This dissertation examines how the implementation of Enlightenment ideas in the French Revolution gave birth to a new secular conception of the state and the invention of a new religion. I argue that Jean-Jacques Rousseau, representing shared assumptions across the Enlightenment, interpreted religion to be a human construct and thus subject to human intervention. With the onset of 1789 revolutionaries employed this conception to reorganize the Gallican Church and institute the radical Cults of Reason and the Supreme Being. When these endeavors failed revolutionaries refocused on two solutions: the secular laws of 1795 and Theophilanthropy. Revolutionary secularization separated Church and state and confined worship to the private sphere. Consequently Theophilanthropy acquired an independent status and the Revolution acted as a catalyst for the invention of a new religion based on Enlightenment principles. This study explores how Theophilanthropy stood at the foundation of French secularization, modern civil religion and subsequent New Religious Movements (NRM). The historical significance of Theophilanthropy was critical in its own time and bequeathed a legacy that long outlasted the Revolution. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2015. / October 27, 2015. / Civil Religion, Enlightenment, French Revolution, Rousseau, Secularization, Theophilanthropy / Includes bibliographical references. / Darrin McMahon, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Rafe Blaufarb, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Martin Kavka, University Representative; George Williamson, Committee Member; Jonathan Grant, Committee Member; Ron Doel, Committee Member.

This dissertation focuses on the beliefs and practices of confessional Lutherans in North America (particularly those of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod) as a form of religious conservative intellectual and material production. Confessional Lutheranism distinguishes itself from other variations of conservative Protestantism through its appeals to sixteenth century sources of religious authority and the construction of historical memory, cultural practices, and material culture. Confessional Lutherans view American religion through the lens of the Book of Concord, which, since it derives authority from the eternal Word of God, is equally applicable to twenty-first century America as it was to Germany in 1580. Since the Lutheran Confessions simply rearticulate the Bible, theology cannot progress beyond the statements made in the documents. Therefore, confessional Lutherans have judged American religion and found it wanting based upon sixteenth century standards of orthodoxy. The impact of this confessionalism is not solely theological or intellectual. Rather, it deeply impacts religious culture and practice. Liturgy, hymnals, and church architecture are defined not only by orthodoxy but by their difference from contemporary evangelical trends. As much as confessional Lutheranism is positively defined by quia subscription to the Confessions, negatively it is defined by its suspicion towards conservative American evangelicals. Through a close analysis of the Book of Concord’s role in confessional Lutheranism, theological critiques of evangelical approaches to worship and emotion, controversies regarding ecumenical participation, and descriptions of material culture in the form of hymnals and church buildings, this study describes how confessional Lutheranism is constructed in relation to other versions of American Christianity. While confessional Lutheranism’s theological isolationism may seem to sequester the community within an intellectual ghetto, confessional Lutherans are very aware of their religious surroundings and react to them. This dissertation also shows how this community’s strict adherence to their Confessions relates to American Protestant questions of authority. The Confessions’ role as a theological norm separates them from American evangelicals, who have more nebulous sources of authority. Finally, this study demonstrates the continued importance of theological orthodoxy in American religious conservatism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Confessional Lutherans separate themselves religiously from conservative evangelicals based upon theological principles. This demonstrates that one cannot reduce religious conservatism to voting patterns and political analysis. Theology continues to matter. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / June 19, 2017. / Church architecture, Confessional, Conservative, Lutheranism, Restorationism, Walther / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Ruse, University Representative; John Kelsay, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

