Since its inception, the Internet has served as a powerful medium for the dissemination of religious information and the creation of religious communities. Cyberspace now represents an important global paradigm shift in the way religion is conducted. This research provides a sociological account of the affordances the Internet contributes to religious life by examining the ways in which it has influenced the conduct or practices associated with Buddhism. In particular, it assesses the extent to which the rituals constitutive of the Buddhist practice of meditation have been achieved by the Cybersangha, the term Buddhists use for the online Buddhist community. The thesis argues that the Internet is not well suited to the facilitation of particular types of religious understanding and that there are clear limitations to its ability to provide the shared ritualistic experience necessitated by meditation. This is due to the fact that current technology can enable ritual only to a limited degree, and to the ways in which the textual nature of the Internet poses problems for religious experience of an intuitive, non-mediated nature. For these reasons, despite the fact that many websites advertise ‘online meditation’ and despite the strong attempts of some communities to use the Internet as a meditational medium, online meditation cannot be fully facilitated by the Internet. Since a key method by which a Buddhist attains understanding of reality is the use of the body in a meditative act, the inability to provide for embodiment means that the Internet can never offer an experiential equivalent to that of an offline environment. The lack of this experiential aspect means that it cannot in turn provide for holistic, religious communion. As such, there needs to be a further philosophical and practical appraisal of the capabilities of the Internet in general, and as a medium by which a religious experience can be engendered.

From the claims of punk rocker GG Allin aiming to shed his own blood for Rock ‘n’ Roll to the religiously tinted narratives of Bruce Springsteen we come to find artists using religious references to color their artistic medium. A question arises: Could these utterances and narratives show a deeper meaning behind Rock ‘n’ Roll such that it can give individuals a way to obtain religious experience? This thesis aims at arguing for the ability of Rock ‘n’ Roll as having a way to incite feelings of religious experience and communitas. Through the usage of auto-ethnography coupled with subsidiary sources from academic to pop culture writers this thesis will investigate if such a creative form helps to enable individuals to experience transcendence and feelings of community while immersed in Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Der Gegenstand dieser Dissertation sind Konversionsprozesse von Angehörigen der Evangelischen Landeskirchen in Deutschland (EKD); insbesondere geht es um die Art und Weise, wie Menschen die Veränderung ihrer Persönlichen Religion erleben. Die Theorie ist aus der religionssoziologischen, religionswissenschaftlichen und religionspsychologischen Konversionsforschung der letzten 100 Jahre abgeleitet und mittels quantitativer Verfahren geprüft worden. Drei Ergebnisse sind für die Arbeit zentral: 1. Anstatt Mitglieder devianter religiöser Gruppen zu befragen und die Motivlagen zur Mitgliedschaft zu erforschen, bilden Aussagen von Angehörigen der Evangelischen Kirchen in Deutschland die Datengrundlage. Auch bei ihnen ist nachweisbar, dass Konversionen zu biographischen Rekonstruktionen führen, die sich an der Norm der Religionsgemeinschaft orientieren. In der EKD ist das normative Spektrum breit, sodass hier Konversion sowohl als plötzliche (radikale) Veränderung als auch als gradueller Wandel sowie als unbewusster Prozess im Laufe der Biographie erlebt wird. 2. Über die biographische Rekonstruktion des Vorher-Nachher-Unterschieds der veränderten Persönlichen Religion hinaus sollten die Befragten angeben, als wie intensiv oder umfassend sie diese Veränderung erlebt haben. Anhand der Daten lässt sich zeigen, dass bei einem intensiveren Veränderungserleben auch die persönliche Religion zentraler für die Lebensvollzüge ist. 3. Die quantitativen Methoden haben es ermöglicht, sowohl die soziale Normzuordnung als auch das psychische Intensivierungserleben in ihrer Bedeutsamkeit für die Erklärung von Konversionsprozessen zu vergleichen. Beide Zugänge ergänzen einander in Abhängigkeit der Fragestellung: Die Zuordnung zur sozial normierten Erlebensweise der Konversion ist der stärkere Prädiktor für die biographsiche Rekonstruktion, die erlebte Intensität der Verändung ist der stärkere Prädiktor für den Zentralität der Persönlichen Religion (außer für den seltenen plötzlichen Konversionstyp). Allerdings trägt der jeweils andere Prädiktor zusätzlich zur Varianzaufklärung der jeweiligen zu erklärenden Variable bei. In einem umfassenderen Rahmen wird für die Religionswissenschaft diskutiert, dass religionssoziologische Theorieansätze sinnvoll und notwendig durch religionspsychologische ergänzt werden sollten.

