abstract: La Santa Muerte is a folk saint depicted as a female Grim Reaper in Mexico and the Southwestern United States. The Grim Reaper, as an iconic representation of death, was derived from the Angel of Death found in pseudepigrapha and apocalyptic writings of Jewish and early Christian writers. The Angel of Death arose from images and practices in pre-Christian Europe and throughout the Mediterranean region. Images taken from Revelation were used to console the survivors of the Black Death in Western Europe and produced a material culture that taught the Christian notion of dying well. The combination of the scythe (used in the eschatological harvest), the black cowl (worn by medieval priests and monks officiating at funerals), and the skeleton (as the physical body of the deceased) are a series of apocalyptic Christian referents that form a metonymical composite referred to as the Grim Reaper. In medieval Iberian Dances of Death, the Grim Reaper was depicted as female, an unyielding social leveler, and an important participant in the Last Judgment. Personalized Death became associated with healing, renewal, magic, and binding, as apocalyptic Christianity blended with the Christian cult of the saints and the Virgin Mary during the Reconquista and the colonization of Mesoamerica. Utilizing secondary historical sources, metonymy, and iconology this Master of Arts thesis posits that the La Santa Muerte image resulted from a long historical interaction of Greek, Roman, Jewish, Visogothic, Islamic, and Christian death imagery leading up to the colonization of Mesoamerica. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Religious Studies 2014

As a neologism for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the modern construct 'Abrahamic religions' is as ubiquitous as it is contested in the study of the monotheistic religions. Some have argued against the use of the concept on both historical and theological grounds. In particular, the concept is often interpreted as ecumenically motivated in the thought of Louis Massignon. This understanding arises from a parochial interpretation of its origins, in which Massignon's reflections on the subject over time, as well as its varied uses in recent times, have not been fully considered. This thesis calls for a more extensive historical analysis of its genealogy with the aim of discussing its intellectual and cultural backgrounds. In doing so, it seeks to shed light on how the interrelationships between the three religions had been historically examined prior to Massignon, and how the birth of the concept in his thought and its subsequent uses offer a richer understanding of the concept that goes beyond ecumenical significance. To this end, this thesis unpacks the concept by probing into its antecedents, examining its birth, and reflecting on its future. The first chapter aims to show the historical basis for considering a genus for the three religions, by surveying perspectives on Abraham in historia sacra, and thereafter, discussing works in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that explore the connections between the three religions. The second and third chapters introduce Massignon and discuss his Abrahamic thought from both its socio-religious and intellectual perspectives. The main text examined here is his Les trois prières d'Abraham. The fourth chapter traces the different trajectories of the concept after Massignon and highlights its nuanced meanings as derived from these variegated uses. The fifth and concluding chapters explore the ways in which the concept can profit the study of religion.

Religious diversity largely defines the present religious situation; comparative theology adaptively responds to this situation by comparing influential theological hypotheses from different contexts and developing theological hypotheses from that inquiry. The popularity and sophistication of the Bhagavad-Gītā and Fourth Gospel make these scriptures excellent comparative candidates. This dissertation situates these scriptures, interprets them, compares them, and constructs a philosophical theology from the comparison. Part I follows J.A.B. van Buitenen, Angelika Malinar, and Emily Hudson by situating the Bhagavad-Gītā in its original epic context, the Mahābhārata, and philosophical context: Sāṅkhya and Vedānta darśanas. It follows Robert Hill and George MacRae by situating “John” against its dual first-century backgrounds: Judaism and Hellenism. Part II provides an original interpretation of the scriptures. With Śaṅkara, Abhinavagupta, and Hudson, the dissertation interprets the Bhagavad-Gītā as reorienting Arjuna to see the subtlety of karma and dharma and to realize non-duality with Kṛṣṇa/Ātman/Brahman in the devotee’s heart. With Bultmann, Eckhart, Hill, and Neville, the dissertation interprets John as anti-gnostically affirming the cosmos as God’s Logos expression, which elicits love as the appropriate response to the Logos. Part III compares the scriptures in respect to ultimate reality and human existence, the main comparative categories. Ultimate reality comprises four subcategories: (1) cosmic scope and nature, (2) cosmological metaphysics, (3) ontology, and (4) avatāra/incarnation. Despite notable differences, both scriptures emphasize the non- duality of the cosmos with its indeterminate (nirguṇa/ἀόρατος) ontological ground. Existence comprises four subcategories: obligation, comportment, engagement, and life’s meaning. Realizing nonduality with Brahman, seeing everything as the expression of the Logos, provides ecstatic freedom, and the courage to be. Part IV develops a philosophical theology from the comparison. Einstein’s relativity theories weigh the probability that the cosmos pulsates or dies. Evolutionary theory shows that consciousness emerges as an adaptation to environments, not environments for consciousness’s pleasure. After distinguishing physical cosmology from cosmological metaphysics, the dissertation dialectically argues that the cosmos is real, but contingent on the ontological one, which is indeterminate (empty/nothing) apart from its shining forth in the cosmological many. Although this theological hypothesis requires greater breadth for stabilization, it remains tentatively viable for today’s religious situation. / 2024-09-06T00:00:00Z