In the nineteenth century, American Transcendentalists and other environmental religionists redefined notions of religion, nature, and humanity as a creative and sometimes effective means to manage the various social, cultural, and intellectual crises of their age. They attempted this largely through their literary output, scientific undertakings, and political discourse - all of which served as strategies and tactics to compensate for areas where they found institutionalized religion to be lacking. The result - what I coin environmental religion - was a non-reductive ecological materialism that replaced the German idealism of American Transcendentalism's metaphysical forebears. Moreover, the environmental religion they fashioned provided the framework for today's radical environmentalists and other likeminded groups. This dissertation calls for a reconsideration of the disciplinary horizon of nature religion in North American history and culture. In support of this call, I analyze the historical underpinnings of what I term environmental religion by focusing on the first and second generation of American Transcendentalists. By environmental religion I refer to an integrated network of beliefs, practices, and lifestyles by which individuals and groups gave meaning to (or found meaning in) their lives by orienting themselves to nature - the physical planet as well as that perceived to be "natural" and therefore authentic, pristine, unmanufactured, unspoiled - which they believed to be of the highest value. This work therefore seeks to draw connections between aspects in America's religious history that have remained thus far unearthed. Defining environmental religion as I have done - by focusing on a reverent orientation to nature that conceives the "natural" to be of the highest value - provides for the study of a wide range of subjects, groups, and individuals who were nonetheless connected by a deferential and awe-inspired response to nature, the environment, and the material world. In short, by concentrating on what I call environmental religion, I provide a new perspective on American Transcendentalism. However, I also trace powerful and prevalent - yet largely unexamined - trends, themes, and movements coursing through American history and culture. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / February 27, 2015. / Ecology, Environmentalism, Nature, Religion, Thoreau, Transcendentalism / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; David Kirby, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

This dissertation examines representations of Protestantism during a crucial period of legal persecution initiated by Louis XIV's Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) and concluded during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era. Drawing on a vast variety of printed sources by Enlightenment writers, social reformers, priests, pastors, revolutionaries, and even Napoleon Bonaparte, this dissertation examines the versatile and fungible nature of Protestantism in the wake of the Revocation. Consideration of Protestantism permitted the exploration of a variety of pressing issues, including the role of religion in society, the perfectibility of human nature, the characteristics of an ideal citizen, secularism, pluralism, and human rights. This study of representations of Protestants in France during the long eighteenth century-- by both Protestants and non-Protestants -- offers new insights on the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Era, and the history of Protestantism in general. It crosses traditional chronological boundaries, building off of the latest historical scholarship and cultural theory, to argue that an understanding of modern, progressive Protestantism emerged over the course of the eighteenth century, alongside and intertwined with the more secular minded doctrines normally associated with the Enlightenment, culminating in the nineteenth century understanding of liberal, progressive Protestantism. As such, this dissertation argues that Protestantism became attached to and helped shape modern ideals like commercial economics, democracy, republicanism, freedom of conscience, liberalism, progress, and the idea of modernity itself. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2014. / October 3, 2014. / Enlightenment, French Revolution, Protestantism, Religion / Includes bibliographical references. / Darrin M. McMahon, Professor Directing Dissertation; Rafe Blaufarb, Committee Member; George S. Williamson, Committee Member; François Dupuigrenet-Desroussilles, Committee Member.

This thesis analyzes the 35-year-run of the Ladies' Repository, and Gatherings of the West, a monthly periodical distributed by the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1841-1876. This thesis will first look at the publication history of The Ladies' Repository to understand why this publication was financed by the church, what its readership looked like, and why it ceased publication in 1876 (or, rather, why the money ran out). Second, and the main thrust of my argument, is that this particular magazine decentralized the idea that private and public spheres could not be transgressed unless some rhetorical trickery was afoot. For The Repository women's agency is not understood in the confines of the domestic sphere, but through articles about female missionaries the domestic sphere was always considered to be doing public good. I argue that the articles in The Repository oriented women to an idea of western expansion that called on them to missionize or support itinerant husbands in order to see America manifest from sea to shining sea. Finally, while many narratives of westward expansion in America characterize the frontier, or any land outside the geographical borders, as masculine, I argue that The Ladies' Repository gives scholars a sketch of a feminine, yet still uncharted West. To do this, I connect this westward expansion to Methodist understanding of nature, natural power, and God's providence. Through this, while men might have done the conquering of the West, women domesticated this unruly, and seemingly unbounded space. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester 2018. / April 20, 2018. / Ladies' Repository, Methodist, missionaries, Nineteenth Century, popular literature, women's magazines / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Thesis; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Jamil Drake, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

