<p> Of the thousands of Buddhist manuscripts discovered at Dunhuang, there are many examples of non-official <i>s&umacr;tras</i> and <i> dh&amacr;ran&dotbelow;&imacr;</i> collections more difficult to identify than those with titles identical to canonical <i>s&umacr;tras</i>. Manuscript collection catalogs are the first sources consulted when one undertakes research involving manuscripts and in order to be a truely valuable resource, they need to reflect current scholarship. This thesis studies the Dunhuang manuscript, Pelliot <i>chinois</i> 3538, from different perspectives, examining its ritual, iconography, and textual variances. It compares its iconographical program to manuscript <i>s&umacr;tras</i> and canonical scriptures, uncovering new information regarding the content of multiple manuscripts. From this research it is apparent that P.3538 is an Avalokite&sacute;vara <i> dh&amacr;ran&dotbelow;&imacr;</i> ritual that is iconographically informed from a variety of canonical texts: <i>s&umacr;tras</i> in the <i> N&imacr;lakan&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;ha</i>/Qianshou cluster, the <i> Mah&amacr;pratisar&amacr; dh&amacr;ran&dotbelow;&imacr;s&umacr;tra</i> and its corresponding amulet culture, and <i>s&umacr;tras</i> connected with the bodhisattva&rsquo;s narrative history. In examining other manuscripts from Cave 17, we have found that it is a member of a Dunhuang manuscript cluster and is visually represented in an ink on paper altar diagram, Stein no. Ch.00189, from the British Museum. Integrating these findings would enrich descriptive catalogs for future research.</p>

<p>Jill Hemming Austin PERFORMING THE PAST: TWO PAGEANT TRADITIONS IN NAUVOO, ILLINOIS The founders of American historical pageantry were keenly interested in the social effect of pageant performance on audience and participants. Their vision for social transformation through performance endures into the present day with those who continue to promulgate the form. Examining two enduring pageant traditions in Nauvoo, Illinois affords a better understanding of how the formal features of outdoor historical pageant production and the social relations that underlie them are still potentially powerful for those who participate in their production and performance. This dissertation encourages serious study of pageants as a unique performance form particularly attuned to the tasks of building continuities and tradition, the reinforcement of group sentiment, and the propitiation of group myth. Nauvoo, Illinois is a historically contested site boasting two historical pageants dedicated to the portrayal of the Nauvoo story: The Grape Festival Pageant and The Nauvoo Pageant. Christened ?Nauvoo? by Mormon [LDS] refugees in the mid-19th century, the thriving city?s overwhelming social discord drove the Mormons west, and the town was resettled and reclaimed by new seekers and settlers. The legendary quality of Nauvoo continued to grow in the Mormon imagination, eventually leading to a reclamation process including heritage development. Competing claims on local history has led to a heightened historical consciousness among townsfolk and ongoing public presentation from multiple perspectives. The two pageants are cultural displays that influence this ongoing social process. Both derive from distinct traditions--the local drama squarely planted in American historical pageantry and the Mormon-sponsored pageant deriving from LDS social and religious culture. Historical pageants have some unique formal features that make them particularly interesting to folklorists. They depend heavily on sacred localities, tradition, legend, and large-group participation for their success. The story told gains power from familiarity and reinforcement of cherished group values. However, changing tastes and sensibilities have challenged the survival of pageants as a relevant cultural form into the present. Drawing on interviews, field observation, and historical research, the contemporary context of the town and its two performances is fleshed out in the voices of four individuals who have participated in the pageants.

