<p> This dissertation focuses on the religious commitments of the Peng clan of Suzhou. From the early to mid-Qing dynasty (1644-1911) the Pengs were arguably the most successful corporate lineage in the entire empire in terms of civil examination performance. They were also pioneers of a charitable style of status justification in which the Pengs explained their worldly success as divine reward for their good works. By the early eighteenth century, many of the Pengs&rsquo; peers and social inferiors promulgated their claims as well. In the thriving genre of morality books <i>(shanshu)</i> particularly successful Peng patriarchs served as iconic shorthand for the terrestrial reward of civil examination success for philanthropic acts. Examination hopefuls and morality book consumers throughout the empire sought to obtain a portion of the prosperity of the Pengs by emulating their charitable commitments. </p><p> Drawing on source materials ranging from autobiographies and genealogies to the transcripts of spirit-writing sessions, I focus my study on the pivotal figure of Peng Dingqiu (1645-1719). Dingqiu&rsquo;s 1676 <i>optimus</i> distinction and self-presentational strategy were critical in the consolidation of the concrete and symbolic power of the Peng lineage. Exploring the role of spirit-writing altars in intra-elite relations, I argue that Dingqiu&rsquo;s claim of a prophecy of his civil examination success had wide ranging consequences for his descendants and his own posthumous persona. In documenting the collective devotional commitments of the Peng lineage in realms such as a tower complex devoted to the deity Wenchang and local Daoist institutions, I provide a nuanced portrait of elite religiosity and its impact on the late imperial cityscape. Simultaneously, I use attention to the familial lineage in order to explain the centrality of religious modes of discourse in elite self-organization.</p><p> A descriptive catalog of works by Peng lineage members from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries illustrates the scope of members&rsquo; cultural impact and provides a basis for understanding how successive generations represented their ancestors through editorial and publishing endeavors.</p>

<p> This study investigated leadership emergence and growth from the perspective of a purposeful criterion sample of Evangelical pastors in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Their description of their stories regarding how they emerged as leaders and how they grew as leaders was the primary source of data acquired through semi-structured interviews.</p><p> There is a need for greater clarify regarding the processes by which a person emerges and comes to embody the virtues and attributes needed for leadership. Leadership is culturally contingent, but there is a lack of specificity in understanding how the Latin American culture influences leadership emergence and growth.</p><p> Three research questions guided this study: (1) How do Evangelical pastors describe how they emerged as leaders?; (2) How do Evangelical pastors describe how they grew as leaders?; (3) What Latin American cultural elements can be observed in the Evangelical pastors' descriptions of how they emerged and grew as leaders?</p><p> The literature discussed caudillismo, a prototype of leadership in Latin America, which includes elements of high-power distance, machismo, and paternalism. </p><p> Using snowball sampling, twenty-five pastors were chosen and the interview data revealed twelve processes by which these pastors emerged as leaders. For instance, the accompaniment of others was key as was having firsthand experiences in ministry, which moved them to compassionate, on-going action. They emerged because someone saw something in them, named it and opened up spaces (opportunities) for "acts of leadership." Contrary to expectations, training played almost no role in emergence but did in leadership growth. </p><p> Seven processes were identified that promoted their growth, like being self-taught, sharing interdenominationally, and keeping an open mind. Six cultural dimensions were observed as having a direct influence (both positive and negative) on leadership emergence and growth: (1) High tolerance for uncertainty; (2) Diffuse culture; (3) Image of limited good; (4) Caudillismo; (5) Ascribed status; (6) Self-effacing (modesty).</p><p> This study meets the need for academic inquiry on leadership in Latin America, in Spanish, in the hope that it stimulates Latin Americans to analyze their own leadership, and informs expatriates who serve Latin Americans how to better participate with God in helping leaders emerge and grow.</p>