This study brings excerpts from the Acts of Thomas (Act 1.11-16 and Act 3.30-33) together with two Buddhist jātakas (Udaya Jātaka - #458 and Visavanta Jātaka -#69) to consider how stories might have been transmitted in the early centuries of the common era in a milieu of mercantile exchange on the Indian Ocean. The Acts of Thomas is a 3rd century CE Syriac Christian text concerned with the apostle Thomas proselytizing in India. The jātakas are popular didactic narratives with a pronounced oral dimension that purport to be accounts of the Buddha’s previous lives. Syriac Christians possessed knowledge about Indian religious practices linked to renunciation, and it is plausible that they adapted Buddhist jātakas to convey Christian ideas in the account of Thomas journeying to India and converting people there. Epigraphic evidence from the western Deccan in India attests to yavana, or Greek, patronage of Buddhist institutions in cosmopolitan settings where ideas and commodities circulated. Against the grain in scholarship on early Christianity that tends to privilege Latin and Greek sources, this project moves the lens of analysis eastward to consider Indian influence on early Christianity as expressed in the Acts of Thomas. A literary comparison of the texts under consideration with reference to the historical and cultural context of exchange reveals similar models of renunciant practices in Buddhism and Christianity that establishes new grounds for consideration of interconnectivity across ‘East’ and ‘West.’ / Religion

This dissertation offers an analysis of two American religions–the Church of Christ, Scientist (CS), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS)–and the ways that their particular/peculiar ideologies regarding the body govern the everyday realities of their respective memberships. Biopower is the political power used to control bodies and bodily actions, such as the care of oneself, and the details of personal family life. Belief can act as an especially powerful agent of biopolitical power as it inspires a lived faithfulness through its various theologies. What is more, the effects of biopolitical belief are often complicated by the mixed interests of Church and State, leaving the territory of the individual body a disputed claim. To better understand these disputes, this project utilizes a Foucaultian interpretation of the CS and LDS churches to better understand the roots of the biopolitical conflicts they confront. Specifically, the histories and contemporary practices of these religious organizations are analyzed through a genealogical method, using Foucaultian interpretations of the biopolitical, pastoral, and psychiatric powers they use to effectively govern the minds, bodies, and spirits of their people. A historical background of the CS and LDS churches traces the emergence of the biopolitical practices of each group by evaluating their groundedness in their current social-political milieus, and by making connections between their respective religious beliefs, practices, and government and the broader Jacksonian American political culture into which they were born. Additionally, this particular form of analysis poses important questions for the study of religion and politics today. Although most of the examples used in this study are historical, both the LDS and CS churches continue to hold on to many if not all of the theologies and doctrines which historically brought them into conflict with the US government. What has changed is not the belief itself, but the embodiment of it, and also the state and federal government reaction to it. Therefore, the theological histories and founding stories of these religions remain relevant to their contemporary status as extra-statal biopolitical forces within the US today. / Ph. D.

abstract: This dissertation illuminates overlaps in Mormonism and the New Spirituality in North America, showing their shared history and epistemologies. As example of these connections, it introduces ethnographic data from women who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in order to show (a) how living LDS women adapt and integrate elements from the New Spirituality with Mormon ideas about the nature of reality into hybrid spiritualities; and (b) how they negotiate their blended religious identities both in relation to the current American New Spirituality milieu and the highly centralized, hierarchical, and patriarchal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The study focuses on religious hybridity with an emphasis on gender and the negotiation of power deriving from patriarchal religious authority, highlighting the dance between institutional power structures and individual authority. It illuminates processes and discourses of religious adaptation and synthesis through which these LDS women creatively and provocatively challenge LDS Church formal power structures. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Religious Studies 2012

