Thesis (D. Min.)--Logos Evangelical Seminary, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-134).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Divinity School, August 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

The seven-and-a-half-hour series of funeral rites that occurred in Atlanta on April 9, 1968 in honor of assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. were broadcast live to 120 million U.S. television viewers and reported extensively in local and national newspapers and magazines. While King's April 4 assassination triggered deadly riots in more than 100 cities, Atlanta remained peaceful before and during the funeral. In this research thesis I explore how the funeral was leveraged by three disparate stakeholder group's King's family, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Atlanta's liberal white leadership- to stage image events. I create a historiography for each group that draws on primary sources and original interviews. Using an intertextual approach I conduct qualitative content analysis of the media coverage generated by each group's actions, identifying seven major messages that emerged.

A study has been undertaken of the biblical prefaces of Mikael Agricola. All the prefaces are based on those of Luther and/or translations of the same in the Swedish Bible of 1541 (GVB). The New Testament prefaces, like GVB, keep closely to the originals. There are however visual differences — in punctuation, capital letter usage and paragraphing. The literal translation makes the material very suitable for a study of Agricola's use of capital letters and punctuation in comparison with the Lutheran Bible and GVB. The material is too limited for any conclusions to be drawn about the principles underlying paragraphing. Agricola, like Luther (from 1539 onwards) and GVB, sometimes uses capital initial letters in the substantive designations of God and Christ the Holy Spirit the Bible and its books the Church and its sections occupations nationalities Adjectives relating to the above groups may also have capital initials. Personal pronouns relating to God or important persons may also be written with capital initials. Unlike the originals, Agricola's texts may also give prominence to other pronouns than the personal, to verbs, adverbs, numerals and intensifies. The punctuation corresponds partly with present usage: complete clauses are usually separated by punctuation marks. One basic difference is that in Agricola, Luther and GVB breathing pauses for reading aloud are indicated with commas or full stops. As Agricola stressed his utterances differently from his models, it follows that his punctuation differs from theirs. Agricola's prefaces to Old Testament writings are also based on Luther's, but only two of them are direct translations. Agricola's exclusions and additions have been studied. The former include many of the brief descriptions of contents in Luther's prefaces. The additions are interesting; sometimes Agricola does not accept Luther's brief biographical summaries about the authors of various biblical books, and uses instead Hieronymus' prefaces in Vulgata. He also refers to the old Jewish work on the human condition, Seder Olam. Agricola's longest preface, to the Psalms, is very much his own. A few pages are devoted to Agricola's summary of commentaries on the Psalms made by two Fathers of the Church — Augustinus Aurelius and Basilius the Great. Here Agricola makes generous use of the popular stylistic device of the time — amplification, an accumulation of more or less synonymous expressions for the same idea. Even in sentences directly translated from Luther and GVB, Agricola often extends the amplifications. Agricola's four rhyming prefaces are not based on any model at all. They were written in the Germanic doggerel metre, and have much in common with late mediaeval rhyming chronicles. Agricola's often drastic way of expressing himself makes delightful reading. / digitalisering@umu

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The question of who is participating in today’s debate around theologies of other religions is important. Religious difference and the many ways of dealing with it are issues in political, social and theological initiatives. The reality of religious plurality in daily life leaves some Christians wondering about the best way to relate to non-Christian neighbors. In light of this, a series of questions emerges about who is shaping conversations with people of other faiths and what priorities they reflect. A Lutheran voice is lacking in this debate. Despite this, there has been a wide response from other Christian traditions. In some cases denominations have raised questions of religious pluralism as a theological issue, while elsewhere individual theologians have contributed to the debate. The project that follows will examine such contributions from three ecclesial traditions (Roman Catholic, Evangelical and Protestant) and individual theologians in order to chart some common concerns in the theology of religions debate. In an effort to highlight a tradition-constituted approach to the other, connections will also be made between individuals’ positions and their ecclesial traditions. This thesis will also propose a distinctively Lutheran theology of religions first by using the works of Martin Luther to introduce the Lutheran history of engagement with non-Christians. Then, Lutheran statements and resources, partnerships and institutions will be examined to discover the ways in which the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America engages non-Christians. Finally, this project will propose crucial elements for a specifically Lutheran theology of religions. These elements will be put in conversation with individual Lutheran theologians who have made contributions to the debate. Ultimately a theology of kinship will emerge. Using distinctively Lutheran themes, this theology recognizes a connection between all people and calls Lutherans to live in kinship with the religious other.

”I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” Martin Luther Kings jrs. starka stämma ekade ut ur högtalarsystemet och de 250 000 medborgarrättsaktivisterna som var samlade vid George Washington monumentet i USA:s huvudstad  instämde i ett jublande bifall. Året var 1963 och Martin Luther King jr., hade i nio år varit känd som den amerikanska medborgarrättsrörelsens främste talesman, när han i sitt tal till det amerikanska folket yttrade sin vision för det amerikanska samhällets framtid.      Denna uppsats beskriver det afro-amerikanskafolkets historia, från slaveriets bojor i de Nordamerikanska kolonierna i slutet av 1600-talet, till kampen för fullständiga medborgerliga rättigheter i 1950- och 60-talets USA. Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka religionens betydelse för det afro-amerikanska folket, samt studera Martin Luther King jrs. inflytande över den amerikanska medborgarrättsrörelsen och dess användande av icke-våldsmetoder som medel för att nå samhällsomvandling.

