This project examines the concept of responsibility in relation to genetics and emerging genetic biotechnologies, with specific reference to preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and predictive genetic testing. I contend that theories of responsibility operative in bioethics, philosophy, and religious ethics presuppose decision-making contexts and voluntaristic accounts of moral agency. Sparked by insights from the transcripts of religious and medical professional focus groups, I endorse a supplementary account of responsibility bolstered by notions of status and integrity. This account of responsibility, I maintain, reflects how moral agents sometimes speak about responsibility in the clinical context and is more attentive to the challenges posed by emerging genetic technologies. Drawing on the works of Judith Butler, John Silber, and William Schweiker, I propose an account of responsibility that emphasizes two salient features that are often ignored in scholarly discussions of that concept: 1) Responsibility entails the acceptance of obligations borne from ones status, regardless of ones acceptance of the status itself; and 2) while responsibility promotes the movement toward greater integrity in ones life, that movement paradoxically involves recognizing and incorporating uncertainty and loss of control into that life. Chapter 1 examines popular discourse on genetics and genetic biotechnologies, with particular reference to the themes of genetic exceptionalism, determinism, and novelty. It also describes what PGD and predictive genetic testing entail. In Chapter 2, I analyze transcripts of focus groups consisting of medical professionals (physicians, nurses, genetic counselors) and religious professionals (evangelical Christian ministers, mainline Protestant ministers, hospital chaplains) as well as organizational and denominational statements in order to highlight how responsibility is articulated in relation to genetics-based issues. In Chapter 3, I examine prevalent understandings of responsibility in religious, philosophical, and bioethics literature. In Chapter 4, I turn to Butler, Silber, and Schweiker in order to develop the account of responsibility mentioned above. Finally, in Chapter 5 I reexamine the ethical challenges of PGD and predictive genetic testing in light of the account of responsibility I endorse. I also demonstrate its critical relevance for evidence-based medicine and bioethics.

This study proposes that Deuteronomic debt release (Deuteronomy 15:1-11) in its contours and its performance is an extra-economic compulsion functioning as a legal paradigm for socio-economic organization in the struggle of resource allocation. The study takes up it's thesis through interpretative issues related to Deuteronomic-associated debt release in the manumission edict of Jeremiah 34; the contours of Deuteronomic debt release in Nehemiah 5 modeled in dynamics drawn from Amartya Sen's political economics of entitlement and food insecurity; and finally through the modeling of a performance of Deuteronomic debt release in Achaemenid Judah (Yehud) using dynamics drawn from David Ricardo's diminishing return and differential rent. By following this methodology, the study is an exercise in ideological criticism with its focus in political economy, using economic modeling to provide a theoretical contribution to the materialist tradition of analysis of Yehud, with the significance of the study being its interpretation of Deuteronomic debt release through its performance, not its literary display. The study yields an understanding of the Deuteronomic debt release laws against scholarly interpretations of the laws as humanitarian ideals toward rendering an interpretation, in effect, where the Deuteronomic debt release laws are seen as negotiated code, designed to alleviate, on the surface, a condition of vulnerability, while intentionally preserving, at heart, the framework responsible for such vulnerability.

This dissertation explores womens decision-making and experiences with the medical, social, and moral issues of open-uterine surgery to repair spina bifida. Part I identifies the medical and ethical discourses that typically frame this innovative procedure, highlighting the absence of womens accounts and limited discussions of the ethics of maternal-fetal surgeries in the professional literature. As a remedy to this lack, Part II considers qualitative approaches to soliciting the accounts of women who considered this procedure as part of an elective, experimental protocol. Engaging questions both of methodology and of method, Part II draws on the sociological and phenomenological resources of Adele E. Clarke, Pierre Bourdieu, Richard M. Zaner, William James, and Alfred Schutz in soliciting, analyzing, and retelling womens accounts. Part III focuses on retelling and reflecting on womens accounts of their experiences and decision-making. Transcripts and analysis identify important themes in womens accounts: diagnosis of disability, faith and community, definition of the decision-making situation, and living with the aftermath of a decision. In addition, womens accounts raise questions about the goals and methods of ethics consultations and identify the importance, and challenges, of a detailed, nuanced understanding of ethics in open-uterine surgery to repair spina bifida. As research on this procedure continues, insights from women who considered the procedure in the past can help clinicians and ethicists learn about what matters in womens experiences and decision-making for innovative maternal-fetal surgeries. This dissertation illustrates both the questions raised by open-uterine surgery to repair spina bifida and demonstrates a method of moral inquiry for addressing those questions.

