This project examines the history of racism in relation to the Catholic Church. This history amounts to an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church not only as a neutral party in the historical emergence of white supremacy, but a directly linked cause of racism. First, it describes how racism emerged in its modern manifestation in three major dimensions which include the geopolitical, economic, and social. Then, it centers on two general forms of analysis, a cultural analysis, and a philosophical analysis. Drawing on insights from Liberation Theology, various themes are highlighted as they apply to the discussion of race in the U.S. as well as a condemnation of white Christianity. The key argument is that if the good of religion is community, then its opposite is the disintegration of community. In responding to this disintegration, the pastoral proposal suggests that the church's liberative work is the essential work of mission.

The Appalachian Preaching Missions (1955-1981) occurred annually in Northeast Tennessee, with their predecessor, the Bristol Preaching Mission, dating back to at least 1949. Local churches, primarily Protestant, organized and convened these annual ecumenical gatherings. Nationally known clergy and laypeople from various denominations spoke, with up to several thousand congregants attending each mission. These individuals provided sermons and speeches on spiritual, domestic, and international issues. Among the most consistently repeated sermon themes was Christianity’s spiritual conflict with atheistic communism. This work addresses the missions’ origins and how the speakers spoke on international Christian missions in decolonized or developing nations as threatened by communist regimes, anxieties of nuclear proliferation, and the need for ecumenical cooperation. This work demonstrates that the choice of subject matter and speakers at the missions reflected wider American anti-communism, an increased politicization of Christianity, and ecumenical coalition building.

The argument of this dissertation is that a critical reading of the concept of "covenant" in early American writings is instrumental to understanding the paradoxes in the American political concepts of freedom and equality. Following Slavoj Zizek's theoretical approach to theology, I trace the covenant concept in early American literature from the theological expressions and disputes in Puritan Massachusetts through Jonathan Edwards's Freedom of Will and the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, showing how the covenant theology of colonial New England dispersed into more "secular" forms of what may be called an American political theology. The first chapter provides an overview of recent attempts to integrate theology and theory, specifically comparing Jacques Derrida and Zizek to better understand the latter's theology of materialism which relies on as well as informs the Reformed Protestant covenantal dichotomy of grace and works. The second chapter establishes the complicated architecture of the covenant concept within seventeenth-century New England Reformed Protestantism, and uses church membership transcripts along with Ann Hutchinson court trial documents to demonstrate how this inherently unstable theology created unintended slippage between God's grace and mankind's works, resulting in a theological formulation remarkably open to Zizek's analysis of political ideology. The third chapter demonstrates how Jonathan Edwards, through his ingenious counter-argument in Freedom of Will, provides a theoretical foundation for an uneasy but necessary alignment of the covenants of works and grace, releasing the subjunctive potential of grace to operate through history as a predeterminer of meaning and, potentially, freedom. In the last chapter, I argue that Emerson finally converts the covenant from a politically conceptualized theological framework for radical grace into a personal institutionalization of grace itself. Stanley Cavell's exploration of Emerson's "constitution" in light of the covenant motif demonstrates the political (im)possibilities inherent in America's self-conceptions of personal liberty and civic equality. In the end, complexities inherent in the concept of the covenant, especially its creative failure to control the radical nature of "grace," are determinative factors in our contradictory American egalitarian ideals.

In studying the background and origin of meaning for this word [ecclesia], this paper will seek to investigate the pagan, the Jewish, and the Christian literature in this order. Of couse, as the preliminary discussion has so far indicated, the primary weight and burden of study will be upond the Septugintal influence. The three stages to be developed are reminiscent of the comment of R.C. Trench in his opening comments concerning ecclesia. He named them as heathen, Jewish, and Christian. The development of these stages will be united and brought together to make some pertinent conclusions in the final chapter of this thesis. At all points, this study will seek to limit itself to this one Greek word, [ecclesia], and words which have a direct relationship with it, rather than dealing with the many images used by the New Testament and theology to understand and to explain the church.