Since its inception, the Internet has served as a powerful medium for the dissemination of religious information and the creation of religious communities. Cyberspace now represents an important global paradigm shift in the way religion is conducted. This research provides a sociological account of the affordances the Internet contributes to religious life by examining the ways in which it has influenced the conduct or practices associated with Buddhism. In particular, it assesses the extent to which the rituals constitutive of the Buddhist practice of meditation have been achieved by the Cybersangha, the term Buddhists use for the online Buddhist community. The thesis argues that the Internet is not well suited to the facilitation of particular types of religious understanding and that there are clear limitations to its ability to provide the shared ritualistic experience necessitated by meditation. This is due to the fact that current technology can enable ritual only to a limited degree, and to the ways in which the textual nature of the Internet poses problems for religious experience of an intuitive, non-mediated nature. For these reasons, despite the fact that many websites advertise ‘online meditation’ and despite the strong attempts of some communities to use the Internet as a meditational medium, online meditation cannot be fully facilitated by the Internet. Since a key method by which a Buddhist attains understanding of reality is the use of the body in a meditative act, the inability to provide for embodiment means that the Internet can never offer an experiential equivalent to that of an offline environment. The lack of this experiential aspect means that it cannot in turn provide for holistic, religious communion. As such, there needs to be a further philosophical and practical appraisal of the capabilities of the Internet in general, and as a medium by which a religious experience can be engendered.

Nikos Kazantzakis� Captain Michales is a freedom fighter in nineteenth century Crete. Patrick White�s Voss is a German explorer in nineteenth century Australia. Two men struggling for achievement, their disparate social contexts united in the same fundamental search for meaning. This thesis makes comparison of these different struggles through thematic analysis of the texts, examining within the narratives the role of food, perceptions of body and soul, landscapes, gender relations, home-coming and religious experience. Themes from the novels are extracted and intertwined, within a range of theoretical frameworks: history, anthropology, science, literary and social theories, religion and politics; allowing close investigation of each novel�s social, political and historical particularities, as well as their underlying discussion of perennial human issues. These novels are each essentially explorations of the human experience. Read together, they highlight the commonest of human elements, most poignantly the need for communion; facilitating analysis of the individual and all our communities. Comparing the two novels also continues the process of each: examining the self both within and outside of the narratives, producing a new textual self, arising from both primary sources and the contextual breadth of such rewriting.

