In recent years, the relationship between religion and Enlightenment, traditionally cast in opposition to one another, has received increasing reconsideration. Scholars now recognise that even orthodox religion played a central role within the Enlightenment project. This development has marked a paradigm shift in Atlantic world and Enlightenment historiography. However, while the relationship between religion and Enlightenment has been greatly clarified, there remain major gaps in our understanding of the nature and parameters of this relationship. This thesis contributes to the understanding of religion’s function within Enlightenment thought and practice through a case study of the colonial missionary work of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK). Using primary sources such as institutional records, sermons, journals, diaries and letters, it examines evangelism within the framework of the Enlightenment. The study demonstrates first how both the founders of the SSPCK and the Society’s most fervent advocates of missionary work in the colonies were simultaneously the foremost leaders of the British and American Enlightenment. It then traces the implications of this religious Enlightenment dynamic, illuminating not only the ambitions of the Society’s leadership but also certain contours of intimate encounters between Native Americans, Native Christians and white missionaries. As the SSPCK’s missionary endeavours demonstrate, the relationship between evangelism and Enlightenment not only changed all individuals and institutions involved. It also transformed the very landscape of British Protestant religion. This assessment points to the overarching conclusion that the Enlightenment shaped the very foundation of modern missions. In the process, however, British Atlantic Protestants of many different varieties wove the discourse of the Enlightenment into the tapestry of their understanding of evangelism as a primary means of identity formation, both personally and institutionally. Historiographically, this research forces a reexamination of the nuances of the religious Enlightenment. It also problematizes the static (albeit dominant) interpretation of evangelicalism by observing its emergence in light of the broader conditions of British Atlantic Protestantism.

This dissertation examines the evangelicalism of Alexander Carson (ca. 1776- 1844) using David Bebbington's evangelical quadrilateral--biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism--as a framework. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to the study and a biographical sketch of Carson's life and ministry. Chapter 2 examines Carson's view of Scripture in the areas of inspiration, Bible translation, and the transmission of Scripture. Carson's views on the inspiration of Scripture and the principles by which it was to be translated were given within the context of the theological controversies in which he was involved. Chapter 3 examines Carson's view of the atonement. It looks at his understanding of humanity's sin, divine justice and mercy, God's sovereignty, and the completed nature of the atonement. Chapter 4 is a study of Carson's understanding of how people are converted. The chapter discusses his views on the definition of saving faith, the relation between faith and works, the conversion experience, and the divine role in conversion. Chapter 5 looks at Carson's views on evangelism in four areas: the use of the Bible in evangelism, the importance of religious liberty to evangelize, the role of divine providence in evangelism, and the Christian's duty to evangelize. Although the four characteristics of evangelicalism set forth by Bebbington do not include other areas of theology important to Carson, such as his views on baptism and church order, the quadrilaterial does focus on what Carson believed to be central to Christianity, namely, the gospel. Therefore, considering Bebbington's quadrilateral to be a sound framework for understanding Carson's view of the gospel, the thesis of this study is that Carson's belief in the Bible as a verbally and completely inspired text was an infallible source for his understanding of the gospel as being centered upon the atonement, effective through justification by faith alone, and the motivation for evangelism. / This dissertation was under embargo until 2014-05-23.

The purpose of this creative project is to report on the beginning stage of a heuristic analysis project. The purpose is to examine the problem of declining marriage numbers that face the Protestant Evangelical community, and address that dilemma in the design criteria of an online dating website. Clarifying values will be part of the analysis of the Evangelical culture inequities. In particular, by assessing Evangelical culture to form the basis of site design, and making recommendations of action that can free it from its current constraints with respect to online dating. A study of the Marry Well Website will include investigating the perceived problems by the laity in connection with online dating. The research here is predictive in nature, in that the study creates a set of questions that can set in motion further research. / Department of Telecommunications

American historians tend to oppose modernity and modern religion to pre-modern and traditional faith, a binary that has privileged certain religious forms and displays of sacredness over others. This thesis challenges the structuring dichotomy of modernity by arguing that Protestant evangelical revivals were sites on which modernity was made, defined, contested, and remade at the end of the nineteenth century. Examining the major revivals of Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday, among others, it rejects grand narratives and insists on understanding revival campaigns as existing in a braided relationship with the secular public sphere: one player in a symbolic marketplace where various partisans attempted to demonstrate that they were uniquely modern. This modernity was constructed through multiple categories of gender, age, class, ethnicity, and race, linking claims of modernity to common-sense masculinity, idealized family roles, and Anglo-Saxon identity as site upon which Americanness was made. / Graduate / 0320 / 0337 / 0330 / barak65@hotmail.com

American historians tend to oppose “modernity” and “modern religion” to pre-modern and “traditional” faith, a binary that has privileged certain religious forms and displays of sacredness over others. This thesis challenges the structuring dichotomy of modernity by arguing that Protestant evangelical revivals were sites on which “modernity” was made, defined, contested, and remade at the end of the nineteenth century. Examining the major revivals of Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday, among others, it rejects grand narratives and insists on understanding revival campaigns as existing in a braided relationship with the “secular” public sphere: one player in a symbolic marketplace where various partisans attempted to demonstrate that they were uniquely “modern.” This “modernity” was constructed through multiple categories of gender, age, class, ethnicity, and race, linking claims of “modernity” to common-sense masculinity, idealized family roles, and Anglo-Saxon identity as site upon which “Americanness” was made. / Graduate / 0320 / 0337 / 0330 / barak65@hotmail.com

The Jesus People movement arose in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Achieving its initial strength in California, this unique combination of the hippie counterculture and evangelical Christianity eventually spread to many parts of the country and briefly attracted a great deal of contemporary media and scholarly attention. Fading from the cultural spotlight rather quickly and eventually disappearing in the late 1970s, little attention was paid to the Jesus People in subsequent decades as both scholars of American religion and culture tended to either overlook the movement, or dismiss it entirely. This project argues that a closer re-examination of the entirety of the Jesus People phenomena--and not just its transitory period of 'California-heavy' media popularity--reveals that it was one of the most significant national religious movements of the postwar period. The Jesus People impacted both great numbers of young people in the counterculture as well as many young evangelical church youth who adopted the Jesus People persona and made it their own. Just as the lives of a significant number of 'Baby Boomers' were shaped by the counterculture, so the Jesus People movement was another of the major formative forces among American youth who came of age in the late 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, its influence remained significant within the American evangelical subculture in the decades that followed. Not only did burgeoning new groups such as the Calvary Chapel and Vineyard movements originate in the movement, but the Jesus People paved the way for the huge 'Contemporary Christian Music industry' and signalled a new relaxed relationship between evangelicalism and youth culture. Upon reexamination, it is clear that the Jesus People movement played an important role in the resurgence of American evangelicalism in the late twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries.

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, 1988. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-166).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 1987. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-157).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Mobile, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-121).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2008. / Thesis directed by George M. Marsden for the Department of History. "March 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 409-461).