In written history, Joseph Smith's colonizing efforts have been overshadowed by the Mormon settlement of the west. No one has really made a study of Joseph Smith as a colonizer. To this founder of the Mormon way of life, religion was more than a code of Sunday ethics. According to President Smith, man was created as an actual child of God and his Heavenly Father was concerned with providing for all his needs. Therefore, the revealed word of God in addition to listing a spiritual code of ethics, also contained provisions for the physical, social, political, economical, educational, safety needs, and quality of life. Joseph Smith attempted to combine all these principles into a new society he said was patterned after the order of heaven. It was called the Kingdom of God because Christ was its head and it contained the principles of life which he taught.

As one peers across the vistas of the past two types of holy men stand out with striking prominence and significance. The advance of religious thought and life has largely been due to the activities and contributions of these two, the priest and the prophet. It has been the purpose of this research to seek to discover the particular functions of each of these, to show their correlation in producing religious advance, and to make certain suggestions as to how the values each has to contribute to the program of the modern Christian church may be more adequately realized.

This paper does not purport to be an examination of Zen or Taoism, but rather a view of certain aspects of Zen and Taoism, but rather a view of certain aspects of Zen and Taoism from the vantage point of contemporary psychology, to see if a metaphysic, a philosophical resting-place, might not be found for the admittedly pragmatic science of clinical psychology. The questions the paper asks, then, and attempts to answer, are (1) can such a formulation be made, and (2) does psychotherapy conducted from this point of view move satisfactorily.

The reason I am writing this dissertation is to introduce another side of Zen, Soto, which is completely unknown in the Western world; and at the same time to bring Dogen's teaching to the attention of Western scholars, since it is famous in Japan as the most profound branch of the philosophy of Zen. Unfortunately, none of Dogen' s teaching has yet been translated into English except Masunaga's private publication given above. Therefore I am taking this opportunity to translate and to add a commentary of my own for the better understanding of Dogen as well as the historical survey of the Soto school. Also I have included the research of Bankei, who was in the line of Rinzai, but his distinguished teaching did not appeal to his contemporaries among the Zen Buddhists; rather he was rebuked by the Rinzai School because of his method of teaching Zen. Later the strict Rinzai School became largely connected with the civil authorities and social leaders, but Bankei's lineage died out because of the opposition. Recently Bankei's Zen and his distinguished teaching. method became very important among Japanese Zen scholars and many of them have done careful research on them. I have translated some of his work and briefly wrote his biography to try to introduce Bankei in the English-speaking world. Incidentally Bankei's teaching was introduced by D. T. Suzuki very briefly; thus my attempt is to supplement it and at the same time to contribute some more of it to Western scholarship.

<p>Sir Isaac Newton’s famous discovery of gravity marks the rapid advancement of science in the English seventeenth century, and a permanent shift away from the scientific methods of antiquity. Natural philosophers were beginning to look at the physical world in new and dynamic ways. However, much of this new theory conflicted with traditional theology, which was problematic for Christian followers of this ‘new science’. To negotiate this conflict, a group of natural philosophers developed a new branch of science entitled physico-theology. This stream aims to prove that science does not dismiss religion, but is able to reinforce the existence of God and the truth of Biblical texts. John Woodward is a largely overlooked participant in physico-theology, but his literary works<em> </em>supply key information to modern readers in the understanding of this field. This study critically examines Woodward’s <em>Natural History of the Earth</em> for its significant contributions to early modern science and literary techniques of this discipline. This work is indicative of an emerging scientific method that aims to accommodate both physical observation and creative thinking. I argue that Woodward’s reliance on theology, while scientifically problematic, does not hinder his research, but is perversely productive by challenging him to pursue innovative hypotheses. This prominent, understudied text is remarkable for its fusion of science and theology, and for what it can illuminate about the interdependence of faith and reason in early modern science.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus and is primarily composed of rhetorical statements that were used to preserve the teachings of itinerant Greek philosophers. These collections were used to persuade individuals to join the philosophical schools represented, much like the early followers of the Jesus movement would use his teachings to convince others to join them as well. However, the theological background for the text is still debated because it contains esoteric and enigmatic references not fully understood by most scholars. This work argues that the theological and philosophical background for the Gospel of Thomas is the Alexandrian School of Middle Platonism. This background contains an understanding of the divine, the secret nature of the teachings in the text, and the presence of daemons in the cosmos. In short, this is my attempt at supplying the hermeneutical key to the text or at least supplying a valid ideological background on which the Jesus tradition is cast in the Gospel of Thomas.

