Thesis advisor: Michael J. Himes / This dissertation inquires into the necessity, process, and structure of the bishop's discernment of the local church's <italic>sensus fidelium</italic>. As an authentic source of saving knowledge of God such that its reception brings union with God and others, the <italic>sensus fidelium</italic> ought to be a source for episcopal teaching. In his reception of the <italic>sensus fidelium</italic>, the bishop continues to learn and to be transformed by the apostolic faith, and is in turn better able to teach the faith with authority. If the bishop's reception of the <italic>sensus fidelium</italic> is integral to his ability to teach the apostolic faith in an authoritative manner, then the orthopraxis of that reception is of great importance. One aspect of that orthopraxis is the bishop's discernment of the <italic>sensus fidelium</italic>. As a ministerial habitus, discernment has implications both for the bishop's personal transformation and for his ability to place his spirituality at the service of the apostolate. The <italic>Spiritual Exercises</italic> of Ignatius of Loyola and the structures of the Society of Jesus are employed as a comparative model of discernment. The <italic>Spiritual Exercises</italic> offers a way of viewing discernment as a virtue that develops one's capacity for both reception from and union with God and others. Discernment in the Society of Jesus is undertaken to foster unity of understanding and purpose at the service of the Society's apostolate. Structures promoting discernment and relating spirituality to authority provide insights into how discernment may be developed within the larger church. Chapter One indicates that the bishop's discernment must become a virtue, that is, it must both be continually undertaken and personally transformative of his own capacity to know and respond to the Holy Spirit. Further, it must take into account in a positive and constructive manner other sources of authority, or of knowing God, within the church's historical context. Chapter Two analyzes the virtues and structures currently considered normative for the bishop's ministry in the local church. While ecclesial documents encourage dialogue, spirituality, and various virtues to aid the bishop's ministry, they leave undeveloped a coherent description of the relationship between discernment and the bishop's spirituality and authority, and do not sufficiently address the bishop's formation by the <italic>sensus fidelium</italic> of the local church. In order to better realize the ideals offered by these documents and to more sufficiently conceive how the bishop comes to personally symbolize the local church, Chapter Three and Chapter Four present the spirituality of the <italic>Spiritual Exercises</italic> and structures of the Society of Jesus. Chapter Five then constructs a model of episcopal discernment in the context of communion ecclesiology and in light of the insights of the Jesuit tradition in order to demonstrate how elements of Ignatian spirituality and Jesuit institutional structures may either illuminate episcopal self-understanding and practice or be adapted to the advantage of dialogical discernment within the local church. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Roberto Goizueta / This dissertation presents a study in the Christian systematic theology of Robert W. Jenson on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In doing so, this work seeks to contribute descriptively to Jenson scholarship in the theological academy, to understanding, clarifying and interpreting his role in the contemporary theological scene, while, as itself operating in the discipline of systematic theology, this work also seeks to constructively augment our understanding of the experience of the Holy Spirit in the Church, reckoning with the significance of this theological locus for a number of prominent movements in the current thought and practice of world Christianity. Part I and Part II of this work engage in an exegesis of the content of Jenson’s pneumatology. Here I advance the interpretation that Jenson’s pneumatology can be meaningfully and beneficially coalesced under—without being merely reduced to—the theme of “freedom” or “liberation.” This integrating motif becomes evident as Jenson’s pneumatology is unfolded across a number of other traditional doctrinal loci and interweaved with a number of other ecumenical concerns, examining both the “work” of the Spirit in the world (first part) and the divine “person” of the Spirit (second part). Part III, then, ventures a constructive evaluation and reception of Jenson’s distinctive pneumatological proposals by way of dialectical encounter with three horizons: those of (1) early Christian pneumatology, (2) twentieth century trinitarian theology and (3) liberation theological discourse and praxis. Through this dialectical engagement, I interrogate a number of aspects of Jenson’s divine ontology and theological infrastructure, insofar as they relate to the uniqueness of his pneumatological proposals. With a re-calibration of some of those theological judgments, I argue that certain insights of Jenson’s notion of the Spirit as eternal, personal Freedom in God, as the Unsurpassed One and as the movement of divine self-constitution from the End of Divine Life merit retrieval. This characterization of the person of the Spirit as one of “freedom” or “liberation,” for the believer, for creation, and for God, forges a pneumatological reconstruction of divine transcendence, similarly to what classical theology had done for the persons of the Father and the Son. Such an achievement, I suggest, offers one viable interpretation of the unique role of the Spirit that mediates between traditional-classical trinitarian ontology and the lived experience of the Spirit currently being exhibited, perceived and theorized in various aspects of global theology and leading areas of theological research. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Until the Stones Cry Out: Materialities of Faith and Technologies of the Holy Ghost in Southern Appalachia is an ethnography of the often unrecognized infrastructures that have sustained Charismatic practices of healing and performances of faith since the mid-twentieth century. My research demonstrates that the broadcasting of healing prayer over the radio, the circulation of curative faith cloths through the postal system, and the architecture of massive canvas revival tents are not merely passive instrumentalities for the transmission of a discretely self-contained religious content, but affect, most fundamentally, the way ritual practices such as intercessory prayer and faith healing are experienced and understood by Charismatic communities within the United States. Moving comparatively between ethnographic and archival evidence, this work explores the objects and technologies that provide the material underpinnings for Pentecostal performances of faith, prayer and the miraculous. On the rhetorical side of these charismatic phenomena, this ethnology examines inspired preaching styles and performances of religious testimony in order to track the appearance and circulation of so-called Holy Ghost power within spaces of ecstatic and enthusiastic worship.

