The term humanism has been employed by numerous writers and critics throughout the twentieth-century. Seldom, however, has usage been unambiguous or consistent. In reality, America has given birth to a number of distinctive forms of humanism, some of which have religious connotations. This study offers a definitional prolegomenon of humanism, develops an original typology for religious humanism, and explains how humanism (including secular humanism) can be treated as a bona fide religion. Further chapters explore the impact of religious humanism on American culture and show the many ways in which it has been appropriated and transformed by a host of eminent thinkers. Among the most notable exponents of religious humanism treated in the study are: John Dewey, Walter Lippman, Bertrand Russell, Walter Kaufman, and Joseph Wood Krutch. Separate chapters treat humanism's historical roots and the criticisms leveled at the movement by both conservative Christian and secular writers. / The author maintains that religious humanism may best be explained as a complex phenomena with two identities: the doctrinal and the practical. Doctrinal religious humanism has sectarian features and its principles reflect statements found in the Humanist Manifestos. Practical humanism is an un-selfconscious, unstructured worldview which shares certain features in common with Doctrinal humanism but lacks its confessional quality. / Failing to recognize important differences between the several types of humanism, the religious right charges that all humanists--even those whose sole purpose is to support the "humanities--are dangerous and subversive. This study demonstrates that humanism is a multi-facted, individualistic aspect of American culture which poses little threat to anyone. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-09, Section: A, page: 3021. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

An examination was made of Clive Staples Lewis's concept of Christianity as "myth become fact," in light of the "quest for the historical Jesus" movement of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Chapter One included a basic overview of Lewis's literary output, as well as a specific examination of the various theological and literary influences on Lewis's life and thought. / Chapter Two explored Lewis's approach to the concept of "myth" in both literature and religion, illustrating how this concept of myth was a major factor in Lewis's conversion to Christianity. Lewis's views of the complex nature of myth, as well as his insights concerning Christianity's relation to the mythic elements in both pagan mythology and Hebrew thought were analyzed. Also examined was Lewis's distinction between the roles of the mythical in the Old and New Testaments. / Chapter Three considered the results of New Testament Biblical scholarship in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, providing the background for a clearer concept of Lewis's own views of the nature of the historical Jesus and Lewis's awareness and criticism of New Testament research. / Chapter Four inspected in detail Lewis's own reaction to the "quest for the historical Jesus" movement, examining Lewis's attacks on New Testament scholarship's practise of analyzing various fragments of the Gospels to determine their original meaning. Lewis's view of the Gospel of John as a historical rather than merely theological work, and Lewis's views of modern scholarship's attacks on Jesus's claims to Divinity were also analyzed. Finally, Lewis's concepts of the miraculous and its relation to the modern scientific world view were reviewed. / Chapter Five presented Lewis's own views on the nature of the historical Jesus. Also discussed was Lewis's attempt to recreate the mythic elements of the Christian story in a children's fantasy, The Narnia Chronicles. Finally, a comparison of Lewis's portrayal of his fictional Christ-figure, Aslan, and his views of the historical Jesus was made, drawing out what these parallels signify for Lewis's vision of Christianity as "myth become fact". / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-02, Section: A, page: 0553. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.

The purpose of this study is to examine Samuel S. Hill, Jr.'s analysis of southern culture-religion as primarily presented in his 1966 book Southern Churches in Crisis to see if his assessment of southern religion is still applicable in the 1970's, or whether the religion of the South has undergone change as southern culture has changed. Hill espouses that "popular southern religion," meaning the evangelical, revivalistic, informal, testimonial, conservative religion found in the dominant denominations of the South (Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist), is a culture-religion of the historic South. Thus, southern religion has not changed significantly and in many ways has preserved the old southern culture. However, in recent years the South has undergone numerous changes in mass communication, industrialization, transportation, urbanization, and education. Thus, the question posed is this: as southern culture has experienced change, has the southern religion changed alongside the culture, or has the religion remained attached to the culture of the past? / The method selected of testing Hill's position concerning southern culture-religion was by examining and analyzing the ministries and beliefs of a major influential southern church representing one of the three dominant southern denominations. The church selected was the First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, which is a very large, influential church in the Southern Baptist Convention. / In Hill's analysis he presented numerous elements evident in southern culture-religion; however, only four: evangelism, education, ethics, and race, were selected for this study since these four are more evident, thus providing more accessible data and information for study and comparison. / In one chapter of this paper Hill's positions concerning evangelism, education, ethics, and race are presented. Hill basically states that evangelism is the major emphasis in southern religion, the educational level of southern churches is relatively low, the teaching of ethics is limited primarily to personal ethics, and with the absence a social ethic, the race issue is neglected. In two other chapters the First Baptist Church's beliefs and activities concerning these four elements are presented. / In the concluding chapter a comparison between Hill's positions and First Baptist Church's positions is given. From this comparison the following conclusions are drawn. One, contemporary southern religion is not far removed from the religion of the turn of the century. Two, some changes have occurred in current southern religion. And three, the changes southern religion has experienced stem largely from the transitions that have come about in southern society over the years. Therefore, southern religion is not a static, nonchanging religion. However, southern religion is still a culture-religion, but of a more contemporary type. Also included in the last chapter are suggested topics for further research. / Incorporated in this paper is an appendix which is a transcribed interview with Dr. Hill stating his views on southern religion in 1979. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-01, Section: A, page: 0288. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

