This dissertation examines Martin Luther King, Jr.s dialectical method, as particularly developed from his reading of G. W. F. Hegel and extended and modified in his own views on theology, history, and ethics. However, few have sought to map the forms of rationalization that controlled how King understood and developed his own account of religious thought, historical movement, and ethical rationality. In this dissertation, I identify the form of rationality that best captures how King understood theology, history and ethics as dialectical, that is, the synthesis of two conflicting views, movements, and actions. Conclusively, this study will suggest a way of understanding praxis and theology as entailing a unity of critical reason/rationality and social action as these were displayed in the dialectical thinking of King in religious thought, history and ethics.

A United Methodist theology of service is developed in the general context of United Methodist sacramental theology. Baptism, as a sign of covenant with God, marks the entry into a Christian life of service in the world. Holy Communion marks the continual nurturing of the Christian through the Holy Spirit in following the way of Jesus.

This dissertation reconsiders the importance of the preacher, the music, and the frenzy (a construction introduced by W.E.B. Du Bois in his 1903 classic, The Souls of Black Folk) as core concepts for understanding African American religious practices in the 21st century as observed in a predominantly African American Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. It builds on Henry Mitchells observations about the importance of the Black Church congregation relative to the act of preaching and investigates the parallel significance of the congregation as a crucial partner not only for the preacher, but also for the music and the frenzy. The dissertation presents sermons, public prayers, songs, and personal interviews to convey the beliefs and attitudes of the people of Corinthian Baptist Church to a wider academic audience. Drawing on over two years of continuous ethnographic field research and field recordings, this dissertation brings the voices of preachers, musicians, and life-long church members into dialogue with the academic voices of Du Bois and Mitchell. The body chapters each consider relationships between the preacher, the music, and the frenzy by considering religious life as something that is neither more nor less comprehensible than other approaches to being human. By treating the perspectives of ordinary people with respect and operating from the assumption that their words and actions are fundamentally consistent with their beliefs, this dissertation invites readers to consider ways in which religious beliefs and practices function in a community that continues to deal with economic need and other legacies of race-based inequality.

RELIGION CAN THESE BONES LIVE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF IMAGES OF THE BLACK CHURCH CHARLES EDWARD BOWIE Dissertation under the direction of Professor Victor Anderson This project is concerned with images of the Black Church and their meanings, significances and relevances for contemporary African American life. In this dissertation I explore images of the Black Church from the perspective of hermeneutical phenomenology. I rely on textual products of the Black Church from its preaching and praying traditions. By exploring the symbolic constructions of the Black Church, a deep complexity is disclosed that points to the internal logic of the Black Church as a community whose primary concern is transcendence. In sum, the Black Church has meaning, relevance and significance for African Americans living in the 21st century when it reaches back, within its memory and refracts the plight of the least advantaged through its constitution as a Natural and Human Community. Approved: Victor Anderson Date 10/24/2008

This project utilizes cultural materialist methodologies to examine the doctrine of Scripture as it pertains to post-20th Century North American theologians. The dissertation puts forth the thesis that such theologians ignore the physical aspects of printed Bibles, preferring to refer instead to a reified and abstract notion of Scripture. As a result, additions by publishers such as footnotes, editorial addenda, marginalia and other paratextual effects function, for the theologian and lay reader alike, as a covert Magisterium, which shapes the readers interpretation and understanding of the text. This dissertation presents contemporary American theologians with a methodology for examining these covert influences, and exhorts them to respond to the ethical challenge posed by the presence of such covert ideological influences in printed versions Scripture.

Secret names are a common folkloristic concept found in the Ancient Near Eastern society. The thesis examines four stories of various cultures in the Ancient Near East in search of secret names and how they relate to the system of order and chaos of each society. First, the Egyptian story of Isis where Isis steals the secret name of Ra is analyzed. Second, Jacobs wrestling match is examined and the attention is given to the Jacob asking the angel for his/her, which the angel refuses to give. Then, Marduk and his fifty names show that names in the Ancient Near East are sources of power, but Marduks need not be secret. Finally, YHWHs name exemplifies both Marduks names of power as well as Ras secret name. All these examples from the various areas show that the concept of secret names is common throughout the Ancient Near East.