In performing an analysis of the pneumatology of Thomas Erskine it is first necessary to look for the presence of a traditional Trinitarian Pneumatology which is based on the historical findings of the church and which deals with the subject of hypostasis and the relationships between the Persons within the Godhead. This kind of pneumatology is found to be lacking in Erskine's writings. The next step is to proceed to look for anything that could replace it. Erskine's concept of the “first bond” of the flesh, the role of the human conscience, and the place of the living Word are three things that partially take the place of a formal pneumatology in Erskine's thinking. Erskine was very interested in the West Country revival which began in Scotland in 1829. He visited the area and wrote about his observations and experiences there. This increased his interest in the actions of the Holy Spirit both in experience and the scriptures. Even though he later recanted his endorsement of these manifestations in his own day, he held to his belief that such phenomena should appear in a healthy church which follows a New Testament pattern. In this thesis Erskine's writings are analyzed by scanning all of them into a computer database and searching for references to the actions of the Holy Spirit. From this a dynamic pneumatology emerges. A dynamic pneumatology is not concerned with historic creeds or the relationships within the Godhead, John McIntyre defines a dynamic pneumatology as one that speaks of what the Holy Spirit does. McIntyre's taxonomy sets forth eleven patterns of dynamic pneumatology with many sub-patterns. This examination of the writings of Erskine reveals a strong dynamic pneumatology which is both relational and ecclesial.

Applied research project (D. Min.)--School of Theology and Missions, Oral Roberts University, 2005. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-228).

This study seeks to delineate the pneumatological themes that the author of John develops to create expectation and demonstrate fulfillment of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The primary question asked in this investigation focuses on the extent to which Johannine pneumatological expectation can be said to have been fulfilled within the narrative of the Fourth Gospel. A common expression of this question has been debated in terms of the relationship of the Johannine gift on Easter in John 20:19-23 to the Lukan outpouring on Pentecost in Acts 2. In chapter 1 the three major positions on the relationship are surveyed including the Johannine Pentecost view, the Symbolic view, and the Two Gift view. Chapters 2 and 3 consist of an exegetical analysis of what are often referred to as the πνεῦμα (1:29-34; 3:5-8; 3:34; 4:4-30; 6:63; 7:37-39) and παράκλητος passages (John 14:16-17; 14:25-26; 15:26-27; 16:7-11, 12-15). This exegesis focuses on the development of pneumatological expectation regarding the themes of revelation, witness, mission, dwelling, life and empowerment and the conditions of exaltation, the coming hour, glorification, asking, and departure. In chapter 4 the texts that show how the narrative demonstrates the fulfillment of the giving of the Spirit are discussed (John 12:20-50; 13:1-4, 31-35; 17:1-5; 19:28-37; 20:1-18, 19-23, 24-29; 21). Chapter 5 explores the relationship between the Johannine themes that have been identified in the previous chapters with Lukan pneumatology. A harmonization between the Johannine and Lukan accounts of the giving of the Spirit is not only possible but preferable. In chapter 6 the results of the previous chapters are summarized. The Johannine Spirit is realized in the themes of revelation, witness, mission, dwelling, and life. An expectation of empowerment is created but not fulfilled. The Johannine and Lukan accounts of the giving of the Spirit are complementary.

The hypotheses of the current study are that (1) black women will be more spiritual and (2) will have more knowledge of the Holy Spirit than white women, and (3) spirituality will be negatively correlated with eating disorder symptomatology and body dissatisfaction. (4) African American women will have lower body dissatisfaction and (5) less eating disorder symptomatology than Caucasian women. It is predicted that (6) ethnicity will have more influence on eating disorder symptomatology and spirituality than current and ideal weight. (7) Current weight will have more influence on body dissatisfaction than ethnicity or ideal weight. Finally, (8) the ideal weight of black women will be higher than that of white women. Participants included 95 African American and Caucasian female college students. All the hypotheses were supported. Prospective research can discern whether racial differences in spirituality have causal influence on healthier body image held by many black women.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-162).

Thesis (D.W.S.)--Institute for Worship Studies, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-196).

By way of introducing this doctrinal study, we have traced in broad outline the effects of Hellenistic philosophy on the theology of the Holy Spirit. After reviewing some of the errors which arose in the identification of the Spirit with the creation of mediating grace, we noted that there was also a tradition which avoided the worst aspects of Greek dualism by identifying the Third Person of the Trinity with grace as a continuing realisation of the mission of Christ in history. The pneumatological theology of Samuel Rutherford manifests this emphasis in 17th Cent. Scotland. His doctrine of the Spirit is consciously integrated with his understanding of the Trinity in general and with Christology in particular. The Son and the Spirit are both sent according to the plan of the Father. The Spirit in His soteriological office is subject to the Son and produces by recreation the life of the Son in those chosen by the Father. Thus regeneration, faith, repentance, and sanctification are the believer's by an actual union of participation in the life of Christ. This activity of the Spirit presupposes not only His use of the Scriptures which He has caused to be written as an unerring revelation of God's will, but also His absolute control of all creation. The Spirit's power in this regard is manifest in every part of the world but most obviously in the Church which He guides and vitalises and in the life of the individual believer who is constantly under His influences. The presence of the Holy Spirit in man does not create a bridge between him and Christ as by a creaturely means nor does it annihilate the believer's personhood or responsibility as by an absolute imputation of Christ's life. Rather, by drawing men into a living union with the living Christ, the Holy Spirit establishes man's true creatureliness and his responsibility in an act of worshipping the triune God in and through Jesus Christ.