A study of the millenarian sect of Jehovah's Witnesses was carried out within the framework of Roy Wallis' reformulation of the church-sect typology. The Jehovah's Witnesses were classified as a sectarian group because they advocate a monopolistic authoritarian posture for universe maintenance and have created a radical millenarian community that is characterized by a deviant belief system. Furthermore, Max Weber's contention that ideas create "world images" that determine the direction in which action is "pushed by the dynamic of interest" was used to show that millenarianism has been the ideological switchman for many doctrinal and organizational changes among Jehovah's Witnesses. This thesis was developed over against the view of James Beckford and others who believe that the millennial vision of Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the sect, was "largely determined by the organizational form" of the Watch Tower Society. Finally, the study sought to further specify the monumental contributions made by Joseph Zygmunt, Alan Rogerson, and James Beckford to the scholarly analysis of the Jehovah's Witness sect. / Chapter two discusses the life of Charles Russell in the light of his nineteenth century background. He was a theologian of the Industrial Revolution or Gilded Age of American history who became a charismatic quasi-prophetic figure among his disciples. / Chapter three describes the transformation of the original democratic, loosely organized Bible Students into the totalitarian Jehovah's Witness sect. Joseph F. Rutherford made Russell's future millennial theocracy the realized eschatological government of the Jehovah's Witnesses during the present age. He accomplished this by using the Watch Tower Society as the organizational structure for theocratic rule. Rutherford's work has been implemented by his successors. / Chapter four undertakes a systematic analysis of Russell's millenarian views. It demonstrates that his "Plan of the Ages" was a mutation of the apocalyptic millenarian tradition known as the Advent movement. Russell was a religious muckraker who became an articulate spokesman on the bearing industrialism had on human misery and poverty and he presented a scenario of world conditions that was gleaned not only from reading the press but also from personal observations he made while traveling extensively both at home and abroad. The later modifications that were added to his millenarian theology by his successors are also discusssed. / Chapter five gives attention to how the Witnesses have reacted during crises of disconfirmation. Although many individual believers have faltered at times, the Watch Tower Society has never fallen completely apart. It has managed to counter the effects of cognitive dissonance by ambiguously worded prophecies, by predicting supernatural, non-empirical events, by after-the-fact reinterpretations of prophecies, by increased proselytizing activities following apparent instances of disconfirmation, and by periodic alternations between short- and long-term millenarian perspectives. / Chapter six examines the effect of the Witnesses' millenarian views on the formation of their deviant theology, with special attention given to the nature of man, the person and work of Christ, the Godhead, and the church. / Chapter seven shows that the millenarian New World Society of Jehovah's Witnesses offers a broad appeal that cuts across class differences, provides a "plausibility structure" for religious values that have gone awry, and affords "community and comradeship" among those who share deviant beliefs in a hostile environment. / The Jehovah's Witnesses are intent on remaining a deviant religious group with a distinctive millenarian message. Moreover, the world seems to be gradually accepting their sect as a valid religious collectivity. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-02, Section: A, page: 0703. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

