The subject of this study is the identity of the Jewish Christian teachers in Galatians and their alternative gospel. This investigation concerns their origins, their theology, and their place in Second Temple Judaism and Jewish Christianity. It is discovered that they are not "legalists" or reducible to mere "opponents" of Paul. Instead, the teachers are Jewish Christian charismatic nomists proclaiming their interpretation of the gospel to the Galatians. In Chapter One, a history of research on the identification of the teachers is presented from the patristic period to the modern period. Programmatic issues are developed which provide direction and parameters for this study. Chapter Two examines the teachers' historical origins and their own "apostolic" authority as well as their relation to Paul. The chapter also investigates the teachers' understanding of Abraham and the covenant of circumcision, as well as their use of Moses and the Sinai covenant. In Chapter Three the soteriology and the christology of the teachers' gospel are developed. Their gospel's use of the Law (nomos) as a medium of charismatic revelations (pneuma) is examined. The function of circumcision and the calendar for accessing heavenly revelations is explored. The teachers' christology is seen to portray Jesus as a Teacher of the Law whose "law of Christ" provides the hermeneutic by which selective obedience to the Law is determined. Chapter Four attempts to locate the teachers and their tradition in Jewish and Jewish Christian history and sources. Jewish intertestamental literature, including the pseudepigrapha and Qumran sources, is investigated. Also, the teachers' specific relationship to the Jerusalem community--the "pillars" and the pseudadelphoi is examined. Other Jewish Christian law-observant traditions similar to the teachers' tradition are located in Colossians, the Kergymata Petrou, and the Book of Elkesai. The teachers are shown to be Jewish Christian charismatic nomists with an integral gospel and independent Gentile mission. They are part of a Torah-observant tradition within the Jesus Movement which offered the venerable and wondrous Jewish Torah to the Gentiles as a means for experiencing greater degrees of charismatic life in the Spirit.

Despite the remarkable economic prosperity of the 1990's, Americans purchased enormous numbers of evangelical prophecy novels that specialized in depictions of impending destruction. This phenomenon might appear counterintuitive, as the New Economy, driven by rapid technological development, materially enhanced the lives of many. The economic expansion, however, also revealed cultural fissures indicating deeper concerns about the self and the possibility of its absorption into the technological matrix. Evangelical prophecy writers responded with texts that while deceptively banal, nevertheless made the incomprehensible aspects of the emerging global culture appear familiar to their readers, depicting a world in which humans could regain responsibility over their futures. The Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins has emerged as the most popular exemplar of the genre in part due to its ability to address post-Cold War themes among a readership less interested in external threats. While Left Behind uses the same symbols as its predecessors, impugning globalization, multinational capital, and the cultural changes consistent with late modernity, its emphasis shifts towards the perceived effects of such developments upon evangelical identity. As the webs of relationships that bind the world together tighten, the novels speak to the anxieties of many evangelicals who feel their identity threatened. Most critically, the novels break with a history of resignation and inaction, proposing a means of resistance against the forces of globalization. The overarching response in Left Behind, however, is more problematic than those advocated by previous novelists, both for evangelicals and others in North American culture. Faced with the twin dangers of isolationism and over-accommodation, the novels suggest different possibilities. The first foregrounds faith, and accepts the ambiguity inherent in contemporary life, while the second, more dominant theme advocates a drive for security and certainty that ultimately incorporates the logic of the Beast culture evangelicals seek to resist, further endangering evangelical identity while increasing tensions with non-evangelicals.

The importance of Islam as a religious, cultural, and political force has been too evident in the last decades of the twentieth century to need any emphasis. To reach an understanding of the position and influence of Islam in the world today, it is necessary not only to understand "classical" Islam, but to recognize that Islam is a transforming force. It is more than an old religion, it is a modern day ideology for "changing". At the same time it is, itself, a "changing" ideology. As it attempts to transform its own abode (as well as the entire world), it becomes transformed by the delimiting forces which surround it. Currently Shi'ite Islam deserves particular attention. It is no longer a traditional/traditionalist force vis-a-vis secularist "social reform" confined in its abode (mainly Iran), but an expanding "revolutionary" force. It is revolutionary in its call to all Muslims of the world to "return": to "original Islam", to "self" (from cultural disalienation, dis-assimilation), and to the world which the "eroding acid of modernism/modernization" has severely damaged but not totally destroyed. This study draws attention, through a variety of interpretive techniques, to this complex change and transformation. Part 1 explores individual growth and education in Iran through a series of autobiographical sondages set in the postmodern world. Part 2 features the life and works of an important Shi'ite ideologue who reinterpreted his old faith into a practical ideology in light of modern thought. Part 3 interprets ethnographic observations among Muslim immigrants (and converts) in Houston, Texas. The study concludes by addressing the issue of minority adjustment in exile.

