This project considers the relationship between religion and politics in the early republic period of the United States. The goal of this project is to uncover the ways the inchoate federal government provided support for religion in an era when disestablishment is the law of the land. Using the lens provides a new and distinct way to understand how the federal government interpreted and applied the concept of disestablishment as seen in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. I argue that the federal government, while never formally endorsing a particular denomination, recognized and supported an underlying common Protestant ethos centered around biblicism to both develop and disrupt aspects of religious freedom in the early republic. Such a balancing act was necessitated by competing religious denominations in different states; ideals of both Protestant dissent and enlightenment rationality; and the fragile nature of federal governance in the early republic that sought out security in the absence of previous colonial ideals. Because of all of this, cooperation between church and state was steady and active. But the nature of that cooperation, expressed in the disestablishment language of the First Amendment, reflected a new reality distinct from European Christendom. The subjects of this project illustrate the diverse ways religion was supported by the government and show how the new reality of disestablishment was worked out in the developing federal bureaucracy. They include the postal service, which allowed for the dissemination of religious information through the mail at favorable rates; religious services held in the governmental buildings, especially the U.S. Capitol building; chaplaincy programs, both within Congress and the military; and federal policy regarding Native Americans, which included providing support for Christian missionaries in their goal of evangelization. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 4, 2018. / chaplain, Disestablishment, early republic, federal government, post office / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Edward Gray, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

Through both persuasive and prescriptive texts from church library advocates and contemporaneous academic work from scholars of library and information studies, this dissertation examines the twentieth century mainline Protestant church library movement in the United States. Focus on this understudied movement, the dissertation argues, constitutes something of a “missing link” in the study of American religion and information in the twentieth century; study of the ideological underpinning and policy best-practices point towards mainline Protestant understandings not only of information, and its uses and dangers, but of institutional authority in the twentieth century. Further, the dissertation argues that unpacking the working understandings of “religion” cultivated by twentieth century scholars of libraries and information can add to our historiographic understanding of how “religion” emerged as an object of study in the academy in the twentieth century. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 19, 2018. / American Religious History, Church Libraries, Twentieth Century / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Don Latham, University Representative; Michael McVicar, Committee Member; John Corrigan, Committee Member.

In the Atlantic world of the eighteenth century, revivalists in Europe, North America, South America, and the Caribbean centered their theology around the doctrine of the new birth. The new birth was the unifying, if contested, theme of the transatlantic revivals. Although prominent evangelical theologians like Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and Nikolaus von Zinzendorf each conceptualized rebirth a little differently, the surprising unity of the doctrine across geographic and institutional boundaries stemmed from the fact that they all sought to ground the spiritual metaphor of the new birth in the natural philosophy of childbirth. Before the early modern Atlantic world saw a sudden increase of this evangelical preaching on the doctrine of the rebirth, there was a sudden increase of writings by natural philosophers on new findings about conception and childbirth. This seventeenth-century fascination among natural philosophers with the process of "generation," as it was called, led to the eighteenth-century preoccupation with "regeneration" among evangelical leaders. Edwards, Wesley and Zinzendorf were each exposed to the mechanism of Descartes, the empiricism of Locke, and the theory of preformationism at early ages, long before their theological systems had solidified. Employing this natural philosophy of generation was not simply a way to legitimize the idea of the new birth; it was the method by which this doctrine was produced. The main question of this dissertation, then, is one of epistemology: where do religious knowledge and values come from? How is a theological doctrine formed? As this case study of the new birth shows, theology is oftentimes produced from the body--from embodied experiences, bodily metaphors, and empirical information about the body. Bodies--as much as sacred texts, charismatic leaders, ecclesiastical institutions, etc.--are sites of religious values and truths. The experience of being born again, Edwards, Wesley and Zinzendorf agreed, was instantaneous and sometimes accompanied by convulsions of the body and terrors of the mind as in the pangs of childbirth. To learn about the spiritual mechanisms of this new birth experience, one could study the physical process of childbirth as explained by natural philosophers. Revivalism relied heavily on enlightenment philosophy for the development of its values and worldview, and in turn enlightenment movements relied on transatlantic revivalism for the transmission of its ideas to those who would not otherwise have had access to them. Evangelical preachers like Edwards, Wesley and Zinzendorf were the cultural mediators between what Wesley called "plain people" and natural philosophers like Malebranche, Descartes, and Locke. The sermons and treatises written by these preachers were the medium through which knowledge about the natural and supernatural worlds was conveyed. Rather than viewing evangelicalism as opposed to the heady intellectualism of enlightenment empiricism, this dissertation shows how these revivalists consistently drew from the findings of natural philosophy in the creation of their theology. For them, the body was a site for the formation of such theological knowledge. Early modern natural philosophy put human bodies into discourse, transforming bodies from an experiential reality into a natural phenomenon worthy of academic study. This in turn opened up the body as a site of theological inquiry for clergy across the Atlantic who believed that divine truths could be gleaned from the natural world. Several of these clergy birthed the first evangelical movement by translating the natural philosophy of childbirth into a streamlined metaphor that both united those who had had the experience of the new birth and radically divided them from those who had not. If the body was the epistemology that revivalists drew knowledge from, then religion was the medium through which such knowledge was conveyed. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / December 5, 2014. / evangelicalism, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, natural philosophy, new birth, Nikolaus von Zinzendorf / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Edward Gray, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