While Markan scholarship has paid attention to certain geographical features, Markan spatial references as a whole have not been systematically investigated. This study considers all the spatial designations of the Markan gospel in their interrelations and proposes a pattern of their narrative presentation. The approach taken is based on an adaptation of the methodology of French structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss for analyzing myth as the progressive mediation of a fundamental opposition. A Levi-Straussian model of myth conceives of a mythic text as comprised of various levels, or "orders," which are transformations of each other and of the underlying structure common to them all. This study assumes that a mythic structure may also be operative in a text like Mark which is not, strictly speaking, a myth and seeks to elucidate the mythic structure underlying one of the "orders" of the Gospel of Mark--the spatial order. / After a brief look at other approaches to "space" in the Gospel of Mark (chapter II), attention is given to both the chronological sequence and the theoretical schema of each suborder--geopolitical, topographical, architectural (chapters III, IV, V) and of the integrated spatial order (chapter VI). The relationship of structural exegesis to traditional exegesis is suggested in general terms (chapter I), and specific comments on the relation of the present structural exegesis to redaction critical, literary, or structuralist criticism of Mark are offered (chapter VII). In seeking to locate within a spatial system the action reported and projected in the Markan narrative, the reader may be better able to locate within a theological system the meaning manifested in the Markan gospel. / The fundamental opposition presupposed by the spatial order of the Gospel of Mark, order vs. chaos, is narratively manifest in a series of oppositions moving toward mediation: heaven vs. earth, land vs. sea, Jewish homeland vs. foreign lands, Galilee vs. Judea, isolated areas vs. inhabited areas, house vs. synagogue, environs of Jerusalem vs. Jerusalem proper, Mount of Olives vs. Temple, tomb vs. mountain, the "way." Geopolitically, the opposition Galilee vs. Judea is pivotal, for the traditional values which are assumed up to this point are reversed in the Markan association of Judea, home of the Jewish capital and the Jewish temple, with chaos and Galilee with order. Architecturally, by the close of the gospel no space functions as expected: a house is no longer a family dwelling but has become a gathering place for the new community, replacing the rejected and rejecting synagogue; the temple is no longer a space separating sacred and profane and will become but a rubble of stones not one on another; the tomb is no longer the prison of the dead--dark and closed, but--empty and open--the threshold of renewed life. Topographically, the way or road (hodos) provides both a unifying framework and the key mediation. The threat of the sea, the threat of miracle-seeking crowds and of inflexible religious leaders from inhabited areas, the threat of the tomb--all are met in Jesus by the promise of renewed communication between heaven and earth in the wilderness, on the mountain, and on the way. Hodos signals not so much another place as movement itself. The mediation of chaos and order is a dynamic process, not a static state; it is known in the experience of being on the way. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: A, page: 1088. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

This study clarifies the theoretical issues of the relationship between science and religious thought, and establishes models for how they relate in practice, using Darwinism as a case study. After describing four methods for analyzing the general relationship between science and religion, four models are established which can be used to organize the ways science and religion do relate in practice. The key to establishing the models is the hermeneutical approach taken, and it is argued that the approach must be based on the specific issues raised by the scientific theory under consideration. Darwin's theory of evolution culminated an epistemological and methodological revolution in modern science. Religious and scientific thinkers are analyzed in terms of how they responded to that revolution. When this approach is taken, a historical continuity between nineteenth- and twentieth-century responses is established. "Religion Against Darwinism" opposes the epistemology of Darwinian science, and the opponents describe Darwinism as bad science as well as atheism. "Religion Of Darwinism" embraces the modern scientific method, and looks to it to supply the religious meaning in life. "Religion and Darwinisticism in Concert" accepts some aspects of Darwinian evolution, but synthesizes Darwinism and religion in a broader philosophical system that "corrects" either the epistemology or content of Darwin's theory. "Religion Above Darwinism" represents the true Darwinian position, for it accepts the epistemological pluralism that is the essence of Darwin's method and theory. The conclusion argues that these four models, focusing on the religious response to the epistemological and methodological issues, can be used to analyze the relationship between religious thought and any scientific theory. There may be a fifth model which recognizes the epistemological plurality of human knowledge, but which bridges those spheres through the use of metaphors in religious thought. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-04, Section: A, page: 1004. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 35-08, Section: A, page: 5512. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1974.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 36-01, Section: A, page: 0354. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1975.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 37-12, Section: A, page: 7800. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 38-04, Section: A, page: 2183. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1977.