<p> For a variety of reasons, many churches in our cultural moment do not include creeds in their corporate worship. Some associate creeds with the disastrous hubris and overreach of the Modernist church as it attempted to nail down, and be the arbiter of, what is true. Others see them as simply boring and irrelevant relics of a bygone era and style.Yet in their right place, creeds have an important role to play today, framing the story of faith, and declaring the central core of what the local worshipping community holds in common with the church across the ages. Just as the lyrics of a song can seem lifeless without the music, so too, creeds can seem lifeless when extracted out of the life of faith.</p><p> In 2005 I led a team to design a new emerging church worship service for the First Presbyterian Church of Ambler which was called <i>SouthRidge. </i> As the service flourished and the liturgy began to settle into a familiar pattern, I noticed that the service was consistently devoid of creeds. There was a sense that something was missing, yet many in our new, young congregation had a distaste and distrust of prescribed corporate readings said by rote. We wondered if there were new ways of experiencing the Apostles Creed that might make it more accessible to a new generation.</p><p> In 2013 I led a team from our church to explore new ways of experiencing the Apostles' Creed. We developed eight different encounters with the Creed for both corporate worship and on-line resources. In particular, we found the encounter we called a "Creedal Testimony" to be a highly helpful way to experience the Apostles' Creed. This paper examines the history of the Apostles' Creed, the development and use of the eight encounters we created, and evaluates the impact these encounters had on our local community. The paper concludes with some tentative suggestions as to which of these encounters may be most helpful to other faith communities.</p>

<p> Worldwide the Church continues to grow and flourish in the most hostile environments. Today's church provides living proof that Jesus actively, intentionally, and powerfully builds His church. Around the world wherever the Church grows, it is growing through a church planting movement of unprecedented proportions. </p><p> This project proposes to show that church planting in America, as in the rest of the world, is a crucial, strategic, and biblical method for increasing the missional effectiveness of the Assemblies of God (AG). Historically, the AG in the United States has committed to fulfilling the Great Commission through a two-fold emphasis of planting new churches and sending out missionaries to foreign fields. The missional importance of church planting will be demonstrated through research data from over 8,000 AG churches, comparing the spiritual metrics of church plants to existing churches over thirteen years of age. Additionally, research will compare the missional metrics of churches that plant churches with churches that do not engage in planting other churches. </p><p> Today, the AG shows encouraging signs of growth. However, two realities must temper these signs. AG numerical growth as a whole is not keeping up with population trends. Nationwide the number of AG churches per one thousand people continues to decline, and the AG continues to be underrepresented in the growing urban areas. Although the AG should rejoice in God's continued blessings, it must intentionally prioritize proven ways to increase missional effectiveness. God strategically uses the planting of new churches to break new ground for the gospel and increase the harvest.</p>

<p> In this thesis I examine various statements relating to the Jain lay community in the early &Sacute;vet&amacr;mbara texts. My approach is deliberately and consistently historical. The earliest extant &Sacute;vet&amacr;mbara writing presents an almost exclusively negative view of all non-mendicants. In the context of competition with other religious groups to gain the respect and material support of members of the general population, the &Sacute;vet&amacr;mbara mendicants began to compose positive statements about a lay community. Instead of interpreting the key terms and formulations in these early statements anachronistically on the basis of the later and systematized account of lay Jain religiosity, I attempt to trace how the idea of lay Jainism and its distinctive practices gradually came into being. The more familiar account that is often taken as the basis for understanding earlier sources in fact emerges as the end product of this long history.</p><p> This historical reconstruction poses numerous challenges. There is little reliable historical scholarship to draw from in carrying out this investigation. In the absence of a widely accepted account of the formation of the &Sacute;vet&amacr;mbara canon, the dates of the canonical sources that I examine remain uncertain. I argue that by focusing on key passages relating to the Jain lay community it is possible to establish a relative chronology for the composition of some of these passages and for the compilation of some of the texts in which they appear. We can thus observe development in the strategies employed by the mendicants as part of their effort to establish and maintain relations with a community of householders who respected and regularly supported them. What I offer here is a preliminary but important step toward writing a critical and comprehensive history of lay Jainism. More broadly, scholars of monastic religious traditions may be interested in this account of how one group of ascetics in ancient India garnered lay support and developed a role for non-monastic members of the community.</p>

