Drawing upon the tools of spatial analysis, this study examines varieties of sacred space crafted at Stone Mountain Park, near Atlanta, Georgia. The focus on spatial aspects of religious practices at Stone Mountain grounds three over-arching methodological objectives of the thesis. The first is to further develop and extend spatial analysis within the academic study of religion. The second objective is to illustrate the need to expand the parameters of the contested term religion and its correlate sacred space to reflect the variety of social practices that fall outside the domains of traditionally conceived religious or sacred structures and locations. The third objective is to explore connecting threads between spatial analysis of religious practices and religious identity formation. Taken together, these three objectives provide an interpretative framework for five case studies examining the spatial history of the location, the emplacement of the Lost cause mythology at the site, differences between the decades old Easter sunrise service, and a more recent Via Crucis pilgrimage on Good Friday, the emergence of contemporary New Age spiritual practices on the monadnock, and the cultivation of a corporate religion during an extended Christmas holiday season marketed at the park. The project concludes with an exploration of areas of convergence between spatial analysis in religious studies and consideration of the relevance of place to religious identity formation.

This thesis focuses on strengthening the Christian presence in the Holy Land that has been in existence for more than 2,000 years. The Christian presence there is not only about maintaining and preserving the holy shrines related to Christianity. It is also about maintaining and preserving the local Christian communities located in Palestine and Israel. These groups have had a series of challenges resulting in a critical decline in the Christian population. The research presented here applies a SWOT analysis to the history, current reality, of the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the challenges that influence its future. The benefit of using this approach allows for a concrete analysis of the problems that face the Christian community from the Palestinian-Israel conflict, economic instability, social problems, and the Christian culture predicament, identifies from the literature. The outcome of the analysis is translated into strategic solutions and actions that can be incorporated in programmes and projects to be implemented within, and by, the local Christian communities. These strategic solutions aim to revitalise the indigenous Christian presence in Palestine and Israel and encourage the development of their social, political and cultural existence, with the hope of obtaining justice, peace and reconciliation.

Introduction: The introduction begins by canvassing a popular discussion about the state of the Western church today that serves to locate this project in recent theological discourse. I propose that the contemporary scholar Ephraim Radner remains a significant but over-looked voice in these discussions. I then suggest that the prophet Hosea offers a neglected biblical voice that promises to serve as a constructive anvil on which to assay Radner's various ecclesiological and hermeneutical views. Chapter One: In Chapter One I survey Radner's distinctive hermeneutical method: figural reading. After distinguishing figuralism from allegory and typology, I explicate Radner's presentation of figuralism and its sources, especially Jansenism. Next, I elucidate the metaphysical implications of figural reading and its attendant resistances to supersessionism, in that figural reading entails a nonlinear temporality requiring that the church read the history of biblical Israel as her own. I conclude by summoning insights from Michel Foucault to hone this chapter's running thesis that figural reading sees the body of Christ. Chapter Two: In Chapter Two I continue to expound the relation of figural reading to the body of Christ by detailing Radner's ecclesiology. I suggest that nuptiality serves as the central framework of Radner's ecclesiology, which seeks to understand ecclesial oneness in light of the church's painful experience of division. I then survey his diagnosis and prescription for contemporary ecclesial ills, which he takes to derive primarily from divisiveness unleashed by the Reformation. Next, I critically engage the biblical and theological justifications which Radner deploys to argue that just as Christ released his spirit at his death on the cross, so too the church is now a divided and dead body abandoned by the Holy Spirit. While Radner insists that today's ecclesial members are rendered incapable of any human efforts at reunification and must simply cling to their received denominational forms, I suggest that Radner's account shows signs of inconsistency that leave room for reconfiguration of both his diagnosis and prescription for today's church, especially in its neglect of eschatology. Chapter Three: In Chapter Three, I set out to perform a figural reading of the prophet Hosea with which to hone Radner's ecclesiological account. I suggest that Hosea primarily constitutes a critique of Israel's traditional political and cultic forms. I propose that Hosea indicates that a grammar—which correlates natural forms and cultic ones in order to relay the covenantal knowledge that YHWH is the one who feeds Israel—has broken down. Emblematic of this grammatical breakdown is Hosea's own tortured language. As such, I propose that the book should be read as a portrait of the crumbling temple complex. Because of their semiotic decay, Hosea warns that God will take Israel's institutions away. Yet this stripping of her institutional forms is itself the outward display of God's repentant stance by which he determines not to completely destroy Israel, but to instead grant her the space to repent. The name of this space, characterized by the absence of both natural and institutional forms, is wilderness. In the secularized space of wilderness, language remains the sole recourse by which God's people renew their relationship with him as they await re-entry. Chapter Four: Chapter Four concludes by bringing Hosea's insights back to correct Radner. I suggest that today's prevailing secularism constitutes a wilderness experience for the contemporary Western church, who—like the Israel of Hosea—is experiencing a stripping of her traditional institutional forms. What Hosea proposes is not that God is absent, but that his presence is no longer signaled in the ways it once was. As a result, it is not the language of abandonment but eschatological hope that must dictate the posture of God's people in the wilderness. Hosea suggests that such a posture is inherently poetic. I close by suggesting that the quotidian, the passionate, the imagination, and the ambiguous are four key characteristics of the poetic shape which the church should adopt as she waits in the wilderness for God's reign.

