My thesis is that a pastoral theology of forgiveness can function between marital partners as a grace-grounded ethos depicted as facing each other. The image of facing each other symbolizes three kinds of forgiveness that I propose later: inviting, clearing away, and enriching. Theologically, these facing images emerge from the notions of ethos and hope and from an anthropology of forgiven and forgiving. Such a pastoral theology supports common notions of forgiveness as decision, event, attitude, process, and changes in emotions and attitudes yet also offers its own significant contribution for pastoral contexts. As such, this pastoral theology affirms pastoral caregivers, pastoral counselors, and marital partners as sharers in and mediators of divine grace more than as skilled technicians of modern therapeutic methods.

This thesis reviews the response of the Church of God in Christ and the Assemblies of God to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s with special attention given to the historic relationship between the two denominations, the Memphis Strike and the inclusion of African American ministers in the Assemblies of God.

Jürgen Moltmanns work consistently espouses a theology concerned with suffering. Of particular interest to this paper is Moltmanns development of specifically divine suffering-the suffering of God. Moltmann spends a great deal of time on the issue in several of his works, most notably in The Crucified God, The Trinity and the Kingdom, and God in Creation. Despite Moltmanns emphasis on reality as it exists and the hope God provides in this world, he is critiqued because of his lack of a social ethic. This paper argues, through ideas of Trinity and kenosis, that Moltmanns work does indeed elicit social responsibility through his concept of divine suffering.

People who are experiencing crises of spiritual transformation are routinely pathologized and treated with medication. These experiences, with proper understanding and care, often resolve themselves without medical intervention, promoting the individual to higher levels of functioning than before. The potential for spiritual growth is considerable, providing that the person is not damaged by psychiatric labeling and medication. The pastor can be an important resource for the person in spiritual emergency. Many are unfamiliar with the concepts of transpersonal theory, which provides a framework for the spiritual emergence phenomenon. By familiarizing him- or herself with the practical and theoretical aspects of spiritual emergence and spiritual emergency, the pastor can help the individual weather the vicissitudes of the process.

The main focus of this dissertation is on the interpretation of Abraham as a spiritual ancestor in the context of the Roman appropriation of ancestors and the implications of perspective for Shona Christians in postcolonial Zimbabwe. In constructing Abraham as a spiritual ancestor, Paul not only builds upon an apologetic tradition in Hellenistic Judaism, but also interacts with an ideological trend in early Roman imperialism, which sought a basis for reconciliation between Greeks and Romans in the tradition of Aeneas as a common cultural ancestor. Thus, Pauls portrayal of Abraham as an ancestor of Jews and Greeks is an analogous ideological construction to that which was familiar to his Roman audience shaped by the propaganda of the Augustan Age (26 B.C.E. 68 C.E.). By asserting that Abraham the Jew, rather than Aeneas the Roman, is the ancestor of the people of faith (fides), Paul constructs a liberating counterideology, the effect of which is to subvert the basis of Roman power. Unlike Aeneas, Abraham is an ancestor for all Gods people and can be claimed by the Shona people of Zimbabwe on the basis of faith. Abraham is a model for all Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and through him all faith religions are able to establish a unique relationship with God. Drawing upon the Greco-Roman appropriation of Aeneas as a figure of reconciliation between cultures, Paul does something creative within the Abraham tradition. He makes Abraham the spiritual ancestor of all those whose lives are characterized by pistis/fides, regardless of whether they are Jews or Greeks. The paradigm for Pauls attempt to use Abraham our forefather as an ideological construct enabling the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles is found in the literature of Greek and Roman writers of the firstcentury B.C.E., namely Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Virgil, who made Aeneas a vehicle for the reconciliation of Greeks and Romans. Paul was interacting with the intellectual work of Greek and Roman writers, such as Dionysius and Virgil who, in the decades before Paul, had sought a means for reconciling Greeks and Romans in the figure of Aeneas as a source of identity. The dissertation concludes that the construction of Abraham as a spiritual ancestor allows Shona people to claim Abraham as a spiritual ancestor on the basis of faith, and thus reincarnating the gospel in the continent of Africa where ancestor veneration is regarded as a spiritual practice. Abraham is an ideal figure through whom the nations of the world can see each other as sisters and brothers.

This pastoral theological project explores how clergy women construct and exercise agency to unsuffer themselves in situations in the church where their agency has been denied or minimized. A qualitative research interview method is utilized to pay attention to the voices and experiences of eight ELCA clergy women who identify as having experienced suffering and transformational movement toward unsuffering, particularly from silence to voice or diminished agency to increased agency. Using the pastoral theological method of revised critical correlation, these clergy women's experiences are brought into dialogue with feminist theory informed by poststructuralism, narrative counseling theory informed by social constructionism, and historical, feminist Lutheran, and pastoral theological perspectives of a theology of the cross. From this dialogue, a co-construction of agency from a feminist Lutheran pastoral theological perspective emerges, as does the surprising discovery that a theology of baptism is more influential than a theology of the cross in shaping these Lutheran clergy women's agency. These findings suggest that, by joining the theologies of the cross and baptism, constructive possibilities can be generated for pastoral theological practice that invites agency and contributes to the unsuffering of all people.