Thesis (M.A. (Godsdienswetenskap))

Thesis (M.A. (Godsdienswetenskap))

The history of religion is always a history of translation, too. When spoken words are transcribed, scriptures are created that are considered sacred and universally applicable. Translating holy writings in order to spread one’s own religion poses certain challenges for translators, such as how to bridge the gaps between source and target languages. Sometimes, the original language is no longer spoken or precisely known. In some religious traditions, a particular language is reserved for scriptures and considered untranslatable. And an ability to deal correctly with multiple writing systems and alphabets is also required. Religious texts are full of puzzles and mysteries. Deciphering (i.e. translating) them is also an important part of today’s humanities. Materials from Leipzig University Library spanning two thousand years are a source of knowledge about humans’ efforts to explain their own or other people’s religion in words and images.

A critical survey of early Church history, the works of the Church Fathers and several councils of the Church reveals a consistent call for unity. Heresies, politic intrigue and struggles for governance have aggravated attempts to remain in the union. The insistence on unity and the persistence of the Church to unify reveals an ontological reality. While our knowledge of the Church can be given in epistemological terms, looking at the Church to discover its essence, what it means to be church, opens a different way of encountering the Church and, eventually, understanding the nature of the Church to be one. The transformations in the early Church as it spread to new cultures, the impact on the Church at the founding of “New Rome” by the Emperor Constantine, the changes brought about when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and the resulting birth of the Renaissance in the West with the beginning of the autocephaly Church in Russia and subsequent reunions, are especially rich in manifestations of unification among dissidence. This paper will focus on these particular moments. The concept of looking at the essence of the Church exposes us to an understanding of what the Church is as a universal presence. Stating that the Church has no physical dimension, that it is a unique congregation abiding solely by an actual historic document or defined only by written doctrines does not show us its full essence. Likewise, seeing the Church as defined by how it differs from another, exists in objection to another church or how it avoids affiliation with others, reveals a body that does not have a unifying essence and is lifeless. Looking closer at its essence as it is revealed over time, shows us a living Church that has repeatedly manifested unification as its particularly unique identity. This paper is a reflective look of the Church through the ages which presents to us a look into the essence of the Church. Primary and secondary sources are critically examined with an emphasis on ontological manifestations. The moments in history that are presented in this paper are especially revealing of the unifying nature of the Church in various settings. This paper has limitations though. While the deliberate historic selections may give extraneous interpretations, it is intended to reveal previously under-estimated treasures, and this topic will require being given greater context in any expanded study. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Church History)