Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 152-164).

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 290-303). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 290-303). Also available on the Internet.

Within the field of American religious studies, a growing area of scholarship has been that of "spirituality" as a category distinct from religion. Scholars have examined the sociological, cultural, and historical features that characterize Americans' use of the concept of spirituality. Within this field, one subject of study is the growth in the number of individuals who identify themselves as "spiritual, but not religious." This phrase is used to denote a rejection of organized or traditional religion and an interest in a variety of belief systems. Via ethnographic methods, this dissertation analyzes this self-styled identity in the context of two phenomena: the Protestant legacy in the United States and "engaged spirituality," in which individuals' spirituality is integrally linked to engagement with social activism. The early Protestant history of the United States and the "Protestant ethic," per Max Weber, have shaped how Americans define and perceive religion and how Protestant values persist as cultural norms. American "spiritual, but not religious" individuals who are also "engaged" reject organized religion and find activism necessary due to issues that originate in this Protestant legacy. Evidence for this can be found in cases in which these individuals participate in activism by collaborating with non-Protestant religious groups. In this dissertation, I present this finding through three case studies featuring two radical religious groups which are active in peace protests: Nipponzan Myohoji, a Japanese Buddhist monastic order, and the Catholic Worker, a lay movement that assists the poor and homeless. The case studies are: the 50th anniversary Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March; Catholic Worker protests in Washington, DC, on the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings; and events at the Buddhist Great Smoky Mountains Peace Pagoda. I argue that these individuals form these alliances because in working with a Catholic and/or Buddhist group, they find a venue for activism which both accommodates their spiritual motivations and includes a critique of the Protestant-based elements of American culture. / PHD

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This dissertation presents an analysis of the material practice of hospitality in the Catholic Worker movement during the 1930s. Dorothy Day (1897-1980), a radical Catholic social activist, co-founded the Catholic Worker movement in 1932, and one of the movement’s goals was to provide hospitality to poor and unemployed people. Day’s understanding of hospitality, and consequently the practice of hospitality at Catholic Worker houses, was shaped by Day’s experiences as a radical during the 1910s and 1920s, her conversion to Roman Catholicism, and her notions of gender; each of these factors led Day to understand hospitality as consisting primarily in materially grounded practices that lead to the mutual identification of host and guest. Of particular importance to Catholic Worker hospitality were the materials of space and food, which, in addition to promoting the mutual identification of individual hosts and guests, also shaped the identity of the movement itself, the content of the Catholic Worker newspaper, and Day’s and her followers’ critique of bureaucratic, state-sponsored responses to social injustices. Furthermore, the practice of hospitality also provided members of the movement with an epistemological grounding for their critiques of social injustices by allowing them to encounter real presences—subjective, transcendent realities that members of the movement understood in theological language as encounters with Christ. As Day and her followers practiced hospitality, they had to contend with a number of forces of institutionalization that would place conditions on their hospitality and limit its transformative potential. Finally, this analysis contributes to ongoing discussions about the place of hospitality in the teaching of composition by noting that the teaching of writing is subject to similar forces of institutionalization; the ways that Day and her followers responded to such forces—especially through an emphasis on domesticity and religious faith—are important to consider because they suggest that writing teachers need to consider the spiritual roots of transformative hospitality.

Zugl.: Benediktbeuern, Philos.-Theol. Hochsch., Diss., 2008

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 25, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

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