<p> For eight centuries, from 711 until 1492, a unique combination of political, cultural, and faith traditions coexisted in the mostly southern region of the Iberian Peninsula now called Spain. From the thirteenth century through the fifteenth century, two key production centers of luster glazed ceramics emerged in this region: Islamic-ruled M&aacute;laga and Christian-ruled Valencia. Muslim artisans using Islamic decorative motifs on reflective luster glaze ceramics created objects that patrons, including nobility and Christian royalty, clamored to collect. Initially, traditional Islamic decorative motifs dominated luster glazed ceramic production by Muslim artisans in M&aacute;laga; eventually, these artisans used combinations of Islamic and Christian motifs. As wars raged near M&aacute;laga, Muslim artisans migrated to Valencia&mdash;some converting to Christianity. Here, luster glazed ceramics evolved to include combinations of Islamic and Christian motifs, and, in one example, Islamic and Jewish motifs.</p><p> This investigation of Iberian luster glazed ceramics examines religious decorative motifs and their meaning by using a methodology that combines material culture studies and art history. Material culture studies seeks: (1) To find value and meaning in everyday objects; and (2) To introduce the understanding that visual motifs communicate in a different way than texts. Additions from art historians augment the conceptual framework: (1) Alois Riegl&rsquo;s concept of <i>Kunstwollen</i>&mdash;that every artistic expression and artifact that is produced is a distillation of the entirety of creator&rsquo;s worldview; and (2) Oleg Grabar&rsquo;s definition of Islamic art as one that overpowers and transforms ethnic or geographical traditions. In this dissertation, religious decorative elements on Iberian luster glazed ceramics are categorized as: (1) Floral and vegetative motifs; (2) Geometric symbols; (3) Figurative images; (4) Christian family coats of arms; and (5) Calligraphic inscriptions.</p><p> This dissertation will demonstrate how Muslim, Christian, and Jewish artisans used and combined the visual expressions of their respective faith traditions in motifs that appear on luster glazed ceramics created in the Iberian Peninsula under both Islamic and Christian ruled territories. Investigation of objects previously deemed not worthy of scholarly attention provides a more nuanced understanding of how religious co-existence (<i>convivencia </i> in Spanish) was negotiated in daily life.</p>

This study examines the role of the churches of various Christian denominations during the period 1870-1914. It investigates three areas of County Durham. The Borough of South Shields is the main focus of the study and provides evidence of the churches' work in a large urban centre. Two comparative studies are also included: the coal mining villages of the Deerness Valley close to Durham City provide evidence from a newly industrialised area whilst the villages of Upper Teesdale illustrate trends in a more rural area in which the lead mining industry was in significant decline during this period. The approach of the study is comparative throughout. The study concentrates on several aspects of the churches' work. The provision of manpower and buildings are examined as the churches' response to the needs created by social change; there is also an investigation of the effectiveness of evangelical mission as a means of recruiting support for the churches. The study examines the churches' work with and attitude towards children - both inside and outside Sunday school - and with adults in various non liturgical activities. There are also sections on the churches' role in education and social welfare work. The study reflects recent developments in the fields of social and religious history in its examination of the churches' fears of 'decline' during this period and the extent to which such fears were justified. The comparative approach enables urban developments to be compared and contrasted with rural activities and allows the experience of different denominations to be included in the study.

<p> This dissertation presents a Whiteheadian interpretation of the notions of mind, immanence and process as they are addressed in the <i> Zohar</i>. According to many scholars, this kabbalistic creation story as portrayed in the <i>Zohar</i> is a reaction to the earlier rabbinic concept of God qua creator, which emphasized divine transcendence over divine immanence. The medieval Jewish philosophers, particularly Maimonides influenced by Aristotle, placed particular emphasis on divine transcendence, seeing a radical separation between Creator and creation. With this in mind, these scholars claim that one of the goals of the <i>Zohar</i>&rsquo;s creation story was to emphasize God&rsquo;s immanence within creation. </p><p> Similar to the <i>Zohar</i>, the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead and his followers was reacting to the substance metaphysics that had dominated Western philosophy as far back as ancient Greek thought. Whitehead adopts a very similar narrative to that of the <i>Zohar</i>. First there is mind containing all the eternal objects which serve as potential for the creation (God&rsquo;s primordial nature). Mind becomes immanent in all actual occasions through prehension (God&rsquo;s consequent nature). Finally God becomes &ldquo;the lure&rdquo; (to use Whitehead&rsquo;s phrase) in the ongoing process of nature (God as superject). In this narrative, God is not the static being, the unmoved mover as discussed by Aristotle, but rather, is portrayed as a dynamic becoming, a God of process. </p><p> Due to these significant similarities between Whitehead&rsquo;s process philosophy and the <i>Zohar</i> with regard to the immanence of God and the process of creation, it is worthwhile to attempt a process interpretation of the kabbalistic creation story. The first part of this dissertation is entitled <i>Philosophical Foundations</i>, focusing on the intellectual framework of this study of the <i>Zohar</i>. The second part is entitled <i>Creating a Narrative</i>, looking at the text of the <i> Zohar</i> through the lens of Whitehead&rsquo;s metaphysics. Finally, the conclusion looks at the narrative and discusses whether the goals of the dissertation have been achieved.</p>