This project is about spirit possession and its meanings from many disciplines, including theology, psychology, anthropology, and religion. In this dissertation, I explore experiences of spirit possession by women in many different cultures and sociological backgrounds. I propose that spirit possession is not simply a psychological phenomenon that demonstrates abnormality of individual human psyche but it also reveals the reality of oppressive social and cultural structures that call for radical transformation, particularly for women. I recognize that spirit possession provides many women temporary respite from psychosocial pathologies and, at the same time, sabotages their real liberation from the institutional or ideological evil that confines them with limited gender roles. From a pastoral theological perspective, I suggest that genuine spirituality must both comfort the victims and confronts individuals or socio-institutional forces with efficient culture-specific strategies for change.

This dissertation is a thematic exploration of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the early national period of American history. Between the years 1784 and 1835, the denomination achieved unprecedented numeric growth, autonomy from its English counterpart, established a distinct but complex form of church government, and transited from an apolitical, small, loosely confederated group of Societies to a fully functioning, mammoth religious organization that was involved in almost all parts of American society. The thematic explorations present in this dissertation reveal a number of important elements related to the identity of early American Methodism. Among those critical attributes is that the early Methodists were, to some extent, the architects of their own story. The Methodist Episcopal Church, and Methodism broadly conceived, was not simply caught up in the unfolding tapestry of important trends in American history. They were not mere byproduct of the market, democratic fervor, revivalism, or political tensions that characterized the early American Republic. In fact, some of the transitions in early American Methodism, which might be conceived as corollaries to these events, were as much the product of personality conflicts, as anything.

Some scholars have noted an increase in the availability of Episcopal services of healing since the twentieth century. This thesis proposes the service of healing is an act of pastoral care when understood through a communal contextual paradigm of pastoral care informed by feminist discourse theory. A case study of chronic illness is introduced and referenced throughout the thesis to illuminate pastoral care perspectives informed by clinical-pastoral and communal-contextual approaches, and feminist theologian Susan Dunlaps three challenges of feminist discourse theory are applied to the communal-contextual approach to care of persons suffering from illness. After articulating the impact of a discourse-informed, communal-contextual paradigm for the understanding of chronic illness, the thesis then examines how the Episcopal service of healing acts as an oppositional discourse, challenging dominant cultural messages about illness, embodiment, and recovery. The thesis concludes that, when understood through a discourse informed, communal contextual paradigm, both caregivers and care receivers understand the service of healing as a combination of texts, words, sounds, smells, and touches that combine to send a holy, distinctively Christian message about personhood, suffering, community, and healing.

The focus of this dissertation is Michelangelos late-life development in his art and his life. While the recent decades in religion and personality have included more work on gender and ethnicity, there remains relatively little work on late-life issues and geriatric development. It is important to consider geriatric development from a variety of different perspectives, and while it is hardly an exhaustive set of perspectives, I have included those from psychology, critical theory, and art history. These disciplines frame this dissertations core example: a case study of the elder Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) using the fruit of his long life and careera career in which his final piece was an enigmatic crescent-shaped marble sculpture now known as the <i>Rondanini Pietà</i>. After considering various themes that developed throughout the artists long and prolific life, the proposition is that there are parallels between his late-life artistic themes and the late-life developmental themes that emerge from his extant biographical data. One major conclusion is that these themes include a conflict between integration and disintegration, a conflict to which he may have achieved some resolution in both his art and in his life. Poised between integration and disintegration, Michelangelos late-life and work remain fascinating for their mystery, and with a hermeneutic reconstruction, the interpretive layers of death, birth, unity, and disunity come together in Michelangelos final artwork.