Systematic Theology, like all other disciplines, are subject to basic assumptions about its first principles, which is determinant for the way the discipline understands itself and does its work. The consequential perception the discipline has of knowledge acquisition and method of research in turn determines its interpretation of the knowledge acquired. The three areas of understanding (metaphysical assumptions, epistemological theories and ethical praxis) together form a cycle that builds the basis of a paradigm. Paradigms are continually present and are by nature developmental. The development from the macro-, to the messo-, and micro-levels in the structure of a paradigm is described through the three areas of understanding, providing a method for analysing paradigms. Using a developmental method of observation (affective awareness), analysis (ontological way of understanding), theorising (a different way of thinking) and application (ethical responsible living) suggests a fundamental reconsideration of the task of all disciplines, including systematic theology. / Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics / M. Th.(Systematic Theology)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:20:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Leandro Seawright.pdf: 654959 bytes, checksum: ec7b61249a1b1faf31afa8ed10498290 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-02-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This dissertation is the result of a search about a Pentecostal schism in the Brazilian Baptist Convention, in the decade of 1960. The center of interest of the conflict is a Spiritual Renewal Movement, which defended an experience of religious ecstasy, called baptism with the Holy Spirit, as confirmation of the relationship of the believer with God. The gradual adhesion of Baptists communities to such proposal transformed it into an alternative web of power that caused instability in the relations of power within the Baptist denomination in Brazil. The research reconstructs the shocks of this crucial episode and offered an interpretation from the theories of Michel Foucault and Michel de Certeau, trying to decipher the institutional mechanisms of control in battles with the tactics of the web of power. In the historical context of Brazilian effervescence not only religious, the mechanisms of surveillance of Brazilian Baptist Convention have proved inadequate for maintaining the unity threatened, since the opposing groups were punished with the exclusion.(AU) / A presente dissertação é resultado de uma pesquisa acerca de um cisma pentecostal na Convenção Batista Brasileira, na década de 1960. No foco do conflito encontra-se um Movimento de Renovação Espiritual, que defendia uma experiência de êxtase religioso, designada de batismo com o Espírito Santo, como confirmação da relação do crente com Deus. A progressiva adesão de comunidades batistas a tal proposta transformou-a numa rede alternativa de poder que causou instabilidade nas relações de poder no interior da denominação batista no Brasil. A pesquisa reconstrói os embates decisivos deste episódio e ofereceu uma interpretação a partir das teorias de Michel Foucault e Michel de Certeau, na medida em que tenta decifrar os mecanismos institucionais de controle em confronto com as táticas das redes de poder. No contexto histórico brasileiro de efervescência não só religiosa, os mecanismos de vigilância da Convenção Batista Brasileira mostraram-se insuficientes para a manutenção da unidade ameaçada, uma vez que puniu os grupos opositores com a exclusão.(AU)

From the claims of punk rocker GG Allin aiming to shed his own blood for Rock ‘n’ Roll to the religiously tinted narratives of Bruce Springsteen we come to find artists using religious references to color their artistic medium. A question arises: Could these utterances and narratives show a deeper meaning behind Rock ‘n’ Roll such that it can give individuals a way to obtain religious experience? This thesis aims at arguing for the ability of Rock ‘n’ Roll as having a way to incite feelings of religious experience and communitas. Through the usage of auto-ethnography coupled with subsidiary sources from academic to pop culture writers this thesis will investigate if such a creative form helps to enable individuals to experience transcendence and feelings of community while immersed in Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Cette Thèse propose d’expliquer le succès du christianisme au sein de populations urbaines deChine en analysant les processus d’affiliation-conversion, non comme des ruptures radicalesmais comme des résultats d’évaluations et de choix relativement rationnels et contextualisés.Y sont examinés les évolutions institutionnelles, les dispositions culturelles, les facteursconjoncturels, ainsi le processus d’initiation religieuse conduisant certains Chinois à adhérer àdes croyances et des organisations chrétiennes, à partir