Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Connecticut, 2007. / (UMI)AAI3265800. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-05, Section: A, page: 2029. Adviser: Francoise Dussart.

<p> This study explores the attractions that make for a successful ministry among Jews, and the hindrances that have impeded, and continue to impede, that mission. It begins with an overview of the theological, historical and missiological frameworks of this ministry, and then introduces the results of fieldwork done in Israel through interviews, case studies, observations, focus groups, and surveys, supplemented by other relevant literature that, altogether, forms a data base for strategizing future missionary work. </p><p> Non-believing Jews and Jews who had accepted Yeshua&mdash;so called Messianic Jews were asked what motivated them to either accept Yeshua as the Messiah or to reject him. From their responses the researcher has established a list of eighty-seven attractions. Among the most important inducements to conversion are: reading the New Testament, discovering Yeshua the Jew, and a witnessing friend or family member. Parallel with this list of attractions, the researcher has compiled a list of forty-five hindrances (theological, historical and sociological), among which are, most importantly: family opposition, fear of giving up one's Jewish identity, Christian doctrines (trinity, supersessionism&hellip;) and the Church's traditional anti-Judaism. </p><p> A second focus is on leadership. Here the researcher explores the differences between a secular and religious leader; the necessity of an effective training; and the need for contextual preparation, in which the Mission to the Jews is undertaken by persons who are equipped to effectively lead in a cross-cultural ministry and contextualized congregations. </p><p> \This leads us to our third focus, on contextual issues. A ministry among Jews must be a contextualized ministry. It is supported in this study by a presentation of a positive view of Jews and a friendly Christian theology based on the awareness of the Jewishness of Yeshua, which is one of the first attractions for Jews. </p><p> This study concludes with recommendations and applications to leaders of the World Jewish Adventist Friendship Center, which minister to Jews. Jews don't lose their own Jewish identity in accepting Jesus but fulfill themselves in the Messiah, which, pragmatically, means retaining Jewish rituals that are compatible with Yeshua's message.</p>

<p> This dissertation explores the reconfiguration of Syriac Orthodox liturgical tradition among Aramaic-speaking Christian refugees in the Netherlands. Under the pressures of Dutch integration policy and the global politics of secular recognition, the Syriac liturgy is rapidly losing its significance as the central axis of social life and kinship-relations in the Syriac Orthodox diaspora. As such, it has become a site for debate over how to be religiously, culturally, and ethnically distinct despite the narrative binary of Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East that dominates Dutch multiculturalism discourse. Every week, young Syriac Orthodox women and men congregate at their churches to practice singing the liturgy in classical Syriac. What they sing, and how they decide to sing it, mediates their experiments in religious and ethical reinvention, with implications for their efforts at political representation. Singers contend not only with conditions of inaudibility produced by histories of ethnic cleansing, migration, and assimilation, but also with the fragments of European Christianity that shape the sensory regime of secular modernity. Public debates over the integration of religious minorities illuminate this condition of fragmentation, as well as the contest over competing conceptions of ethical personhood inherent in the politics of pluralism in Europe.</p>

<p> This thesis examines a Taiwanese Pentecostal church's engagement with the Chinese restaurant business in southern California and its cultural significance in today's transnational world. This thesis provides insight into how the Taiwanese Pentecostal church creates a transnational imagined community for negotiating religious identity through business practices and constructs a ''third place" among consumers of Chinese food in southern California. This thesis seeks to fill the gap in literature on Pentecostalism by arguing the Taiwanese Pentecostal church's restaurant business can be seen as a new form of Pentecostal expression emerging in the global era of the 21st century. Its flourishing restaurant business facilitates its transnational outreach and networks and thus suggests a new dimension of religious transnationalism. This thesis provides a framework for examining these networks and understanding how indigenized Taiwanese Pentecostal churches engage in business to survive in today's competitive global market of religion.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 4015. Advisers: Richard Bauman; Roger L. Janelli. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 7, 2008).

<p> From 1914 to 1990, Assemblies of God (AG) church planting efforts in Africa produced approximately ten thousand local churches and two million adherents. Since 1990, African Assemblies of God (AAG) churches emphasized ambitious church planting initiatives resulting in the addition of approximately fifty-four thousand local churches and fourteen million believers. This study examines the narratives of AAG church planters in West Africa to ascertain those factors influencing their church planting perceptions and activities in relation to Pentecostal missiology, the sociocultural context, leadership, and organizational development. </p><p> In order to discover those factors influencing church multiplication and growth, interview narratives of twelve leaders and fifty-one AAG church planters in West Africa were examined, delimited to the Anglophone context of Nigeria and the Francophone context of Togo. Using a qualitative data collection and analysis process known as grounded theory methodology, I discovered those factors that influence the perceptions and activities of church planters in the contexts of the study. </p><p> The findings show that church planters experience transformation in Christ and seek the transformation of their past, represented in the village, by planting new churches of transformed converts. This is a process of "backwarding" the Gospel to the village. These efforts lead to a renewal of the African self in a search for true belonging, enabling redemption of the African past and reclamation of the African future through Christ in Spirit empowerment. Church planting results in the local AAG church being a place of belonging and belonging to a place. This is described as ecclesiastical belonging, dimensionalized accordingly as proximal church planting, accessible church planting, and assimilation church planting. Belonging in these contexts is experiential through Gospel proclamation in Spirit empowerment to meet African aspirations to experience the divine. Additionally, belonging is relational, for the local AAG belongs to a global Pentecostal faith community.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Religious Studies, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 19, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-03, Section: A, page: 1023. Advisers: Robert A. Orsi; Jan Nattier.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1856. Adviser: Andrew Orta. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 264-281) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:21:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luis Guilherme Vieira Allegro.pdf: 496551 bytes, checksum: a55ce0430c845a9cc25c3e05b66c2df8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-06-28 / This dissertation aims at following the emergence of issues concerning human feelings through the works of Edgar Morin by delving into the vortex which makes up mankind and going as far as the ethics and the utopia unfolded by the complexity theory. Love will also be addressed as part of these reflections / Esta dissertação acompanhar a emergência da problemática da afetividade humana ao longo da obra de Edgar Morin, realizando uma incursão que parte do turbilhão afetivo constituinte do homem e se estende até a ética e a utopia vislumbradas a partir do pensamento complexo. Nesse percurso, será destacada também a questão do amor

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:56:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luis Guilherme Vieira Allegro.pdf: 496551 bytes, checksum: a55ce0430c845a9cc25c3e05b66c2df8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-06-28 / This dissertation aims at following the emergence of issues concerning human feelings through the works of Edgar Morin by delving into the vortex which makes up mankind and going as far as the ethics and the utopia unfolded by the complexity theory. Love will also be addressed as part of these reflections / Esta dissertação acompanhar a emergência da problemática da afetividade humana ao longo da obra de Edgar Morin, realizando uma incursão que parte do turbilhão afetivo constituinte do homem e se estende até a ética e a utopia vislumbradas a partir do pensamento complexo. Nesse percurso, será destacada também a questão do amor