This dissertation traces the social-theological history of a German-Lutheran two-kingdoms concept---an often ambiguous social-ethical theory used by German-Lutheran theologians to interpret their social world and to define the relational boundaries for the church's existence in society. This study consists of three parts, each of which represents a fundamental rupture in the German social order: / Part one examines the formation of a two-kingdoms doctrine in the modern world. The opening chapter (chapter two) establishes Martin's Luther's use of a two-kingdoms hermeneutic as way to challenge late-medieval Catholic Church authority and to empower ("sacralize") the social sphere. Chapter three surveys the work of German-Lutheran theologians who found in Luther's two-kingdoms concept a model that corresponded to the modern public-private social structure. The intersection of Luther's concept and modern social theory enabled theologians to understand the social, economic, and political changes taking place in Germany and, wittingly or unwittingly, to validate the status quo. / Part two analyzes various applications and critiques of the two-kingdoms doctrine in Germany from 1919 to 1945. Chapter four focuses on the efforts of Emanuel Hirsch, Paul Althaus, Paul Tillich, and Karl Barth to construct a theology that addressed the crises of modernity: the loss of national identity, the failure of post-Enlightemnent rationalism, and the collapse of traditional political structures. Chapter five examines the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who developed a critical two-kingdoms perspective to (re)define the ethical relationship between the "church for others" and the "world come of age." / Part three considers the reception of the two-kingdoms doctrine in the East German church (1949--1990). The objective of chapter six is to illustrate the various ways in which theologians in the German Democratic Republic nuanced a two-kingdoms concept to make sense of the church's missionary task in socialism. This chapter also demonstrates the links between Bonhoeffer's ethic of responsibility and an East German theological ethic of critical solidarity---a social-ethical theory articulated by pastors and theologians such as Bishop Albrecht Schonherr and Heino Falcke. / This study concludes with a brief discussion of the two-kingdoms doctrine's capacity to protect and to resist the status quo.

The current trend of global violence and their impact on families and communities as well as the field of university education is scary for a society that is struggling with this false sense of apathy and complacency. How did the ordinary people get seduced to the idea that there is no way out of this global assault? How then do we extricate ourselves from this “tortured consciousness” (Asante, 2007) and this false sense of “nihilism” (West, 1994) and recoup this “incommensurable loss” (Simmons, 2010) to global violence? Even more crucial, where is the place of education in retrieving this incommensurable loss while providing hope and possibility for a better future? Provoked by the desire to have answers to these questions, the dissertation relies on the knowledge and experiences of twenty qualitatively selected university activists and existing literature to critically examine the non-violent praxes of Gandhi and King, Jr. and their pedagogical implications for transformative university education. The dissertation further draws on the knowledge of Frantz Fanon and Malcolm X to bring complex and nuanced readings to violence and non-violence. The dissertation notes that violence and non-violence are not mutually exclusive as already known. The dissertation also notes that while resistive violence may be justified, it does not necessarily guarantee true transformation, reconciliation, and healing. Instead, love, humility, truth, dialogue, non-violent direct action, discipline, and spirituality are salient in achieving true transformation in university activism. The dissertation further observes that educational activism is more than walking on the street with placards to protest against institutional violence. Sometimes, the secret activism that is done strategically within the corridors of power can achieve more far-reaching results than the open protest against power on the street. The dissertation concludes with six key non-violent strategies that can help in social and political mobilization of university students for transformative university education.

The current trend of global violence and their impact on families and communities as well as the field of university education is scary for a society that is struggling with this false sense of apathy and complacency. How did the ordinary people get seduced to the idea that there is no way out of this global assault? How then do we extricate ourselves from this “tortured consciousness” (Asante, 2007) and this false sense of “nihilism” (West, 1994) and recoup this “incommensurable loss” (Simmons, 2010) to global violence? Even more crucial, where is the place of education in retrieving this incommensurable loss while providing hope and possibility for a better future? Provoked by the desire to have answers to these questions, the dissertation relies on the knowledge and experiences of twenty qualitatively selected university activists and existing literature to critically examine the non-violent praxes of Gandhi and King, Jr. and their pedagogical implications for transformative university education. The dissertation further draws on the knowledge of Frantz Fanon and Malcolm X to bring complex and nuanced readings to violence and non-violence. The dissertation notes that violence and non-violence are not mutually exclusive as already known. The dissertation also notes that while resistive violence may be justified, it does not necessarily guarantee true transformation, reconciliation, and healing. Instead, love, humility, truth, dialogue, non-violent direct action, discipline, and spirituality are salient in achieving true transformation in university activism. The dissertation further observes that educational activism is more than walking on the street with placards to protest against institutional violence. Sometimes, the secret activism that is done strategically within the corridors of power can achieve more far-reaching results than the open protest against power on the street. The dissertation concludes with six key non-violent strategies that can help in social and political mobilization of university students for transformative university education.