This dissertation explores key theological questions raised by gender and sexual ambiguity. Using a pastoral theological methodology in conjunction with constructivist grounded theory the project considers the lived experiences of persons who don't identify within the binary categories of male/female (persons who identify as gender-queer, gender fluid, queer or intersex) or gay/straight (persons who identify as queer, sexually fluid or bisexual). First person narratives are placed into critical conversation with poststructualist theory, critical gender theory and queer theology, along with theological discourses on imago Dei, incarnation and eros. Two key questions are explored: 1) how persons who don't identify within binary constructs of identity "make sense" of their ambiguity in light of their images of God and operative understanding of Christian theology; and 2) how such persons experience pastoral and congregational practices as helpful (or unhelpful) to participating fully in congregational life. Three significant themes emerge from the study. First, a correlation between the process of deconstructing God-images and the participants' own deconstructive process of constructing fluid gender and/or sexual identities. This suggests that the process of reconstructing non-anthropomorphic and fluidly performative images of God is helpful in the reconstructive process of fluid and liminal identities. Second, a transgressive hermeneutic is used by participants to "read" their lived experience of fluid and liminal embodiment into scriptural texts. This suggests a "transgressive ethic" of resistance against binary disciplinary regimes. Third, participants indicated that while official congregational statements of LGBTQ inclusion were important, embodied liturgical and congregational practices that create space for gender fluid bodies to participate fully in congregational life were vitally important to feeling a sense of belonging. This suggests several implications for pastoral and congregational practices of care and counseling. The dissertation concludes by offering a tentative constructive pastoral theology of ambiguous embodiment that suggests a more nuanced and multi-layered theological anthropology of human embodiment - one that seeks to take into account the embodied experience of liminal, fluid and ambiguous gender and sexual identities.

This dissertation explores theological anthropology through an interdisciplinary, critical-correlational conversation using a qualitative approach. In so doing, it asks how new lenses and layers of human identity and relationality might shape one's sense of self, sense of relationality, care of self, and capacity to care for others. Furthermore, it argues that one's capacity for empathy, compassion, and connection in (inter)relationships is directly tied to one's own attunement and connection with the various aspects of one's embodied self - (intra)relationship. However, often times pastors/pastoral caregivers do not recognize, listen to, nor care for one's whole (intra/inter-relational) self and negate the relationality with oneself and with others. Additionally, this study examines neuroplasticity within the embodied brain ecosystem and one's performative ability to "story" oneself holistically through the use of practices of wellness - attunement, nourishment, movement, rest and renewal, and relationships - as an intentional use of motor learning, motor training, and procedural memory. The research suggests that such practices have the potential to impact one's sense of self, relationality with others and God, and one's ability to care for others - and may induce neuroplasticity. Ultimately, this project presents four organizing categories, or constellation of lenses, for rethinking the human person consisting of: (1) multilayered, embodied ontology, (2) intra/inter-connected relationality, (3) performative and transformative capacity, and (4) prophetic teleology each of which mutually inform and reform one another in ongoing, dynamic ways. Taken together, this understanding challenges pastoral theologians and caregivers to ask how we might continue to develop our capacity to image Christ and provide care as we strive to love God, love our neighbor, and love ourselves in all our particularities.

This project's goal is to offer suggestions regarding prioritization and realignment of the identity and functions of regional ministers in these new and rapidly changing times. Utilizing survey results and follow-up interviews with several regional ministers of the CC(DoC), ministry role and/or function reprioritization strategies will be identified which result in ministry which more effectively connects, strengthens, and grows congregations and/or intra-congregational ministries. Specifically, effective "connections" would be demonstrated by an increase in congregations (or individuals/groups from different congregations) working together toward common ministry goals. "Strengthening" of ministry would be demonstrated by an increased resiliency in recovery from financial setbacks, contextual changes, and unexpected events (such as natural and/or human-made disasters). "Growth" in ministry would be demonstrated by an increase in the number of people and congregations actively involved in ministry endeavors, both individually and in coordination with one another.

Religious environmentalism is a growing expression of religious praxis in the United States. This engagement reflects a theologically informed commitment for facing the ecological challenges of our planetary home, and participation in the creation of a world where both humanity and the natural world can flourish. This dissertation explores the interconnected nature of human and ecological flourishing through following three congregationally based religious environmental groups. Using ethnographic methods, the experiences of these cohorts during specific stages of their work together were gathered for a critical dialogue between ecological discourses, theological discourses, and the groups' praxis. Observing the experiences of the three cohorts and inquiring how they connect their faith to ecological activism invited reflection upon the theological shifts that took place for the group members after incorporating this kind of praxis into their faith. This project uses the construct of hoping paradigms to illustrate the connection between the belief systems of the groups and their ecologically transformative praxis. These hoping paradigms are funded by theological anthropologies highlighting the interconnected nature of all life, and by eschatologies honoring the physically interrelated nature of the universe throughout time. The ecologically attuned spiritual praxis of the participating groups suggests that pastoral theological engagement with human experience must account for the flourishing of the ecological systems on which our shared life depends, and foster an expanded understanding of relational justice that widens to include ecological relationality. For pastoral theologies to be planetary in scope, they must be informed by ecological dimensions of human experience, and view care as critically engaging with the various circles of life that form the basis for our common flourishing. Through highlighting how the experiences of these cohorts catalyzed change in their local communities, ecologically concerned portions of the wider church may find their own hopes for transforming ecologically destructive social imaginaries refreshed.