This dissertation examines the theological diversity that is currently developing within North American evangelicalism due to the growing influence of postmodernism and the resulting postconservative shift in evangelical thought. Chapter 1 begins with an initial assessment of the historical background and intellectual landscape behind the postmodern setting as well as the reasons why many evangelicals, such as Stanley J. Grenz and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, have chosen to adopt postconservative approaches to theological method. Chapter 2 then moves to a critical analysis of these two theologians by first treating the work of Stanley Grenz. This segment evaluates his proposals regarding theological method by outlining the primary ideas and factors that lead to his version of a postmodern evangelical theology. Chapter 3 subsequently offers a survey of the contrasting ideas of Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Here again, the tracing of Vanhoozer's distinct rendition of postconservatism is done by examining the major factors that are prominent within his work. Chapter 4 then provides evaluations of the strengths and weaknesses of Grenz's and Vanhoozer's thought as well as points of comparison and contrast between them. In the end, it is argued that while both thinkers share several mutual criticisms of conservative evangelicalism, Grenz's expression of postconservatism is noticeably different from Vanhoozer's. Specifically, it is shown that Grenz clearly advocates a kind of postmodern postconservatism, which entails modifications in theological method as well certain doctrinal commitments intrinsic to historic evangelicalism. Juxtaposed to Grenz, it also is argued that Vanhoozer provides a more confessional model of postconservatism because his recommendations for a new methodology still remain loyal to certain theological commitments that Grenz would deem as non-essential to the evangelical theology. Chapter 5 finally assesses the potential future effects that certain kinds of postconservative thought could have in evangelical circles. Likewise, several key elements regarding theological method that still require further attention in light of the development of postconservatism are also highlighted and discussed. / This item is only available to students and faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. If you are not associated with SBTS, this dissertation may be purchased from <a href="http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb">http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb</a> or downloaded through ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses database if your institution subscribes to that service.

This thesis examines the relationship between the Africa Inland Mission (AIM) and the Africa Inland Church (AIC) in Kenya between 1939 and 1975. AIM began laying plans for an African denomination in Kenya in 1939 and established the Africa Inland Church in 1943. The mission did not clearly define the nature of its relationship with the church it founded. The arrangement was informal, and evolved over time. In addition, the relationship between the AIM and the AIC between 1939 and 1975 was often troubled. African independent churches were formed in the 1940s because of dissatisfaction over AIM policies. The mission opposed devolution in the 1950s, even when other mission societies were following this policy in preparation for independence in Kenya. AIM continued to resist a mission church merger in the 1960s and did not hand over properties and powers to the church until 1971. The study focuses on how the mission’s relationship with the church it founded evolved during this period. It considers how mission principles and policies created tension in the relationship with the church it founded. First, it examines how mission policy contributed to significant schisms in the 1940s, giving rise to African independent churches. Second, it looks at how AIM interpreted and responded to post-war religious, political and social changes in Kenya. Third, it explores the reasons for AIM’s rejection of a proposed mission-church merger in the late 1950s. Fourth, this study investigates mission motives for resisting increased African pressure for devolution after independence in Kenya even while it helped establish the Association of Evangelicals in Africa and Madagascar. Fifth, it considers what happened to the mission and the church in the aftermath of a merger in 1971.

The purpose of this research was to describe the relationship and to compare the programming of major Christian ministries during the first decade of Christian television. A historical perspective was the method used in identifying and explaining the events and activities that constituted Christian television from 1949 to 1959. The results of the research concluded that Christian television began at a time of social trauma, unrest, and confusion in America. Competition for a viewing audience was not a factor. Leading personalities presented themselves as independent thinkers who also saw themselves as "preachers" with a strong desire to succeed. Motivation was provided by a sense of "dominion" that emerged from the Great Awakenings within the churches of America that became a driving force in the first three decades of this century.

Using ten sermons from five prominent and politically active evangelical megachurch pastors taken from the 2016 presidential campaign season, this case study utilizes frame analysis to understand the political relevance of modern evangelical sermonizing. An inductive frame analysis allows the concept of a collective action frame to be observed as a process and for patterns to emerge from the source text. Within these sermons, ministers offer self-identifying evangelicals a vocabulary with which to understand and describe their own identity. In this context, the Bible is a powerful cultural symbol that represents an allegiance to traditions that are framed as the bedrock of American exceptionalism. The boundaries that are drawn and vociferously maintained in this sample emphasize exclusion over inclusion, especially in terms of salvation and righteousness, which can emotionally motivate action. In an election year, this sample demonstrates how evangelical identity is mobilized as an electoral force.

