“Everyday Eschatology: Centering and Healing in Two Hindu Sects,” examines the two most prominent eschatological groups in North India: the Gayatri Pariwar and the Brahma Kumaris. Both organizations envision and pursue an imminent transition into a new Golden Age through self-care regimens that connect Hindu rituals to the authority of modern medical science. Rather than prepare for the end of the world by retreating from society, these groups attempt to act as custodians of societal welfare by way of goods and services meant to cleanse at once the mind, body, and environment. Drawn from ethnographic and archival fieldwork conducted at the headquarters and local-level cells of both institutions, this project demonstrates how members of both groups position everyday religious practices as the means of saving a world under-stood to be on the brink of collapse.

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Call number: LD2668 .T4 1984 K785 / Master of Arts

In this thesis, economic theory and models will be used to analyze trends of religious growth and decline within the United States. These theories and models, such as Rational Choice Theory, will be applied in order to better understand and gain new insight into shifts and changes within the religious landscape of the United States. Recent trends of growth and decline within Protestantism, the most prominent Christian tradition in America, will be the focus of the investigation. As its main focus, this thesis will ultimately demonstrate that the trends of decline in the mainline Protestant tradition opposed to the trends of growth in the evangelical Protestant tradition can be best understood by focusing on the unique relationship between a religious organization’s degree of tension with society and that organization’s congregational attendance.

Hispanic religious ministry provides a way for long established mainstreams to stay afloat in the face of the demographic realities in the U.S. today. Unfortunately, the lack of literature, particularly in geography, precludes the examination of elements of contemporary Hispanic religious outreach, including such considerations as strategies, their effectiveness, and institutional praxis among mainstream religious denominations in the U.S. Using a hybrid methodology that relies on several techniques, I examine Hispanic religious ministry in the Upper U.S. South, which geographers tell us is America’s newest Hispanic destination. I, thereby, develop and present here a case study to compare Hispanic religious ministry in Kentucky’s Inner Bluegrass metropolitan region, which has recently been attracting Hispanics. I use three mainstream denominations including the Roman Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention to examine the relationships of religious polity, outreach practices, and disparate strategies among these three denominations. Strategies of Hispanic religious ministry among religious organizations associated with the Roman Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention; reflect many similarities, while simultaneously exhibiting much variation throughout the Inner Bluegrass. Similarities in outreach praxis seem to be predicated on tactics wherein agencies have come to dominate the cultures of contemporary mainstream religious denominations, while polities, historically structured to differentiate religious traditions and doctrines within a continuum of congregational versus connectional organization, seemed to account for much variation among these disparate denominations. While Hispanic outreach in the Inner Bluegrass mostly follow national-level plans or strategies, the Roman Catholic denomination seems most efficient and effective in managing new Hispanic ministries in the Inner Bluegrass today.

The purpose of this study is to treat the English hymns and hymn writers of the eighteenth century.

It is not the purpose of this study to find the answer to the question which has often been asked, "Why have so many churches closed?" Finding the answer to this question is possibly an ultimate or underlying purpose, but it is not anticipated that the study will answer the question. Very little study is given to the processes which operate to cause the demise of particular congregations. Attention is rather focused on statistical data which are easily obtainable and the attempt is made to determine which of these are significantly related to the fact of closing.

Since 1941, R. M. Bell has devoted his life to the training of ministers as the President of Johnson Bible College, Kimberlin Heights, Tennessee. During his tenure as president he has represented a point of view that has played both a distinctive and controversial role in the life of our Brotherhood. It is the purpose of this study to examine his life historically with emphasis on the events and influences that helped shape his life and thought. His theological positions will be surveyed and a critique given regarding the contribution his life and thought has had in the Christian church.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to remove some of the vagueness associated with the ministry of the Disciples and to add some depth to their theory of the ministry through some proposals for renewal and reformation. First, I propose to accomplish this purpose through an historical survey of the development of the ministry among Disciples. Then, some recommendations will be offered in the light of the Biblical ministry, the historical ministry of the Church, and the contemporary situation. It is my opinion that the Church and its ministry must be renewed constantly through continuing reformations. In order to be valid, these reformations must not neglect Biblical, historical, and existential factors. Upon these criteria, I have based my propositions for the doctrine of the ministry among Disciples of Christ.