This thesis addresses the lack of attention to practices that take place in settings not considered primarily religious, such as life-cycle rituals in the growing body of literature on religious practices of recently emerging African diaspora communities in the West. It argues that these practices are not only filters for indigenous African religious beliefs but also furnish for African migrants contexts that perform functions similar to those performed by the formal African diaspora religious institutions. Using ethnography, the study investigated the role of death rituals in the lives of Ghanaian members of the United Ghanaians Association of South Florida. The findings show that funerals organized in South Florida for relatives of members of the Association enable this trans-migrant community to participate in the lives of their relatives in Ghana. Funerals also furnish for these migrants contexts for performing aspects of their culture helping to cultivate a shared sense of being together or identity, in the process. The study suggests that to understand the full dynamics of African migrant religious experience, a respectful attention must be paid to all the rites of passage that African migrants perform in the West, not only those within formal religious institutions.

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This study has attempted to investigate the radical change in the Greater Portland Council of Churches’ (GPCC’s) organizational goals and actions--from its relative uninvolvement over to its preoccupation with local social, political and economic issues. In the past, classical sociological theory of religion has placed great emphasis on religion’s integrative, or conservative functions in society. Empirical studies have documented the conservative socio-political views of the majority of Protestant parishioners. Knowing this, I expected to find a significant conservative reaction swelling up from the lay parishioners of the GPCC's member congregations. A preliminary investigation revealed this assumption to be invalid. The study's sociological problem then became: (1) What was the true character of the GPCC’s member reaction to the organization's abrupt change to liberal action goals? (2) If there was a minimum of conservative reaction, as indicated, what are the sociological reasons 'for this unexpected condition? Further investigation showed that in the later 1960’s, as the GPCC’s social action involvements reached a climax, the GPCC also publicly reinstituted older, congregational-centered programs that have been neglected for several years. This dual action suggested the study's hypothesis: An investigation of the relationship between the GPCC's change to liberal action involvements and its attempts to neutralize lay members' conservative reactions would shed light upon the GPCC’s self-insulation from conservative opposition. Three basic strategies were used to gather data: (1) organizational records, (2) observation, and (3) personal, in-depth interviews. Files and records were used largely to confirm and amplify interview data. I observed the GPCC and three of the church Community Action Programs by regularly attending their meetings for approximately two years, 1969-1971. The largest amount of data was secured from interviewing, conducted on a representative sample of 20 active participants in the GPCC. Since the sample was not to be a random one, it was carefully pre-constructed to be representative of the organization's informal structure, i.e., active participants and leadership. When the data revealed the interviewees' unexpectedly mild negative reaction to the GPCC's deep involvement in very controversial socio-political issues, the sample was doubled to a total of 41 actual-interviews for the purpose of checking the original results. A content analysis was used to analyze the data.

Alexander Campbell, a contemporary of Joseph Smith, was the first to publish a critique of the Book of Mormon after actually having read it. Among other allegations, he arraigned that Joseph Smith wrote the book to resolve, with a voice of prophecy, theological issues contemporary to its publication. This study undertakes to examine Campbell's charge with regard to atonement doctrine. To assess the statement, this study first identifies the controversies about atonement doctrine in the years prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon, in the Northeastern region of the United States. It then compares the teachings inherent to those controversies to Book of Mormon atonement doctrine. This study concludes that the doctrine in the Book of Mormon does appear to resolve some of the controversies surrounding the doctrine of the atonement in the time and place relative to its publication. However, on other important points of controversy, it does not resolve the issues. Furthermore, as it expounds atonement doctrine, it combines concepts in ways not germane to its environment. It does not fit any model of soteriology that was prevalent in the time period and place of its original publication.

Luke's record of Paul in Athens is among the most interesting and widely studied topics in the life of the Apostle Paul. Luke recorded that Paul taught in the Athenian marketplace, where he was asked to present his doctrines before the Areopagus. Many have commented on the controversial aspects of Paul's speech before the council as recounted by Luke. Much of this scholarly commentary has been centered on the speech itself and the historical authenticity of the account. The purpose of this thesis is to reexamine the context and the setting of the speech as recorded by Luke in the biblical text. By reexamining the context of the speech, this thesis will help clarify Paul's purpose in engaging in philosophical dialogue with his audience while omitting the profound Christocentric doctrines as found in the Pauline Epistles. This thesis argues that an understanding of the setting and the audience played a pivotal role in the content of the Areopagus speech. Paul's audience was very different than the one he was writing to in his Epistles; therefore, the speech matches the setting and the audience. This thesis demonstrates the significance of the audience by examining Paul's education before his conversion to Christianity, whether Paul was taken before the Areopagus on trial, what the functions of the Areopagus were over its history, where Paul was taken to explain his doctrine, and what role the audience played in how and what Paul taught on that occasion.

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The problem to which this study is directed is the need for a better understanding of the current status of the salaries of ministers and their significance in the life of the individual minister, the local churches they serve, and the conference of which they are a part. The study was limited to the California-Nevada Conference of the Methodist Church and its antecedent, the California Conference, during the period 1941 to 1952. The author is a minister in this conference.