abstract: This study investigated how young adults communicate their decision to religiously disaffiliate to their parents. Both the context in which the religious disaffiliation conversation took place and the communicative behaviors used during the religious disaffiliation conversation were studied. Research questions and hypotheses were guided by Family Communication Patterns Theory and Face Negotiation Theory. A partially mixed sequential quantitative dominate status design was employed to answer the research questions and hypotheses. Interviews were conducted with 10 young adults who had either disaffiliated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Watch Tower Society. During the interviews, the survey instrument was refined; ultimately, it was completed by 298 religiously disaffiliated young adults. For the religious disaffiliation conversation’s context, results indicate that disaffiliated Jehovah’s Witnesses had higher conformity orientations than disaffiliated Latter-day Saints. Additionally, disaffiliated Jehovah’s Witnesses experienced more stress than disaffiliated Latter-day Saints. Planning the conversation in advance did lead to the disaffiliation conversation being less stressful for young adults. Furthermore, the analysis found that having three to five conversations reduced stress significantly more than having one or two conversations. For the communicative behaviors during the religious disaffiliation conversation, few differences were found in regard to prevalence of the facework behaviors between the two groups. Of the 14 facework behaviors, four were used more often by disaffiliated JW than disaffiliated LDS—abuse, passive aggressive, pretend, and defend self. In terms of effectiveness, the top five facework behaviors were talk about the problem, consider the other, have a private discussion, remain calm, and defend self. Overall, this study begins the conversation on how religious disaffiliation occurs between young adults and their parents and extends Family Communication Patterns Theory and Face Negotiation Theory to a new context. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2015

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The Roman festival of the Lupercalia is one of the most discussed issues in the field of pre-Christian Roman religion. Hardly a year goes by without an article on the subject appearing in a major Classics journal. But the festival presents a range of issues that individual articles cannot address. This thesis is an attempt to present a modern analysis of the phenomenon of the Lupercalia as a whole, including literary, archaeological and historical evidence on the subject. The first section presents the ancient sources on the Lupercalia, and is divided into five chapters, each analysing a particular aspect of the festival: fertility, purification, the importance of the wolf and the foundation myth, the mythology of Arcadian origins, and Caesar's involvement with the Lupercalia of 44 BC. The second section places the Lupercalia in a wider context, discussing the festival's topography and the course of the running Luperci, its relationship to other lustration rituals, and its position in the Roman calendar, ending with an appraisal of the changes it underwent in late Antiquity. The third section employs methods from linguistics, anthropology and comparative religion to show that the Lupercalia involved a ritual of initiation, which was also reflected in the Roman foundation myth. The central chapter of this section discusses the methodology used in comparative Indo-European mythology, and offers a case study that parallels the god of the festival (Faunus) with Rudra of Vedic Hinduism. The last chapter considers other parallels with Indian religion, especially the relationship between flamen and brahmin. The thesis challenges a number of established theories on the subject and offers new evidence to show that the festival has Indo-European origins, but also that it played an important role throughout Roman history.

Despite the wealth of scholarship concerning the origins of religious beliefs, practices, and cultures, there has been little consideration of the impact of ecological landscapes on the development of ancient religions. Although the influence of the natural environment is considered among the variables in explaining the development of various economic, political, and other social systems throughout history, there is a specific gap concerning its impact on the origins of religious systems. The argument which is taken up in this writing is the correlation between agriculturally marginal landscape and the development of monotheism. Specifically that the religions of the ancient Iranians and Israelites were shaped, in part, by the ecological landscapes in which they developed. Using comparative case studies (primarily: Judaism, Zoroastrianism; and including the religions: Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Kikuyu, Maasai, and Lakota) and a dataset of temple sites of the greater Near East through the Iron Age, which are in established archaeological record, digitally mapped in ArcGIS, this argument takes up an examination of the apparent interconnection between mobile societies, monotheism, and a respective lack of temple building culture. Although the primary subjects of the argument are very ancient religious societies, this research is eminently relevant to modern humans because we continue to be affected by natural and built environments. Our modern minds and bodies are shaped, partly, in pragmatic response to spaces in which we develop individually and collectively. This writing is one call for more work to be done to understand the effects of our environments on our minds and ways of thinking. This call for scholarship – for understanding – comes, not accidentally, at a time when the implications of human psychological responses to the environment are particularly unsettling. As the tide of human-caused climate change begins to flood our societies and world, how too might the currents of an unraveling biosphere affect our minds? If the development of a mobile deity and mobile society was the pragmatic response of a people to agriculturally marginal landscapes, what economic, social, and religious constructs might be borne of ecological devastation?