I propose to examine the mythological and ritual significance of an important yet little-known Tibetan protector deity named Tsiu Marpo (Tsi'u dmar po). Tsiu Marpo is the protector deity of Samyé (Bsam yas) monastery (est. 779 C.E.), the oldest Buddhist monastery in Tibet. Almost nothing is known of this figure in available scholarship. De Nebesky-Wojkowitz 1998, Gibson 1991, and Kalsang 1996 are the only secondary sources available on Tsiu Marpo, and the latter source provides a very poor and rudimentary history. The first two sources are informative; however, de Nebesky-Wojkowitz is outdated and Gibson only briefly examines Tsiu Marpo for the purpose of his larger argument. Due to this paucity of information, in order to understand better this deity and his importance in Tibet, I will explore Tsiu Marpo through four venues representative of his influential role: his origin story and its connection with Tibetan cultural history, his iconography and its representation of Tibetan expressions of violence, his involvement in apotropaic ritual, and his importance within the Tibetan oracle tradition. This last venue of exploration will pull from all previous venues in order to elaborate on the oracle tradition as a dynamic outlet, through which the ritual program of the deity is enacted for a social service, and which utilizes iconographically significant ritual implements to submerge the service within a realm of sacrality. Through this detailed examination of one Tibetan protector deity, I hope to provide a template for further studies on protector deities as a whole, an arena of Tibetan studies that is still dim and disorganized. Therefore, my thesis will begin with an introduction to Tibetan protector deities, the texts through which they are encountered, and the various sources that have contributed to the figure of Tsiu Marpo and of protector deities in general. From there my focus will contract into a detailed exploration of the protector deity Tsiu Marpo and expand outward into his iconographic, cosmologic, ritual, and oracular importance. My conclusion will tie these observations together to illustrate the multifaceted connections between the ritual and the social in Tibetan Buddhism and the importance of protector deities as a cohesive force between multiple cultural milieus, particularly lay and monastic communities. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Religion in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2006. / March 31, 2006. / Tsi'u Dmar Po, Bsam Yas, Samye Monastery, Wrathful Deities, Oracles, Protector Deities, Tibetan Deities / Includes bibliographical references. / Bryan Cuevas, Professor Directing Thesis; Kathleen Erndl, Committee Member; John Corrigan, Committee Member.

