. Using typologies as an investigative tool, this study examines the 1995 Bosnian and 1994 Rwandan genocides as case studies....
Hail-Casting and Other "Magical" Rites from a Compendium of Nyingma Rituals Invoking Yamāntaka: A Study and Catalogue of the Moon's Mystery Handbook (Zla Gsang Beʼu Bum)
The Moon’s Mystery Handbook (Zla gsang be’u bum), known also as Yama’s Handbook, is a compilation of Nyingma (Rnying ma) rituals attributed to Nupchen Sangyé Yeshé (Gnubs chen Sangs rgyas ye shes) and Mañjuśrīmitra (Tib. ʼJam dpal...
The ancient historian Josephus records that Palestine witnessed a surge in Jewish sectarianism during the second and first c. BCE, resulting in the proliferation of groups associated with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Qumran...
Saint Bernardino exerted profound influences on lay piety and both the image and trajectory of the Observant movement. While there have been numerous studies on Bernardino the preacher and the Observant movement as a whole, no study has...
I propose to examine the mythological and ritual significance of an important yet little-known Tibetan protector deity named Tsiu Marpo (Tsi'u dmar po). Tsiu Marpo is the protector deity of Samyé (Bsam yas) monastery (est. 779 C.E.), the...
This dissertation examines published work of Raymond Brown, a prominent Catholic New Testament scholar, between the years 1960–1998 in regard to his analysis of anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John. It contextualizes his work by putting...
This dissertation examines the religious rhetoric of Ronald Reagan as part of a strategy to rebuild his political base following a disappointing level of support after his first two years in office. In particular, this examination will...
This paper examines the Emerging Church Movement (ECM), a milieu of progressive evangelical groups focused upon the inclusion of postmodern ideas and concepts into evangelical Christian structures. The argument in this paper is that, as...
The book examines the roles Protestant affective norms played the commercial development of the American country music industry. From the 1925 birth of the Grand Ole Opry and Ralph Peer's 1927 "discovery" of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter...
This dissertation traces changes in pentecostal healing practices within the United States since pentecostalism's inception in the early 1900s. Though divine healing has always served as a hallmark of pentecostal spirituality, changing...
This project elucidates how gendered notions of prosperity and labor within postwar Christianity provided highly saleable and successful modes, models, and technologies of self-production aimed at creating fiscal and emotional success...
There has been a shift in how the relationship between Japanese women and the other world is portrayed in Japanese popular culture: the shift is important because it reflects societal beliefs that have undergone a drastic alteration....
This thesis considers the role that gospel music played in the culture of early to mid-twentieth century Chicago. In order to better understand why the popularity of gospel music increased dramatically in the first half of the century, ...
Although studies of nineteenth-century evangelicalism emphasize the importance of sentimentality, scholars of modern evangelicalism usually overlook it. Instead scholars have tended to focus on the importance of belief or doctrine and...
This thesis analyzes both the material phenomena channeled by antebellum Spiritualists, and the attendant séance form. Sitter accounts, emphasizing the desire for emotional and material points of connection with spirits, challenge...
This dissertation seeks to shed light on the broad range of practices that Vietnamese Buddhism has contributed to the American religious landscape since its arrival due to the impact of the Vietnam War. Despite the presence of almost one...
Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) was an influential leader among Particular Baptists throughout the seventeenth century. As a prominent nonconformist leader and a prolific writer, he helped shape the theological development of the Particular...
Two tenets associated with major strands of classical Christian orthodoxy assert both that God is meticulously provident and that humans have libertarian free will. On this view, God's meticulous providence is, in part, a function of His...
The purpose of this single-subject case study was to explore how a Muslim teacher made sense of her life and work in two different contexts, the United States and Egypt. This topic is important because an increasing number of women are...
This thesis examines the Catholic Worker movement’s understanding of antimodernism and modernity through its first farming commune, Maryfarm. Created during the middle of the Great Depression, Maryfarm became the initial foray into Peter...
This dissertation focuses on the beliefs and practices of confessional Lutherans in North America (particularly those of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod) as...
This thesis examines the Church of St. Benedict the Moor from 1883 to 1920. St. Benedict's was the first black Catholic church in the North. I argue that supporters of the Catholic mission to African Americans sought to incorporate the...
Although religious innovation in America historically has been the norm rather than the exception, mainstream Americans have often viewed new religious movements with suspicion and occasionally with outright alarm. The question...
During the Depression Era in America there were many Catholic social action movements that helped to address the problems of poverty and homelessness; two of them were the Catholic Worker and the Jesuit Labor Schools in New York. Both...
This thesis is a comparison of how three different apocalyptic religious groups interpret the Book of Daniel as referring to their particular group and circumstances despite the vast differences from the book's original context. First, ...
This thesis addresses the causes and consequences of displacement in Sudan. By focusing on the themes of sovereignty and religion throughout Sudanese history, the complex challenges of the long-standing Sudanese conflict become apparent....
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, ...
This thesis examines the historiographical paradigm of secularization as an analytical trope employed by historians of modern Christianity and as a discursive trope employed by evangelical participants in the contemporary Christian music...
Rhetoric, Religion, and Representatives: The Use of God in Presidential Inaugural Addresses from 1933-2009 as Reflections of Trends in American Religiosity
The purpose of this study is to explore the rhetorical functions of references to God and the Bible in the first presidential inaugural addresses from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama. The Inaugural Address serves to reunite the...
This thesis assesses seeker sensitive churches from the standpoint of Andrew Walls' missionary paradigm. Seekers are described as a distinct population on the American religious landscape, characterized by the importance of individual...
Most historical accounts of women in Baptist life describe women's roles as both restricted by the conservative orientation of the denomination yet slowly expanding and progressing. Baptist women in ministry have found creative ways to...
Jesuit Missionaries and Native Americans lived in the New France region, perpetuated violence against one another, and participated in the healing ritual of baptism. Native Americans shared a nuanced cultural borderland with the Jesuit...
This thesis presents a transcription and preliminary analysis of the Latin text of book 6 of Josephus' Jewish War found in the 9th century St. Gallen Codex 627. This is the first transcription of any book of the fifth- or sixth-century...
There is strong pressure among Hindus to prefer sons, and this is most apparent through the example of India's exceptionally high prevalence of sex-selective abortions, and by other practices such as female infanticide and neglect that...
In this project I call for a reconsideration of Feuerbach's place in philosophy and the study of religion. His name is recognizable in these fields usually as a marginal or "bridge" figure, facilitating a shift from one thinker to the...
Engaging with the many questions surrounding the proper relationship between religion and politics in a liberal democratic state, this dissertation focuses on the contribution that can be made by rethinking the tradition of liberal...
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