The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830, but its connection with agrarian themes is found in all of LDS canonized scripture, implying a sense of antiquity from the time of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Scriptural examples and teachings of LDS leaders build the foundation of the Latter-day Saint agrarian theology. Valuing this connection to the land remained constant during the Church’s early development, but diminished in theological focus years before the Great Depression. During the Depression, the Church proactively created a Church Security Plan (later renamed the Church Welfare Plan) to aid Church members’ temporal and spiritual needs. Welfare projects provided relief through Mormonism’s concepts of independence, self-reliance, stewardship, and welfare. The application of the Church Welfare Program encouraged the development of these doctrinal principles, and resulted in the creation of spiritual communities on Church welfare farms as the needs of the community were met, both LDS and non-LDS. Welfare farms, created during the Great Depression, establish an environment for the application of the agrarian theology that has existed within Mormonism since its beginnings, and acts as an ideal setting for the creation of spiritual communities.

Master's thesis called Spirituality of Faithful Women in Pregnancy and after the Birth focuses on meaning of spirituality, expressing of spirituality and possible transformation of women's spirituality in pregnancy and after the birth. The thesis is divided into theoretical and research part. The theoretical part contains three chapters. The aim of the first chapter is to define the term of spirituality. It deals with spirituality as a dimension of personality, and spirituality as a need. This part also presents the seven dimensions of Christian spirituality, spirituality of women and the spirituality of motherhood. The second chapter describes the term of pregnancy, childbirth and the period after the birth from the perspective of a holistic approach. The third chapter focuses on spirituality in pregnancy and after the birth. This part contains biblical-theological perspective of pregnancy and childbirth and includes the Roman Catholic Church point of view. The research part of the thesis uses a qualitative social science approach with biographical research design. The goal is to find out the meaning of spirituality in pregnancy and after the birth for women of the Roman Catholic Church, and to find out, how the spirituality is changed and how it is manifested. Master's thesis is written in the...