This study describes the religious content of the Ciceronian corpus and reappraises Cicero’s religious stance. Chapter 1 develops a working definition of religion in terms of interested supernatural agents, briefly situating it within the historiography of religion. Support for this definition from scholars in a range of academic disciplines is demonstrated. It is then engaged in Chapter 2 as a tool with which to locate and classify religious material in the Ciceronian corpus, approaching the texts genre by genre and indicating certain difficulties encountered when seeking to divide the religious from the non-religious. Religion in Cicero now defined, Chapter 3 considers the limitations in scope and methodology of previous research on the topic, arguing that these limitations call for a new approach but also suggest how it should proceed. The corpus must be considered as a whole, with twin objectives: to describe and account for conflicting religious viewpoints within and between individual works, and to establish whether a coherent authorial religious position exists. Cicero generally presents religion as beneficial to society, but never expressly sets out to elucidate the reasoning behind this recurrent proposition or collects in one place those beliefs and practices that are repeatedly advocated. Chapter 4 combines disparate Ciceronian material to show how social utility is thought to accrue and how it is predicated upon a surprisingly large and specific body of religious doctrine. This doctrine amounts to a dominant religious ideology; its operation in practice and its substantial resemblance to Roman orthodoxy are illustrated in Chapter 5, a case study on Cicero’s use of religious rhetoric in connection with the Catilinarian conspiracy. Chapter 6 details the similarities and many conflicts between the dominant religious ideology and the religious viewpoints of the Stoics, Epicureans and Philonian Academics as each school is portrayed by Cicero. Finally, Chapter 7 argues that a coherent authorial attitude to religion is present, which maps closely onto the dominant religious ideology and is characterized by a consistent and spirited endorsement of traditional Roman religion in full awareness of competing rational arguments from Greek philosophy. Some possible explanations for this attitude conclude the study. / The Classics

<p> The purpose of this dissertation is to answer the question: What would constitute an effective strategy for training and developing holistic small group leaders, specifically at Renaissance Community Church? To begin the process of answering this question the author identified four specific steps that were necessary to assist in the development of holistic small group leaders at RCC. </p><p> Prior to the project design, the author, working with Dr. Bobby Hill of Hill Consulting, and using the NCD assessment tools, discovered that small groups were the minimum factor. It was at that point that RCC began transitioning from a church with small groups to a church of small groups. </p><p> This led to the first step of the ministry project, which involved recruiting twelve potential leaders and administering a pre-test designed to gauge the participant&rsquo;s current level of understanding and confidence to explain the following concepts: understanding God&rsquo;s purpose for small groups, understanding a leader&rsquo;s personal development, understanding and developing new leaders, understanding the dynamics of spiritual development, leading small group meetings, comprehending group progress, understanding the role of a shepherd, and with these competencies impact their world. </p><p> For the second step, using a <i>Modeling/Turbo</i> group model, the author developed an eight-week small group setting using the <i> Leading Life-Changing with Small Groups</i> as the leadership curriculum for the twelve participants. The author then used a post-test to measure the participants&rsquo; development in their abilities to explain and implement the material. </p><p> The third step consisted of the <i>turbo launch</i> in which the participants led six groups for eight weeks using the material <i> ReGroup: Training Groups to be Groups,</i> specifically designed by the author in order for the participants to implement their new skills. </p><p> This eight-week process ended with the fourth step, an exit interview with questions (see Appendix F) designed to measure the qualitative efficacy of the <i>Leading Life-Changing with Small Groups</i> training program. The participants&rsquo; showed signs of significant increase in both the understanding of the material during the eight week modeling/turbo group.</p>

<p> Play is a manifestation of overflowing excess. When applied to the study of discourse, this bounty can be understood in terms of figurativeness and depth. If &ldquo;degree-zero&rdquo; discourse is the almost entirely unfigured language of an instruction manual, then verse lies near the other extreme: highly figured and elaborate language open to rich interpretive possibilities. I posit a further pole yet on this continuum: the hyperabundant texts of the Renaissance, when ludics were at a height partially quashed by the Enlightenment preference for the plain style. These ludic texts are not merely decorative but rather reflect the incarnational impulse of Renaissance Christian thought; they attempt to praise and to imitate the power of Divine language, in which Word is made Flesh in the West&rsquo;s master model of superabundance, grace through Christ&rsquo;s Incarnation and Sacrifice.</p><p> This project conducts three case studies of playfully incarnational discourses during the Renaissance: in speech, in imagery, and in verse. First, it analyzes sermons by John Donne that reflect candidly on the power of Donne&rsquo;s own ludic speech, concluding that his transgressive, gamelike rhetoric was oriented toward stimulating responsive action. Next, it examines period images through the lens of contemporary popular works that conceive of images as puzzles to be decoded, solved, and read, concluding that period anamorphoses and similar works were efforts to infuse images with lively presence in a way that helps to account for iconophobic and iconophilic strains in English Reformation thought. Finally, it reads George Herbert&rsquo;s deceptively simple poem, &ldquo;The Altar,&rdquo; examining how the piece may be understood as an intervention into the shaped-verse tradition and how it reflects on period debates about Church fabric, concluding that the toylike or tricklike construction evokes the Eucharistic presence of the Divine in Herbert&rsquo;s worshipful meditation.</p><p> At stake are a greater appreciation for Renaissance artistry, a fuller understanding of the complexityof the English Reformation, and a richer vocabularyfor play theorists working with ludic discourses. A conclusion considers these implications and explains whyRenaissance thinkers might have chosen a ludic mode of imitative worship&mdash;God&rsquo;s grace and creation are themselves forms of play.</p>