Ever since rumors of a Golden Bible began circulating in the late 1820s, the Book of Mormon has occupied a singular place in the American popular imagination. It has been revered as scripture by Latter-day Saints and condemned as imposture by anti-Mormons for nearly two centuries, but what of Americas more moderate majority? Especially in the earliest days of its presence in print, how was the Book of Mormon seen by ordinary Americans, and what do their perceptions reveal about their day? This study analyzes the place of the Book of Mormon in the antebellum popular imagination as revealed through the lens of humor. A surprising number of the books early observers found something unmistakably humorous about its content and story of origin, and assumed that it was a piece of imaginative fiction. In expressing their views of the Mormon scripture, often in comic ways, they revealed much about the social and religious values they espoused, the cultural incongruities with which they were grappling, and the underlying assumptions that were being shaped in part by a uniquely American humor. Sounding a natural resonance with many of Americas comic chords, the Book of Mormon quickly achieved a certain cultural currency that was recognized by both humorists and polemicists, who often exploited humors rhetorical power. In the process, the Book of Mormon becameand has remaineda mythic presence in the national imagination.

This project provides a concrete theory and effective theological model of spiritual and psychological development for contemporary Korean Christians. Three interconnected major challenges of Korean spiritual and psychological development are presented and investigated: the challenge of narcissism and the formation of the self; the challenge of religious and cultural identity formation; and the challenge of the embodiment of religious beliefs and practices. Strengths and weaknesses of a popular model, James W. Fowlers faith development theory (FDT) are also carefully and critically reviewed and evaluated concerning current situation in the Korean church and society. In developing a theory and model, this dissertation engages in serious psychoanalytic, anthropological, theological explorations in order to correct, complement, and embellish FDT. Key concepts such as selfobject, friendship, communitas, habitus, jeong, grace, and sanctification are introduced and explored in depth. Among these terms, jeong and grace have particularly deeper cultural and theological meanings as the energy for lifelong spiritual and psychological development. In this dissertation, I argue that the dynamics of jeong and grace in dialectic divine-human, and human-human relationships are necessary for Korean spiritual and psychological development, and propose a long-term small group dynamic model within the faith community as an ideal matrix for the formation of the self, identity, and change of daily practices. The proposed model is the harmonious combination of group spiritual discipline and psychotherapy, and provides the experiences of egalitarian, intimate dynamics to those of family members or friends where participants can grow with energy of grace and jeong. This dissertation claims the need for a faith community as a foundation for small groups and a bridge between small groups and the wider society. The ultimate goal of spiritual and psychological development is the interplay of personal growth and communal and social transformation.

My project examines the construction of the feminist pastoral subject. Moving between theory and practice, I reflect on data I gathered by interviewing hospital chaplains on best practices of gender specific pastoral care and review literature on feminist pastoral theology, care, and counseling to understand the subject. The dissertation is guided by a critical correlative method that prompts three overarching questions. First, what is the state of subjectivity in feminist pastoral theology? Second, what resources in philosophy and psychology deepen our theories of subjectivity, suffering, care, and justice? Third, what does feminist pastoral theology have to say in response? I discovered that feminist pastoral theology describes its subjects through a lens of gender difference but does not adequately account for the psycho-social process of recognition-assertion. Drawing on psychological and social theories of recognition attentive to gender injustices, I develop a feminist pastoral theology of recognition and praxis of encounter.