This thesis examines a new genre in Bible publishing: the BibleZine, a combination of the Bible with the formatting and visual elements of a teenage fashion magazine. The first BibleZine, Revolve: The Complete New Testament, appeared in the summer of 2003 and sold all of its 40,000 copies in a matter of months. This success has inspired a new line of Bible products, as several follow-up editions of Revolve and other BibleZines have flooded the marketplace. While the publisher and editors of Revolve claim that their modern creation is meant to inspire young readers to connect with the text of the New Testament, the forceful combining of the two disparate genres has produced an artifact whose form undermines and trivializes biblical content.<p> The significance of the BibleZines message extends beyond its updated magazine format. This thesis uses the theories of Kenneth Burke, George Dillon, Edwin Black, and several other rhetorical critics to reveal and critique the editorial influence found in this updated New Testament. The analysis is divided into three chapters that examine specific elements of the carefully orchestrated BibleZine, from the impact of Revolves prominent magazine-like features to the pseudo-friendships the editors create to influence its young target audience. Revolve does not represent a unique way of interpreting the Bible for a new generation. It may look contemporary in its format, but Revolve masks a materialistic and highly conservative ideology that will negatively influence its young readers in how they approach matters of identity and spirituality. My analysis will reveal the numerous ways the editors of the BibleZine use and manipulate biblical sanction in order to convey a consumeristic ideology.

This thesis examines a new genre in Bible publishing: the BibleZine, a combination of the Bible with the formatting and visual elements of a teenage fashion magazine. The first BibleZine, Revolve: The Complete New Testament, appeared in the summer of 2003 and sold all of its 40,000 copies in a matter of months. This success has inspired a new line of Bible products, as several follow-up editions of Revolve and other BibleZines have flooded the marketplace. While the publisher and editors of Revolve claim that their modern creation is meant to inspire young readers to connect with the text of the New Testament, the forceful combining of the two disparate genres has produced an artifact whose form undermines and trivializes biblical content.<p> The significance of the BibleZines message extends beyond its updated magazine format. This thesis uses the theories of Kenneth Burke, George Dillon, Edwin Black, and several other rhetorical critics to reveal and critique the editorial influence found in this updated New Testament. The analysis is divided into three chapters that examine specific elements of the carefully orchestrated BibleZine, from the impact of Revolves prominent magazine-like features to the pseudo-friendships the editors create to influence its young target audience. Revolve does not represent a unique way of interpreting the Bible for a new generation. It may look contemporary in its format, but Revolve masks a materialistic and highly conservative ideology that will negatively influence its young readers in how they approach matters of identity and spirituality. My analysis will reveal the numerous ways the editors of the BibleZine use and manipulate biblical sanction in order to convey a consumeristic ideology.

Analyzing novels by Sheri Reynolds, Lee Smith, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and Sue Monk Kidd, I argue that these authors challenge religious structures by dramatizing the struggle between love and resentment that brings many women to the point of crisis but also inspires imaginative and generative processes of appropriation and revision, emphasizing not destination but process. Employing first-person narration in coming-of-age stories, Smith, Reynolds, and Kingsolver highlight the various narratives that govern the experiences of children born into religious cultures, including narratives of sexual development, gender identity, and religious conversion, to portray the difficulty of articulating female experience within the limited lexicon of Christian fundamentalism. As they mature into adulthood, the girl characters in these novels break from tradition to develop new consciousness by altering and adapting religious language, understood as open and malleable rather than authoritative and fixed. Smith, Kidd, and Naylor incorporate the Virgin Mary and divine maternal figures from non-Christian traditions to restore the mother-daughter relationship that is eclipsed by the Father and Son in Christian tradition. Identifying the female body as a site of spiritual knowledge, these authors present a metaphorical return to the womb that empowers their characters to embrace divine maternal love that transgresses the masculine symbolic order, displacing (but not necessarily destroying) the authority of God the Father and His human representatives. Reynolds and Walker portray physical pain, central to the Christian image of crucifixion, as destroying the ability of women to speak, denying them subjectivity. Through transgressive sexual relationships infused with religious significance, these authors disrupt the Christian moral paradigm by presenting bodily pleasure as an alternative to the Christian valorization of sacrifice. The replacement of pain with pleasure inspires imaginative work that makes private spirituality shareable through artistic creation. The novels I study present themes that also concern Christian and non-Christian feminist theologians: the development of feminine images of the divine, emphasis on immanence over transcendence, the apprehension of the divine in nature, and the necessity of challenging the reification of religious images and dualisms that undermine female subjectivity. I show the reciprocal relationship between fiction and theology, as theologians treat women's literature as sacred texts and fiction writers give life to abstract religious concepts through narrative.