This thesis intends to show how some of the Laudian high church and high Tory clergy of the Restorian era were impelled to reject the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and its consequences for the church because of their close association with the anti-Exclusion policies of the crown in the later years of Charles II. Passive obedience, non-resistance and hereditary divine right were political theories based on scripture, the early church, the sufferings of the early martyrs and of Christ himself. The clergy, as a special class of educated professionals, could advance themselves significantly in their calling by preaching and writing in favour of the currently favourable political ideology of the later Stuarts. Fortified by the glorious deaths of King Charles the Martyr and Archbishop Laud, passive obedience and nonresistance were regarded as vital moral precepts of the Christian faith. The sufferings of the Church of England and its faithful confessors during the Great Rebellion had made anglicanism a martyr faith, passionately held. In this golden age of anglican patristic scholarship, the works of Ignatius of Antioch and Cyprian re-emphasized the conviction that episcopacy was of divine right and an essential part of Christ's church. Political opposition or religious nonconformity were alike considered as sinful and perverse.For the Church of England the double blows of James II's ungrateful treachery and the Revolution itself were shattering shocks. The minority of bishops and clergy who refused the new oaths and accepted deprivation regarded their removal as being as invalid as the deposition of James II. The consecration of Tillotson and the other Revolution 'intruders' caused the nonjuror bishops to go beyond the intended precedents of the Interregnum and to consecrate new bishops in secret. A great controversy was begun by the ousted nonjurors using high sacramental theology, eucharistic doctrine, the apostolic succession of bishops and priests, and the essential independence of the church from the state. The whole relationship of church and state since Henry VIII and Elizabeth was thus radically called in question, and the nonjurors developed a powerful attack on the complying 'Revolution church' more revolutionary than the Revolution itself.The career of George Hickes ideally illustrates the rise of a late restoration divine who strongly supported Charles II. He achieved eminence just before James II attacked the Anglican church's monopoly, defended the church strongly against the king's aggression and took an uncompromising stand against the Revolution settlement in church and state. A clandestine bishop and rigid high churchman of a logically hard, ruthless and consistent mind, Hickes outstandingly represented the nonjurors' position in ecclesiastical matters as well as Jacobitism. He finally opposed Henry Dodwell's return to the established church in 1710 and established his own leadership of the diehard rump of nonjurors and secured further episcopal consecrations to ensure the continuance of the nonjuror schism.

Thesis (PH.D.)--Syracuse University, 2003. / "Publication number AAT 3113229."

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2004. / Adviser: Watts, James W. "Publication number AAT 3160407."

This thesis investigates Nicholas Love's negotiation of the social and religious tensions of early fifteenth-century England---caused by increasing lay literacy, the ongoing Wycliffite controversy, and the aftermath of the Lancastrian takeover---in the Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, his translation of the pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes vitae Christi. It demonstrates that although Love's Middle English translation extended the Meditationes to a broad lay readership, manuscripts of the Mirror circulating ever more widely as the fifteenth century progressed, the work was early associated with figures in positions of power, ranging from Archbishop Arundel, the leader of the orthodox suppression of Lollardy, to Thomas Beaufort, an extender of Lancastrian military power abroad, to Sibyl de Felton, the abbess of a prosperous and somewhat worldly convent, who might have used the Mirror to stir up orthodox zeal among her nuns. It is argued that despite these connections, the intentional conservatism with which Love condescends to his lay readers, and even the aggressive orthodoxy of the Treatise on the Sacrament, which is original to Love, this work is more than a piece of Church propaganda, for, retaining the Meditationes's emphasis on Christ's human relationships, it invites its readers to an intimate and emotionally charged encounter with Jesus, the divine human being who is both the instigator and the object of their devotion. Finally, it notes the paradox that in the Treatise on the Sacrament, which closes the work, Love incorporates material that is dramatically powerful but theologically problematic.