d’entretiens et d’observations conduitsprincipalement dans diverses organisations chrétiennes à Shanghai. Rappelant la graduellelégitimation socio-politique d’une offre chrétienne diversifiée en Chine depuis plus d’unsiècle, Cette thèse montre d’abord que l’adhésion des acteurs à des représentations etaspirations cosmopolites ainsi que l’expérience d’une mobilité géographique etprofessionnelle rendent possible les affiliations. Celles-ci résultent ensuite de l’identificationdans une organisation religieuse de ressources orientées vers le développement personnel etfamilial dans une structure innovante et moralement conservatrice. La conversion repose enfinsur l’expérience vécue par les acteurs au cours de l’initiation religieuse, dotant l’organisationet ses croyances d’une nouvelle légitimité, divine de leur point de vue, et par laquelle ilsachèvent une subjectivation communautaire. L’homogénéité constatée des processusd’affiliation-conversion ne doit cependant pas masquer la diversité des identités et stratégiesadoptées par les organisations et les acteurs pour accroitre leurs marges de manoeuvres et leurreconnaissance sociale. / This dissertation offers to explain the growth and success of Christianity among urbanpopulations in China, by analyzing affiliations and conversions as the results of relativelyrational and contextualized choices. Institutional evolutions, cultural dispositions, situationalcontingencies and the process of religious initiation leading to the endorsement of Christianbeliefs and organizations are examined mostly from interviews and observations conducted indiverse Christian organizations in Shanghai. Reminding of the gradual socio-politicallegitimation of Christianity since more than a century, this dissertation firstly shows thataffiliations are made possible because of individual’s adhesion to cosmopolitanrepresentations and aspirations, as well as their experience of geographical and socialmobility. Affiliations are then resulting from the identification of resources for personal andfamily development within an innovating as well as morally conservative religiousorganization. Conversion finally results from the individual experiment of a religiousinitiation, through which both the organization and its beliefs gain a new kind of legitimacy,appearing as divine in the eyes of the convert, and through which converts are achieving acommunity-centered subjectivation. Despite strong homogeneity, affiliation-conversionprocesses lead to great diversity of identities and strategies put up by organizations andindividuals struggling to increase their range of motion and social recognition.

Der Gegenstand dieser Dissertation sind Konversionsprozesse von Angehörigen der Evangelischen Landeskirchen in Deutschland (EKD); insbesondere geht es um die Art und Weise, wie Menschen die Veränderung ihrer Persönlichen Religion erleben. Die Theorie ist aus der religionssoziologischen, religionswissenschaftlichen und religionspsychologischen Konversionsforschung der letzten 100 Jahre abgeleitet und mittels quantitativer Verfahren geprüft worden. Drei Ergebnisse sind für die Arbeit zentral: 1. Anstatt Mitglieder devianter religiöser Gruppen zu befragen und die Motivlagen zur Mitgliedschaft zu erforschen, bilden Aussagen von Angehörigen der Evangelischen Kirchen in Deutschland die Datengrundlage. Auch bei ihnen ist nachweisbar, dass Konversionen zu biographischen Rekonstruktionen führen, die sich an der Norm der Religionsgemeinschaft orientieren. In der EKD ist das normative Spektrum breit, sodass hier Konversion sowohl als plötzliche (radikale) Veränderung als auch als gradueller Wandel sowie als unbewusster Prozess im Laufe der Biographie erlebt wird. 2. Über die biographische Rekonstruktion des Vorher-Nachher-Unterschieds der veränderten Persönlichen Religion hinaus sollten die Befragten angeben, als wie intensiv oder umfassend sie diese Veränderung erlebt haben. Anhand der Daten lässt sich zeigen, dass bei einem intensiveren Veränderungserleben auch die persönliche Religion zentraler für die Lebensvollzüge ist. 3. Die quantitativen Methoden haben es ermöglicht, sowohl die soziale Normzuordnung als auch das psychische Intensivierungserleben in ihrer Bedeutsamkeit für die Erklärung von Konversionsprozessen zu vergleichen. Beide Zugänge ergänzen einander in Abhängigkeit der Fragestellung: Die Zuordnung zur sozial normierten Erlebensweise der Konversion ist der stärkere Prädiktor für die biographsiche Rekonstruktion, die erlebte Intensität der Verändung ist der stärkere Prädiktor für den Zentralität der Persönlichen Religion (außer für den seltenen plötzlichen Konversionstyp). Allerdings trägt der jeweils andere Prädiktor zusätzlich zur Varianzaufklärung der jeweiligen zu erklärenden Variable bei. In einem umfassenderen Rahmen wird für die Religionswissenschaft diskutiert, dass religionssoziologische Theorieansätze sinnvoll und notwendig durch religionspsychologische ergänzt werden sollten.