<p>The Bhagavadgītā, the most popular religious text of Hinduism, has become the social and political gospel of India in the Twentieth Century. What is attempted in this study is an examination of the Hindu religious consciousness as reflected in the various recent interpretations of this religious text. In this, we have examined the writings of Twentieth Century national and religious leaders of India and their reinterpretations of the age-old Hindu concepts of dharma, karma and mukti. The main line pursued is to discern the attempt by the moderns to integrate dharma and mukti and to render the message of the Gītā relevant to the problems of contemporary India. We examine this attempt by these national leaders against the background of recent ideologies such as nationalism, socialism and secularism that have made deep inroads into the sub-continent. The "counter-ideologies" (à la Harry M. Johnson) that sprang up from the new interpretations of the Gītā by national leaders such as B.G. Tilak, M.K. Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo and others are examined in depth. The modern commentators also attempt to relate the teachings of the Gītā to the needs of a modern secular society, and in particular to the problems of religious pluralism which confront modern India. These commentators however, did not limit the relevance of this text to India, but have been eager to point out its relevance for a wider humanity.</p> <p>This study aims to be both descriptive and critical. I have sought to describe what modern Indian thinkers selected as essential to the tradition and have also sought to understand their determination to come to terms with not only spiritual but also national and social issues. It is clear that they understood that reconstruction work in India could not be envisaged without giving it a basis in religious tradition which in their mind was most succinctly represented by the Bhagavadgītā. The writer after critical study, has come to the conclusion that these commmentaries taken together have successfully pointed out the significance of the Bhagavadgītā as a text that can accommodate varieties, and as a text which, without losing the clarity and rigour of its central spiritual perception, can provide legitimation, for the social and political forces that underlie a secular state.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>More than simply a backdrop, the forest in the Mahabharata and Ramayaoa is one of three central environments in the Hindu epics, and of the three is easily the setting which most frequently shapes the epic action. By studying the forest, the people who pass through it and their activities there, a new perspective on Hindu epic narrative is gained.</p> <p>The central thesis of this study is that the tripartite process of transformation, first observed in rites of passage, operates in the forest-related sections of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the middle or threshold phase of that process centering in the forest. The forest, then, acts as a threshold across which the epic heroes and heroines pass as they move from one lift-stage to another, or as is more often the case, from one state of existence to another.</p> <p>For example, in the early adventures of both Rama and Laksmana. . and the Pandava brothers, the heroes move from ... the brahmacarya life-stage to the grhastha life-stage. Similarly both Nala and Damayanti reflect this transfermative process: Nala as he moves from being a ritually impure, possessed, insane king to a purified, liberated, sane king; Damayanti as she moves from being the wife of a madman to the wife of a just, powerful ruler. Damayanti 's transition is more dramatic than first appears for in epic India a woman had very few life options, thus a disastrous marriage meant that she was as good as dead. Both Draupadi and sit~ cross forest thresholds similar to Damayanti's. The Pandava brothers and Rama also cross similar forest thresholds. Their movement from a state of peace to a state of war occurs primarily during the forest exiles common to both epics. Finally, while they dwell in the forest threshold, the epic religious heroes and heroines par excellence, the tapas-doing ascetics, move from a state of existence in which they are subject to death to a state of immortality. This last process, the movement from mundane, profane sphere to sacred sphere, provides a pattern useful for further understanding the forest activities of Rama and the Pandavas.</p> <p>In studying these various movements between states of existence, characteristics of the threshold phase of these processes emerge. In the case of Pandava the dynamic movement of the threshold is stressed, celibacy, communists, pilgrimage and the intersection of mythic and heroic planes are the central characteristics. In the case of Rama, when the more static ideal nature of the threshold is stressed, the dual modality of Nowhere and Source is the central characteristic. These characteristics themselves become tools with which to understand some of the intricacies of epic narrative.</p> <p>More importantly by focusing on the forest, an essential difference between the Mahabharata and the Ramayana can be explored. And this is certainly one of the most important contributions of this study. Very few investigations have endeavored to treat both of the Hindu epics. The reasons for this are complex, but I suspect that to confront the whole of both epics is impossible because of their vastness, while to choose a perspective from which to see both epics simultaneously without trivializing is difficult. The forest in the Mahabharata and Ramayana provides a substantial perspective and thus a study of it is helpful in understanding the meanings of the Hindu epics.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis approaches the connection of the experience of sound/music and the experience of religion. The investigation applies a methodology of lens analysis, using the religious and mystical theories of Rudolf Otto and William James, to the case-study of Mantric chanting in a contemporary diasporic, orthopractic tradition of Sikh mysticism--3HO Kundalini Yoga. It is concluded that the experiences of sound/music and of religion are connected insofar as they are intrinsically corporeal experiences that exhibit a paradoxical immersive transcendence; Immersive because of how inescapably corporeally based they are, and yet transcendent because of how they can transport one’s consciousness to states of knowing, feeling, and understanding that are camouflaged from ordinary (non-musical, non-religious) mundane corporeal experiences.