Over the past two decades, the church has sought to incorporate technology into its worship services in ways that mimic modern society; professional audio consoles, stage lighting, projection screens, and theatrical sets are now customary. Because how people experience sacred space forms their views about it, what technical artists do in practice also shapes the congregation's beliefs about God. Therefore, this thesis addresses the research question, how might a biblically informed theological understanding help better shape praxis for contemporary church technical artists? The tabernacle construction narrative (Exodus 35:30-36:1), Christ's mediation from within the church (Hebrews 2:12-13), and Paul's exhortation to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Colossians 3:16) are exegeted and viewed in light of current practice to form a portrait of the role of the technical artist. This thesis offers an original argument that technical artists are mediators of modern church worship and establishes the technical arts as a biblically sanctioned vocation within the theological school of ecclesiology. The technical arts are aligned with the long-standing tradition of the musical arts as a worship-centered activity and those "producing worship" are worshipers themselves.

The Separation of Early Christianity from Judaism The moving apart of early Christianity from Judaism was a gradual process of de- judaisation, with separation taking place on several levels. Chapter One looks at the spread of Christianity and the physical moving apart of Jews and Christians by observing the geographical locations of the bishops attending various councils. Chapter Two examines the question of the Jewish-Christians who attempted to be both Jewish and Christian at the same time. In Chapter Three, statements about Jews in the early church councils which reveal judaising practices have been examined. Chapter Four studies the process of juridical separation of Jews from Christians as shown by an examination of the Theodosian Code. The fifth chapter examines the Jewish roots of Christian liturgy and focuses on the element that radically differentiated Christian from Jewish liturgy - its christological focus. Chapter Six speaks of the separation of Sabbath observance from Sunday observance, outlining the struggle to prevent Christians, who were accused of judaising, from celebrating the Sabbath as well as Sunday. Chapter Seven concentrates on the separation of Passover from Easter. While Chapter Eight investigates the development of a distinctly Christian archaeology, the ninth area of separation concerns the subject of Christianity in the rabbinic writings. In the nine areas studied, two pervasive causes of separation have been identified. The first concerns the non-practice of Jewish ritual law, when Christianity became predominantly a religion of non-Jews. Christianity, in order to define itself closed its ranks to Jewish practices. The second cause leading to separation was the messianic movement centred on Jesus, and the growing emphasis on the divinity of Jesus. This was reflected in the developing Christian liturgy, in the christianisation of Passover, the Eucharist and the practice of Sunday over and above the Jewish Sabbath.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between identity achievement and Christian religious ideology in selected university students attending Oregon State University. The sample consisted of two hundred and forty-nine students enrolled during the winter quarter 1978 in Psychology and Education courses. The respondents were given a Self Descriptive Inventory consisting of a religious scale (devised by the investigator), the Henry-Sims Identity Scale and Rosenberg's self-esteem scale. Each student was given a questionnaire (consisting of ninety-one responses to complete. The responses were scored and put on keypunched cards and analyzed on Cyber #3 Network Operating System (NOS) for the statistical package for the social sciences. Six hypotheses related to identity achievement and Christian religious ideology were tested, using a step wise multiple regression analysis (which yields a correlation coefficient), analysis of variance and Newman Keuls for comparisons which were made between sex, age, religious affiliations and academic majors. The .05 level of confidence was chosen for all statistical analysis. The following null hypotheses were examined: 1. There is no significant relationship between identity achievement and Christian religious ideology. (Rejected) 2. There is no significant relationship between ego career and Christian religious ideology. (Rejected) 3. There is no significant relationship between ego group and Christian religious ideology. (Rejected) 4. There is no significant relationship between ego self and Christian religious ideology. (Retained) 5. There is no significant relationship between ego effect and Christian religious ideology. (Retained) 6. There is no significant relationship between self esteem and Christian religious ideology. (Retained) The author concluded that there is a relationship between certain aspects of Christian religious ideology and identity achievement and two of its subfactors. This conclusion was made as a result of rejecting three null hypotheses: practice, experience and intrinsic dimensions correlated significantly (P < . 05) with identity achievement; ego career was correlated significantly (P < . 05) with knowledge and practice; and ego group correlated significantly with experience (P < . 05), practice (P < . 05), and belief (P < . 05). The author recommended a replication of this study using a personal interview in conjunction with the instruments in this study for analysis and comparison. Another important recommendation is the usage of an open-ended religious questionnaire which would include diverse religious groups. These two recommendations were made with the thought that they might prove helpful in further understanding the impact of a religious ideology in the life of the young person. This study must be considered with the following limitations: 1. The extent to which the instruments used accurately measure what they purport to measure may have a limiting influence on the study. 2. The study is limited to students who identify themselves as Christians. 3. Uncontrolled variables as motivation, interest, present emotional state, and other extraneous variables. 4. Limited to Oregon State University's students enrolled in Psychology courses 201, 202, and 314 and Education 309A, 311A and 311C classes. 5. Limited to students who are from 17 to 24 years of age. / Graduation date: 1978

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity International University, 1999. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-202).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-135).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-133).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2008. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-238).