Cette thèse analyse les incidences des avancées d’une rationalité technoscientifique sur les définitions classiques de l’humain. Elle discerne, dans sa présentation de ce phénomène, le lien entre la technoscience, la cybernétique et le posthumanisme qui en découle. Elle souligne les mutations et projets de remodèlement de l’humain qui traversent cette rationalité technoscientifique et son paradigme informationnel cybernéticien. Cette rationalité technoscientifique, polémique aux ontologies dites conservatrices, soutenant une vision amorale de la RDTS (Recherche & Développement technoscientifique), accouche d’un posthumanisme – en rapport difficile avec le corps – qui bouscule les définitions classiques de l’humain judéo-chrétien, dont l’anthropologie théologique évangélique. Traitant, dans une première grande section de trois chapitres, de la rationalité technoscientifique et de ses visions de l’humain, la thèse permet la mise en exergue des enjeux principaux se dégageant des nouveaux questionnements des anthropologies classiques soumises aux pressions de la RDTS. Dans la deuxième partie, encore de trois chapitres, qui porte sur l’anthropologie évangélique, la thèse situe les Évangéliques historiquement et doctrinalement, pour mieux relever les éléments identitaires du mouvement et les grandes déterminations théologiques à l’intérieur desquels se déploie cette anthropologie. La présentation de cette dernière se décline à partir des différentes compréhensions du motif anthropologique évangélique par excellence, l’imago Dei et le concept de l’unicité de l’humain dont les fondements semblent de plus en plus fragiles à la lumière des conclusions des recherches en paléontologie et en cognition animale. Si plusieurs défis importants sont posés à l’anthropologie évangélique, la thèse, se limitant à une critique évangélique de la rationalité technoscientifique et des réponses évangéliques à cette dernière, analyse une question essentielle pour la pensée évangélique, celle de l’humain homo ii faber et l’anthropotechnie, versus le remodèlement de l’humain autour des interrogations posthumanistes sur le corps et la question du salut. Cette thèse apporte une contribution 1) sur le plan de la synthèse qu’elle présente de l’anthropologie évangélique, 2) de la compréhension de l’identité évangélique, sa singularité et sa diversité, et 3) des manières dont une théologie évangélique peut entrer en dialogue avec la raison technoscientifique. Elle lève le voile sur l’utilisation tous azimuts du concept de l’imago Dei et de son insuffisance, à lui seul, pour apprécier les véritables enjeux du débat avec la rationalité technoscientique. Elle insinue que ce motif doit être analysé en conjonction avec la christologie dans l’approfondissement du Logos incarné, pour en mieux apprécier l'étendue. Ce n'est que dans ce lien qu’ont pu être trouvés des éléments capables d'articuler ce qui est en germe dans l'imago Dei et suggérer une définition de l’humain capable de prendre en considération les défis d’une rationalité technoscientifique et de son posthumanisme. / This thesis analyzes the impact of proposals by a technoscientific rationality (or RDTS) on the classical definitions of what is human. It discerns in its presentation of the phenomenon the link between technoscience, cybernetics and post-humanism which has developed from them. Then there are the mutations and projects to remodel humans which arise with RDTS and its cybernetic informational paradigm. Technoscience, with its polemics against any ontology considered conservative, supports an amoral vision of RDTS and produces a posthumanism with its difficult relation to the human body. It also disrupts classical Judaeo-Christian definitions of what is human, among which we find evangelical theological anthropology. This thesis is divided into two sections of three chapters each. The first section examines RDTS and its vision of what is human. The principal issues which recent questioning of classical anthropology has produced, arising from the pressure of RDTS developments, are examined. Then the second section of three chapters will present evangelical anthropology, beginning with the historical and doctrinal context of evangelicalism. The elements of evangelical identity are explained along with the primary theological concepts which surround this anthropology. A variety of evangelical positions will be presented, related to the imago Dei and the concept of unicity of the human. While this concept is crucial for evangelicals, it is highly contested by recent research in paleontology and animal cognition. After examining the important new challenges facing evangelical anthropology, this thesis will concentrate on existing evangelical critiques of RDTS and posthumanism and iv refining them. Then an essential question for evangelicals will be examined: the homo faber and anthropotechnie versus the remodelling of the human involved in posthumanist questioning of the body and of salvation. Three contributions emerge from this thesis: 1) a synthesis of evangelical anthropology, 2) an understanding of evangelical identity in its distinctiveness and in its diversity and 3) an identification of necessary factors for evangelical theology to employ in a dialogue with RDTS. The difficulty of using the imago Dei in all direction is demonstrated along with a denial that this concept alone can address all the serious issues RDTS raises. Rather this motif needs to be combined with Christology and particularly the incarnation of the Logos to widen the treatment of the subject. It is only with that link that necessary elements contained in the imago Dei can be articulated and a definition for the human can be made which can address the challenges of RDTS and its posthumanism.

Thesis (doctoral)--Florida State University. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-282) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 329-338).