No figure of fourth-century Christianity seems to be at once so well known and so clouded in mystery as Hilary of Poitiers. His work as an historian provides invaluable knowledge of the mid-fourth century, and he was praised as a theologian throughout late antiquity. Today, however, discussions of his theology are founded upon less solid ground. This is largely due to methodological issues. Modern scholarship has often read Hilary through anachronistic historical and theological categories which have rendered his thought incomprehensible. Recent scholars have sought to overcome this and to reexamine Hilary within his own historical, polemical, and theological context. Much remains to be said, however, in regard to Hilary's actual theological contribution within these contextual parameters. This thesis contends that in all of Hilary's polemical and constructive argumentation in De Trinitate, which is essentially trinitarian, he is inherently and necessarily developing an anthropology. In all he says about the divine, he is saying as much about what it means to be human. This thesis therefore seeks to reenvision Hilary's overall theological project in terms of the continual, and for him necessary, anthropological corollary of trinitarian theology-to reframe it in terms of a 'trinitarian anthropology'. My contention is that the coherence of Hilary's thought depends upon his understanding of divine-human relations. I will demonstrate this through following Hilary's main lines of trinitarian argument, out of which flows his anthropological vision. These main lines of argument, namely, divine generation, divine infinity, divine unity, the divine image, and divine humanity, each unfold into a progressive picture of humanity from potentiality to perfection. This not only provides a new paradigm for understanding Hilary's own thought, but invites us to reexamine our approach to fourth-century theology entirely, as it disavows any reading of the trinitarian controversies in conceptual abstraction. Further, theological and religious anthropology are widely discussed in contemporary scholarship, and Hilary's profound exploration of divine-human relations, and what it means to be a human being as a result, has much to offer both historical and contemporary concerns.

The question of religion has caused much strife among mankind in the past, and even the present is not without its spiritual prejudices. In any phase of life the individual who departs too far from the accepted order is almost certain to be brought up sharply against the criticism and even ridicule of his contemporaries. Alexander Campbell is no exception to this rule. His life was one of strife and conflict in the field of religion. His leadership in the “Reformation Movement” of the early Nineteenth Century has left an indelible impression upon the minds of thousands of men and women.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T19:21:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tatiana Machado Boulhosa.pdf: 6122608 bytes, checksum: cbfa6abf071d40e1644a01f624034058 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-11-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The aim of this dissertation is to discuss comparatively the construction of the concept of sainthood based on two distinct works: The Life of St Columba, written by Adomnán, abbot of Iona, in the last decades of the 7th century and The Life of St Columban, written by Jonas of Bobbio, in the mid-7th century. In both cases it is the pursuit of the image of sainthood that gives the narrative its primary sense; therefore they can and in fact are referred to as hagiographies. However, their history cannot be fully understood if the wider context is not first comprehended. Therefore, this dissertation opens up with a sketch of the surrounding events that made them possible, that is to say, Celtic Christianity. We also aim to point out the various interpretations surrounding the phenomenon and its implications in the final shaping of a theoretical model of Medieval monastic Saints: illuminated men, withdrawn from society, capable of articulating under their wings a great number of followers, whose power flowed from their example and illustration. Such people represent part of the Medieval Imaginary, articulators of its mentality, translators in deeds as well as in words of the ways in which Medieval Society saw the world: an eternal struggle to be worthy of God´s love. Entwined both with History and Sociology, such model becomes part of the Religious Studies and ends up guiding the reading of the mentioned hagiographies, helping us understand the role these monks played during the first centuries of Christianity, not only as spiritual but also as political leaders / O objetivo dessa dissertação é discutir, de forma comparada, a construção do conceito de santidade baseado em duas obras distintas: The Life of St Columba, escrita por Adomnán, abade de Iona, nas últimas décadas do século VII e The Life of St Columban, escrita por Jonas de Bobbio, em meados do século VII. Em ambos os casos, é a busca da imagem de santidade que dá às narrativas seu sentido primário; portanto, elas podem e, de fato, devem ser chamadas de hagiografias. Entretanto, sua história não pode ser completamente entendida se o contexto mais amplo não for também compreendido. Desta forma, essa dissertação se inicia com um apanhado dos eventos ao redor desses santos que tornaram as narrativas possíveis; a saber, o Cristianismo Celta. Também objetivamos apontar as várias interpretações ao redor do fenômeno e suas implicações na forma final de um modelo teórico de santos monásticos medievais: homens iluminados, retirados da sociedade, capazes de articular sob seu domínio um grande número de seguidores, cujo poder advém de seu exemplo e sua ilustração. Tais pessoas representam parte do imaginário medieval, articuladores de sua mentalidade, tradutores em feito e em palavras das formas pelas quais a sociedade medieval vê o mundo: uma eterna luta pelo direito ao amor Divino. Imbricado entre a História e a Sociologia, tal modelo se torna parte das Ciências da Religião e termina por guiar a leitura das ditas hagiografias, ajudando a entender o papel que esses monges desempenharam durante os primeiros séculos do Cristianismo, não apenas como líderes espirituais, mas também políticos