<p>Abstract This dissertation is a project that examines the way Middle English romances explore and build a sense of national English/Christian identity, both in opposition to and in incorporation of the Saracen Other. The major primary texts used in this project are Richard Coer de Lion, Firumbras, Bevis of Hampton, The King of Tars, and Thomas Malory?s Morte Darthur. I examine the way crusade romances grapple with the threat of the Middle East and the contention over the Holy Land and treat these romances, in part, as medieval meditations on how the Holy Land (lost during a string of failed or stalemated Crusades) could be won permanently, through war, consumption, or conversion. The literary cannibalism of Saracens in Richard Coer de Lion, the singular or wholesale religious conversions facilitated by female characters, and the figure of Malory?s Palomides all shed light on the medieval English politics of identity: specifically, what it means to be a good Englishman, a good knight, and a good Christian. Drawing on the works of Homi Bhabha, Geraldine Heng, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, and Siobhain Bly Calkin, this project fits into the overall conversation that contemplates medieval texts through the lens of postcolonial theory to locate early ideas of empire.

No description available.

<p> A central feature of Christianity is the observable historical fact that the gospel of Jesus travels across cultural and geographic boundaries, influencing and transforming each new culture and place it touches. Postcolonial migration, urbanization, and the simultaneous development of global communication and transportation technologies have radically increased the frequency and duration of cross-cultural contact worldwide. </p><p> This study explores hybrid identity construction in a multicultural church in the Paris Region in order to understand the influence of the gospel within transnational French-speaking networks. I found that French hegemony, historically rooted in the colonial project, contributes both to the cohesion of multicultural churches and to the cross-cultural spread of the gospel within French-speaking networks. </p><p> Cultural hybrids serve as bridge people within transcultural, transnational, French-speaking networks. They maintain identities and social networks on both sides of given cultural, linguistic, geographic, and national frontiers. Unique hybrid identities offer equally unique opportunities to influence for Christ on both sides of a given boundary. </p><p> Cultural hybridity can be a privileged in-between space where the distinct nature of Christian faith becomes manifest. When observing one&rsquo;s original culture as an outsider and taking on a new culture as an insider, both cultures are relativized. This critical posture unmasks totalistic ideologies and sends the cultural hybrid in search of a coherent identity, which participants found in Christ and his church. </p><p> While transnational French-speaking networks and cultural hybridity contribute providentially to the spread of the gospel, they can also be pursued as strategic resources for the mission enterprise. Transnational French-speaking social links can be intentionally followed across missional boundaries. These networks take many forms, each pregnant with unique opportunities. Cultural hybrids can lead strategically between diverse peoples for specific missional purposes within transcultural and transnational French-speaking networks. Hybrid leadership stands on a two-way bridge, bringing diverse peoples across in both directions for reconciliation, for cross-cultural collaboration, and to announce the good news where Jesus is not yet known.</p><p>

<p> Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Pentecostalism has started to reshape global Christianity. Many scholars argue that Pentecostalism, including its different waves of renewal, is the world&rsquo;s fastest-growing movement. Numerous studies were dedicated during the previous decades to examining the spread and characteristics of Pentecostalism in different countries around the world. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to Pentecostalism in Egypt. </p><p> This dissertation examines Egyptian Pentecostalism. It presents a historical perspective on Pentecostalism in Egypt and offers a theological analysis of various movements and waves of Egyptian Pentecostalism. Taking into consideration plurality in the Egyptian society, this study situates different permutations of Egyptian Pentecostalism within a wider sociocultural and religious context. Through the examination of Egyptian Pentecostalism, this dissertation fills a notable gap in Pentecostal scholarship and contributes to the historical and theological understanding of global Pentecostalism. </p><p>

<p>Noting the disparities between the stipulations of rabbinic law and the behavior of the Herodian royal family, scholars have traditionally described the family's commitment to Judaism as lackluster. In particular, many examples from the Herodians' marriage and divorce practices have been engaged to support this view. In contrast, I argue that the royal Jews' behavior in general and their marital practices in particular were largely in accord with one of the formulations of Jewish law in circulation in the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E. Indeed, the extant Second Temple writings indicate that Judaism in Roman Palestine was highly diverse. The rabbis, whose views became normative from late antiquity and on, may well have formed only one of the many competing schools of interpretation in Herodian times. Consequently, the family's failure to comply with rabbinic views does not preclude their identification as pious Jews committed to fulfilling the Law. In fact, one can make an argument for the Herodians' piety based on close readings of biblical texts, Josephus' descriptions of the royal family, and even certain readings of rabbinic texts. Other Jewish texts that pre- and postdate Herodian rule, as well as those from the late Second Temple era itself, further support this view. Indeed, situating the Herodians within their proper setting in Roman Palestine suggests that they were committed Jews who formed one subgroup of the many pious Jewish parties that comprised the diverse world of late Second Temple Judaism.</p> / Dissertation