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, better known by his English name George Santayana, was a prominent philosopher, novelist, and poet during the first part of the twentieth century. In this dissertation, I use Santayana’s life and work to argue for the importance of a treatment of aesthetics in the field of religion that considers the way these two overlapping concerns shape conceptions of individual subjectivity. Specifically, I use Santayana’s notion of religion as a type of poetic production to point to the way aesthetics can provide discursive tools for analyzing the way consciousness is perceived and articulated by subjects in modernity. I term Santayana’s method “plastic religion” for its emphasis on the way subjectivity both shapes and is shaped by encounters with the environment. This work compliments traditional approaches to aesthetics in the field of American religious history which emphasize sensory data as evidence of commercial activity and institution-building, while also suggesting that this information provides historians a unique perspective through which they can engage critically with identity formation and expression. In this dissertation, I take up Santayana as the explicit subject, but I also view his insistence that religion and poetry are bound together as methodologically instructive. In each chapter, I offer historically-minded readings of Santayana’s life and writing regarding religion that also present interpretive approaches that account for aesthetics. Chapter One provides an overview of Santayana’s life and work framed around three instances of metanoia, or conversion. Typically translated as a “change of heart,” the term metanoia has both theological and poetic connotations that suggest the reformation of perception. Santayana used the term in his autobiography to describe a moment in 1893 when, after experiencing a series of personal tragedies, his sense of self was altered, and he became committed to living a life of personal and professional detachment. In this chapter, I suggest that, in keeping with Santayana’s use of the term, moments in which the self-conception of a subject is dramatically altered can be located in documentary evidence and can help shape the framework of biographical narrative. Chapter Two maps the career-spanning debates between Santayana and William James, Josiah Royce, and John Dewey regarding the relationship between religion and experience. Using Santayana’s description of American philosophy’s division between “the skyscraper” and “the colonial manse” as a general spatial metaphor, I argue that Santayana’s understanding of religion’s plasticity was influenced by his debates with Royce and James, and affirmed later in his life through his public back-and-forth with Dewey. I also use this chapter to position Santayana in relation to the idealism, pragmatism, and naturalism that were prevalent over the course of his life in his philosophical environment. Chapter Three describes in detail Santayana’s definition of religion as a type of poetic expression as contained in his book Interpretations of Religion and Poetry, and it positions this perspective in the broader aesthetic tradition of American spirituality as described by historians William Clebsch and Henry Samuel Levinson. According to Clebsch and Levinson, individuals within the aesthetic tradition of American spirituality treat religion as a process of creative consciousness building using responses to existing traditions and their own experience. This religious style began with Jonathan Edwards and then carries on through Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and Santayana. I define Santayana’s position as “plastic religion” for the emphasis it places on the creation of reality, for the subject and for the surrounding environment, through form. Chapter Four outlines the manner in which Santayana’s understanding of religion’s plasticity shaped his approach to the curation of his national, racial, and religious identity. I argue that Santayana’s perspective on the ability of the individual to exercise agency when directing their perception was endowed by his view of religion. I also indicate the way this allowed him to translate philosophic notions of the self to expressions of cultural identity. For Santayana, this approach made it possible to navigate the complex terrain of his own “variations,” but it also, at times, left him vulnerable to the harboring of prejudice. Chapter Five examines the influence Santayana’s treatment of religion had on a diverse array of individuals during the 20th century. Alfred North Whitehead, the English mathematician and philosopher, found in Santayana’s discussion of religion a critical tool for his understanding of religious difference. Alain Locke, the leader of the New Negro movement in the 1920s, drew on Santayana’s description of religion when formulating his views on value relativism and cultural pluralism. Russell Kirk, the Catholic traditionalist, understood Santayana as a vital link in the progression of conservative thought. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / July 24, 2019. / Aesthetics, American Religious History, Identity, Plasticity, Pragmatism, Santayana / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Ruse, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member; Jamil Drake, Committee Member.

The demands of a global Cold War led the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and its successor organization, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to forge unprecedented relationships with Catholics, Buddhists, and Muslims around the world in the fight against Communism. These religious groups offered valuable networks of information about and throughout geopolitical hot spots including Vietnam, Italy, and North Africa. In its strategic approach toward religious tolerance, the intelligence community drew on existing understandings of "foreign" religions in American culture even as it revised these understandings to be more useful to national security goals. From World War II through the early Cold War, American intelligence officers honed this approach in the context of two burgeoning discourses in American culture: a renewed attention to religious pluralism as well as a newfound national interest in "world religions." The CIA's use of these discourses reshaped the way in which religion was a central component of American identity and national security, at home and abroad. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / February 23, 2016. / CIA, Cold War, OSS, Religion, World Religions / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kurt Piehler, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.