STUDY OF RELIGION PICTURING THE GODDESS: BAZAAR IMAGES AND THE IMAGINATION OF MODERN HINDU RELIGIOUS IDENTITY Zo Newell Thesis under the direction of Prof. Richard J. McGregor This project inquires into the role of visual print technology in the construction of a pan-Indian sense of religious identity at the end of the colonial era. I take as my starting point the statement by Sri Ramakrishna of Calcutta that "a real Hindu" is someone who has, and worships, pictures of deities --specifically, pictures of the mother goddess-- and proceed to the phenomenological and historical consideration of a selected set of images. I argue that these images represent deep-rooted cultural symbols of a narrative through which a loosely-related "family" of indigenous practices came to be imagined by its practitioners as a cohesive and inclusive religion, in contradistinction to European narratives which reduced Hinduism to a form of paganism or a "colonial construction". This idea of Hinduism embraced members of all communities as "children" of Mother India. Moreover, the ubiquitous availability of inexpensive, mechanically reproduced deity made it possible for devotees of all castes and genders to worship independently of formal religious settings and specialists. I develop my arguments in conversation with Benedict Anderson's concept of nation as "imagined community", Walter Benjamin's theories on art as mechanical reproduction, and Arvind Sharma's insights on dharma as a crucial category for thinking about Indian religion . Drawing on the work of Mircea Eliade and Bruce Lincoln, I argue for myth as represented visually in these images - as a form of sacred narrative which gives meaning to historical catastrophe by homologizing the individual's particular situation with cosmic reality. I apply this theory to the religious anxieties aroused, for late-nineteenth century Hindus, by the historical catastrophe of colonization. I undertake a genealogy of selected images in terms of their religious symbolism, their narratives of power and versatility as exemplified through the goddess, and their ability to inspire what Anderson calls a "broad, horizontal" sense of religious community and of communal agency in India on the cusp of independence.

The image of mater ecclesia became one of the most popular and enduring ecclesial metaphors during the patristic era. Since its introduction in the late second century, early Christian writers continuously employed mater ecclesia as an image characterizing the corporate identity of the church. This dissertation traces the development of the maternal metaphor in North African Christianity, where it was most frequently utilized. By examining how North Africans represented the church as a mother in light of their ecclesiological concerns, this dissertation demonstrates that the metaphor of mater ecclesia primarily functioned as a symbol for group membership and represented a tangibly discernable boundary, separating the saved from the damned. As such, this study concludes that the appellation of mater ecclesia, as developed in North African ecclesiology, was more polemical and exclusive in its meaning and function than previously considered. The implications of this, especially with regard to the disappearance of mater ecclesia in modern Catholic ecclesial discourse, are also discussed.

This dissertation focuses on essays from forty-eight college students in which each student answers the question: What has been your biggest a-ha moment in college? I argue that a rich, thick, and complex set of lenses is needed to understand these experiences and the inherently interdisciplinary approach of practical theology, grounded in critical hermeneutical theory, is one of the best ways to guide this search. My hypothesis is that a practical theological examination of these essays has explanatory power for interpreting and understanding college student development and formation. Locating my methodology in critical hermeneutical theory, I construct four theoretical lenses to view the essays: (1) a psychosocial lens focusing on emerging adulthood; (2) a psychological lens concentrating on object relations theory (ORT); (3) a pastoral theological lens addressing crisis; and (4) a practical theological lens focusing on the concept of practices. By constructing a set of critical lenses to view the essays, a richer understanding emerges than that found in empirical studies. Using the resources of descriptive theology and thick description, I conclude the dissertation with seven suggestions for higher education based on the practical wisdom, or phronesis, found within the essays.

This is a study of wartime civil religion within American Christianity. I focus on a specific ideological manifestation of civil religion I call messianic interventionism--the belief that America can and should intervene altruistically on behalf of other nations. I argue that its emergence and codification was inextricable from the distinctive features of the Spanish-American War context. This war marked Americas dramatic emergence as an active world power, setting the stage for the foreign policy of the next one hundred years. It began for America in the midst of widespread humanitarian outrage over the abuses of the Spanish imperial government. When it ended, America stood in possession of its own de facto empire, sole ruler of a network of far-flung islands and millions of unfamiliar people. Along the way, Christian ministers sought to explain the meaning of events that caught most everyone by surprise, to trace the hand of God in a victory more painless and complete than anyone could have imagined, and to justify the new departure in American foreign policy as a divine calling. America, by their reckoning, held a responsibility under God to extend American freedoms to those unable to free themselves, and to do this by force if necessary. With remarkable sameness across regional and denominational lines, their rhetoric exposed an ideology that justified this new sense of national purpose in three ways. It explained why America should take up the cross on behalf of the weak and the oppressed. It explained why America could interfere in the affairs of other nations without incurring the guilt of self-interest condemned in the record of Europe's colonial powers. And, invoking evidence of providential favor, it explained why American efforts would inevitably succeed. So bolstered, messianic interventionism proved able to survive the tragic ironies of the Filipino insurgency, and lived on to inspire American intervention in the Great War twenty years later.