Pratt opens his work on The Psychology of Religious Beliefs by saying, "that if an atheistic inhabitent of Mars were to visit this planet, greater than the wonder of steam and electricity, would be the fact that we believe in a God whom we have never seen and cannot see". This universal belief in God is a striking thing and the question at once forces itself upon us, why do men believe as they do and what are the psychological bases underlying that belief?

There are various conceptions of nationalism, but the one which is incorporated here is that which has to do with a national consciousness, a feeling of unity among those inhabiting the same country. For the most part it is political unity which is meant, though this has been attended by an increasing emphasis upon unity of Indian language, customs, and manners. It must be acknowledged that there is a bond of unity in the historic traditions of the centuries of culture and in the religious myths which are immortalized in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, but this is hardly sufficient.

The philosophy of L.T. Hobhouse interested me primarily because it is an attempt at a synthesis of the results of empirical science and of rational thought. The religious aspect of his work, both in his definite criticisms and contributions in the specific field of religion and in the more general implications of his system as a whole, seemed to me worth compiling and examining.

A study of the significance of [dam] in the Hebrew religious system immediately presents the problem of the meaning of the word which is used in the title. There are two words in the Hebrew language which are translated "blood", [dam] and [netaach]. The word [dam] is listed more than three hundred times in the Hebrew concordance, while the word [netaach] is listed but once as meaning "blood".

The original inspiration to undertake this study issues from composite sources. Undoubtedly, in the last analysis, it was implanted by the personalities of great teachers, whose contagious enthusiasm for Christian history I contracted early in my theological and later graduate study. Great teachers, who are intimately acquainted with the ongoing currents of Christian life through the centuries, who have developed a love for the Christian movement, whose mature scholarship gives them the power to discern the real essence of the Christian religion in its historic expressions, these are still the keys to the real understanding of Church history, these are what students need today.

If certain important words used in the Massoretic Text were studied individually, the several instances of their occurrence compared with each other and each form interpreted in the light of its own setting, and in the light of other similar instances of its usage, there can be little doubt that many useful suggestions would result.

Zachary Taylor Sweeney was one of the more popular and influential preachers of the Christian Church during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and first quarter of the twentieth century. He built the largest congregation of his brotherhood during his lifetime. He was one of the leading spokesmen of the conservative element of the Disciples during a very troubled period. Outside of church affairs he became prominent in political, governmental, chautauqua, and business circles.

Though lauded as a Protestant hero, it is impossible to read Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies and not think about the numerous acts of violence inspired by his commentary. Luther argues that his anti-Judaic treatise is simply reiterating the Greek Bible (the New Testament) and anyone who reads the Greek Bible would come to the same conclusion. This thesis argues that Luther adopted a hermeneutical Jew from theologians and the Greek Bible before him to create his own hermeneutics that demonized the European Jewish population with devastating consequence. Though much of the Greek Bible was part of a larger intra-Jewish conflict, it is a solidly Christian text for Luther, and Luther believes that Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John created foundationally anti-Judaic texts that created the basis for his treatise. Despite Luther's focus on the Greek Bible, Luther, through typology and rhetorical manipulation, believes that the Hebrew Bible is part of a larger Christian Bible, and Luther uses the Hebrew Bible to vilify the Jews as well. This thesis traces Luther's application of the Greek Bible chronologically and illustrates how Luther, through hermeneutics and a rhetorical manipulation, created an anti-Judaic treatise that has not gone away with time.

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This dissertation is an ethnographic study of how religious communities make and take place in Kibera, a neighbourhood that is also a homeland in the city of Nairobi. Since its establishment in 1907, the debate about who belongs in Kibera and to whom Kibera belongs has shaped how religious communities in Kibera define themselves and relate to each other. This debate is presently intensified by land struggles between religious communities on the one hand, and a series of unannounced bulldozing's on the other, as the Kenyan government advances its project to develop Nairobi into a world-class city. This study asks, how do religious communities in Kibera make religion work and maintain belonging to each other amidst such change and uncertainty, and where the meaning of Kibera ‒ as a neighbourhood, home, and homeland is contested? If the neighbourhood is routinely made and unmade, to what extent is religion the locus of belonging for the residents of Kibera? Through oral, social, and life histories, as well as archival materials, this ethnographic study examines how Kibera became an urban homeland in Nairobi, how the distinction between ‘home' and ‘homeland' creates a different sense of belonging for the religious communities who live there, and what it means for some religious communities to perform their religion in another's homeland. It argues that religious communities make religion in Kibera work by maintaining a sense of belonging to people and places elsewhere and in so doing, invent ways to respond to life in a changing and contested neighbourhood.