This work explores first and foremost the nature of the Episcopal mission to the colonial Philippines from 1901 to 1918, while it was under the leadership of a missionary bishop named Charles Henry Brent. Missionaries, such as Brent, served an essential role in the American colonial enterprise in the Philippines. The historiography tends to label missionaries as cultural imperialists. Missionaries did not abstain from culturally imperialistic behavior. But, they also acted at times as protectors of Philippine culture. How could missionaries act both as imperialists and attempt to preserve native culture in the Philippines? Contrary to the theories of some historians, missionaries did not see their actions as contradictory, but as complimentary. The reason for this: ideology. Missionaries defined their purpose based not on the motives of the Philippine Commission—the American governing body in the islands—but on their own theology. Brent and his mission will be used as a prominent example, a microcosm, to prove this point. The three chapters within focus on ideology and theology as the primary motivators for characters within this narrative. The first chapter looks at the American people and the U.S. government, tracing the development of racially and religiously motivated feelings toward the Philippines and the Filipinos. The chapter then turns to missionaries and traces both their theological and their ideological reasons for going to the Philippines. Just as with the American people and the American government, racial and religious reasoning urged missionaries to go to the Philippines. While a large part of the missionary justification for proselyting in the Philippines was the existence of a minority of non-Christians in the archipelago, upon arrival in the islands Protestant missionaries primarily focused on the conversion of Roman Catholic Filipinos. This chapter highlights the motivations of the U.S. government and the Philippine Commission, and compares them with those of the Protestant missionaries. The second chapter turns to Brent's mission. As ideology is essential to this narrative, this chapter is an exploration of his theological and ideological motivations. The chapter underscores Brent's one focus above all others in the Philippines. He wanted to save the non-Christians, especially the Igorots—an animist group in Northern Luzon—from what he referred to as the concomitants of civilization. Believing that civilization was being ushered into the Philippines by the American presence in the islands, Brent felt that non-Christians needed to be protected from the concomitants, or vices, that would inevitably come along with civilization. In essence, he wanted to be their savior from civilization. Brent felt that the Igorots did not need Christianity while in isolation, their religion would suit their needs. But, now that they would no longer be isolated, Christianity was all that could save them from succumbing to vice. When work among the Igorots lost Brent's interest, he transferred these same feelings to the Moros—the Muslim community in the Philippines—determining to help prepare them for Christianization. The two other groups that Brent's mission targeted, the Americans stationed in the islands and the Chinese population in Manila, while important in their own right, received attention from Brent partly because of the influence they had on the Igorots and the Moros. Chapter Two illustrates how Brent's theology and ideology led him to create a unique mission. It focuses on his ecumenism, views on morality and vice, and his belief in responsibility. The third chapter builds on the foundation laid in Chapter Two. Detailing the four sections of Brent's mission, Chapter Three demonstrates that the theological concern that drove Brent was his desire to save the non-Christian Filipinos from civilization. It illustrates that the policies implemented by Brent in each part of his mission, show a consistent concern for the "heathen" and saving him from vice through his Christianization. The chapter simultaneously proves that these efforts sometimes aligned with those of the Philippine Commission, aiding them in their goals. But, it also is clear that Brent occasionally redirected not only the Philippine Commission, but also the U.S. government, pushing them to help accomplish his agenda. This provides a picture of the relationship between the missionary and the colonial enterprise. It was complex. The missionary often had his own motives, and acted independently. He was also a crucial part of the American presence in the Philippines, making a large contribution to the American operation in the islands. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts. / Fall Semester 2016. / November 16, 2016. / Brent, Episcopal, Igorot, Missionaries, Moro, Philippines / Includes bibliographical references. / G. Kurt Piehler, Professor Directing Thesis; Claudia Liebeskind, Committee Member; Michael Creswell, Committee Member.

This paper examines the Emerging Church Movement (ECM), a milieu of progressive evangelical groups focused upon the inclusion of postmodern ideas and concepts into evangelical Christian structures. The argument in this paper is that, as a movement geared towards resistance to evangelicalism, the ECM is in fact working within a tradition of evangelical social organization. In the first section, a historiographic review is conducted, focusing particularly on the way historians have used descriptions of conflict to describe and define evangelicalism in the twentieth century. This reflection identifies previously unmarked connections between progressive evangelical organizations in the 1970s and 1980s with early ECM activities in the 1990s. The second section of the paper offers a formal definition of the ECM, and works to highlight common ECM practices that have emerged as a result of the emphasis upon deconstruction and postmodernity. From this perspective, the ECM is described as a milieu, in the tradition of sociologist Colin Campbell’s “cultic milieu,” on the basis of the presence of mysticism, seekership, and syncretism in ECM practice. The final section of the paper analyzes the ECM in conjunction with broader trends in American culture in the twenty-first century. The effect the events of September 11, 2001 had on American culture are taken into account, and the connection between the growth of the ECM and the condition of being ‘post-9/11’ are considered. Given the ECM’s stance on issues relating to authority, theological rigidity, and the politics of the Religious Right, the ECM, it is argued, was poised to find success, in terms of participation levels, in post-9/11 American culture. In the conclusion, the decline of ECM activity is considered alongside the election of President Obama and the so-called “Rise of the Nones.” / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester 2016. / April 15, 2016. / ECM, Emergent Village, Emerging Church Movement, Evangelicalism, Post-9/11, Progressive Evangelicals / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Thesis; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.