From the distribution of religious tracts at Ellis Island and Billy Sunday’s radio messages to televised recordings of the Billy Graham Crusade and Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, American evangelicals have long made a practice of utilizing mass media to spread the Gospel. Most recently, these Christian evangelists have gone online. As a contribution to scholarship in religious rhetoric and media studies, this dissertation offers evangelistic websites as a case study into the ways persuasion is carried out on the Internet. Through an analysis of digital texts—including several evangelical home pages, a chat room, discussion forums, and a virtual church—I investigate how conversion is encouraged via web design and virtual community as well as how the Internet medium impacts the theology and rhetorical strategies of web evangelists. I argue for “persuasive architecture” and “persuasive communities”—web design on the fundamental level of interface layout and tightly-controlled restrictions on discourse and community membership—as key components of this strategy. In addition, I argue that evangelical ideology has been influenced by the web medium and that a “digital reformation” is taking place in the church, one centered on a move away from the Prosperity Gospel of televangelism to a Gospel focused on God as divine problem-solver and salvation as an uncomplicated, individualized, and instantaneously-rewarding experience, mimicking Web 2.0 users’ desire for quick, timely, and effective answers to all queries. This study simultaneously illuminates the structural and fundamental levels of design through which the web persuades as well as how—as rhetoricians from Plato’s King Thamus to Marshall McLuhan have recognized—media inevitably shapes the message and culture of its users.

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This thesis will show that, in its original form, “The Turn of the Screw” acted as a monument to the intellectual unity shared between Henry James and his brother William. Through evaluating James’ biography, memoirs, and letters with William, this thesis will illustrate the subtle collaborative inspirations that initially helped James write the first twelve-part serial edition of “The Turn of the Screw” for Collier’s Weekly, which ran from January 27, 1898 until April 16, 1898. I will also demonstrate the effect of William’s philosophy and his death on the revisions James’ made to his story as published in the twelfth volume of his New York Edition (NYE).

Islam is the world's fastest growing religion. It is known to have an abundant and very rich amount of knowledge found in the Qur'an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, and as such, this religion has tremendously contributed not only to Muslim societies but also to the West. One aspect of this contribution explicated in this thesis is its contribution to the field of Conflict Resolution. The primary purpose of this study is to unearth the tradition of peace and conflict resolution that comes out of the religion of Islam, which is unknown to many Muslims today. In this study, existing literature in the field is examined, and a qualitative exploration is carried out, in order to formulate a better understanding of the dynamics of the Qur'an, hadith and other documents of Islam, as they relate to peace and conflict resolution. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, data collected for this study came from two sources: the existing literature regarding Islam and conflict resolution and the participants (Imams and religious scholars of Islam) interviewed through a questionnaire. To begin with, the thesis introduces the fundamentals of Islam and major concepts of the faith. It proceeds with Qur'anic and hadith injunctions on peace and conflict, and how those divine revelations as believed by Muslims, were applied by Prophet Muhammad and his early followers. This work is concluded with the opinions and interpretations of the scholars regarding the original question of this study and the matters discussed in the literature review. The thesis deals with the teachings of the Qur'an and only investigates and analyzes historical events from the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad and the early caliphate of Islam. In the process, to further explore the concept of conflict resolution in Islam, interpretations of Muslim scholars and imams are included in this document review of the sacred texts of Islam. Some questions addressed in this research are, how might this knowledge be valuable to Muslims today in these times of great turmoil involving the Muslim world after September 11? Where do the primary sources of Islam, the Quran and the hadith, stand as far as peace and conflict are concerned? And most importantly, what does Islam have to teach about conflict resolution?