This paper attempts to explore the creation of Satan as an embodiment of evil in Early Christian theodicy. I use Greco-Roman myth and the Old Testament Book of Job to explore "duality," a system in which good and evil are encapsulated in gods or God. I attempt to trace the trajectory of a shift from this duality to a system of Christian cosmic "dualism," in which good and evil are separated as opposing forces. This shift is explored through the intertestamental Pseudepigrapha of 1 Enoch and Jubilees, towards the New Testament story of the Temptation of Christ in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Finally, exploring post-New Testament Christian ideas with Origen's seminal work On First Principles and the martyr text of Perpetua to investigate the Early Christian community's ideas of good, God, evil, and Satan.

El presente trabajo pretende trazar una panorámica de los santos a los que se rinde o se ha rendido culto en la actual Diócesis de Cartagena-Murcia sobre la base de un trabajo de campo lo más riguroso que ha sido posible realizar. La hagiografía, que estudia a los más eximios de los creyentes, es de gran relieve en la vida cristiana y en el pensamiento de la Iglesia. Pero además la hagiografía a veces es un elemento relevante de la historia del cristianismo en una zona y de la vida misma en esa zona. Y con frecuencia el culto a los santos constituye un capítulo esencial de la historia local y de su devenir histórico. El catálogo de santos a los que se ha dado culto en una diócesis es algo importante. Tal es el objeto de esta tesis. / This paper pretends to draw a panorama of the saints worshipped in the present or the past in the Diocese of Cartagena-Murcia on the basis of a fieldwork as more rigorous as possible. Hagiography, the discipline that studies the most eminent of believers, is of great importance in the Christian life and in the thought of the Church. But, apart from that, it is also a significant element in the history of Christianity, and of life itself, in a given area. And often the cult of saints is an essential part of local history and its development. The catalogue of saints worshipped in a diocese is something important. Such is the aim of this thesis.

This thesis addresses spiritual violence done to queer people in the sacrament of Communion, or Eucharist, in both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in the U.S. Rooted in the sexual dimorphic interpretation of Genesis, theologians engendered Christianity with sexism and patriarchy, both of which have since developed into intricate intersections of oppressions. Religious abuse is founded on the tradition of exclusionary practices and is validated through narrow interpretations of Scripture that work to reassert the authority of the experiences of the dominant culture. The resultant culture of oppression manifests itself in ritualized spiritual violence. Queer people are deemed “unworthy” to take ‘the body and blood of the Christ’ and, in fact, are excluded altogether. This “unworthiness” is expressed as spiritual violence against queer people who are shunned and humiliated, internalize hateful messages, and are denied spiritual guidance or life-affirming messages. By “queering” Scripture, or reading the Bible anew through a framework of justice, queer people have begun to sacramentalize their experiences and reclaim their place at the table.