<p> This thesis explores the motivations behind the American and Foreign Christian Union&rsquo;s missions to Italy during the American Civil War. The AFCU was a missionary organization founded in New York City in 1849 with the ambitious goal of ridding the world of Roman Catholicism. It was born during a time of nativist fervor when American Protestants saw Catholic immigrants as a threat to American democracy. The AFCU believed they could solve the problem of Catholic immigrants by converting the Catholic world to Protestantism, starting with Italy. The leaders of the AFCU believed the world was engaged in a struggle between Liberty and Tyranny. The war against the Confederacy and the fight to free Italians from the tyrannical Pope were different fronts of the same war. The AFCU entire unsuccessful as a missionary organization. They converted virtually no one. However, their publications were essential to helping American Protestants shape their identity.</p><p>

abstract: ABSTRACT Over 700 Navy Chaplains served with Marine Corps units in Vietnam between 1962 and 1972. With an average age of 37, these chaplains were often twice the age of the young men with whom they served. More than half were veterans of World War II and/or the Korean Conflict. All were volunteers. The pathways these clergymen took to Vietnam varied dramatically not only with the Marines they served, but with one another. Once in Vietnam their experiences depended largely upon when, where, and with whom they served. When the last among them returned home in 1972 the Corps they represented and the American religious landscape of which they were a part had changed. This study examines the experiences of Navy chaplains in three phases of the American conflict in Vietnam: the assisting and defending phase, 1962-1965; the intense combat phase, 1966-1968; and the post-Tet drawdown phase, 1969-1972. Through glimpses of the experiences of multiple chaplains and in-depth biographical sketches of six in particular the study elucidates their experiences, their understandings of chaplaincy, and the impact of their service in Vietnam on the rest of their lives. This work argues that the motto the Chaplains School adopted in 1943, “Cooperation without Compromise,” proved relevant for clergy in a time when Protestant-Catholic-Jew were the defining categories of American religious experience. By the early 1970s, however, many Navy chaplains could no longer cooperate with one another without compromising their theological perspective. This reality reflected America’s shifting religious landscape and changes within the Chaplains Corps. Thus, many chaplains who served in Vietnam may well have viewed that time as bringing to a close a golden age of service within the Navy’s Chaplains Corps. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2015

<p> This dissertation examines the transformation of the South Indian city of Kanchipuram into a major cosmopolitan sacred center during the course of the eighth through twelfth centuries. In this pivotal five hundred-year period, Kanchipuram served as the royal capital for two major dynasties, the Pallavas and then the Cholas. Both dynasties sponsored the production of prominent sacred monuments built from locally sourced stone. These temples were crowned with pyramidal towers, adorned with sculpted and painted figures of deities amid groves and palatial landscapes, and elegantly ornamented with courtly Sanskrit and Tamil inscriptions. Over time, the temples functioned as monumental statements of power, sites of devotion, and municipal establishments where diverse social groups negotiated their claims to political authority and economic prosperity. In Kanchipuram, temples also played a crucial role in defining urban space by demarcating the city's center and borders, marking crucial junctions, and orienting the gods towards avenues, hydraulic features, and royal establishments. As religious monuments, they also fostered vibrant circuits of pilgrimage and travel that were integrated with a broader Indian Ocean network.</p><p> The dissertation argues that the construction of temples fundamentally shaped and reordered landscape. The four chapters, organized chronologically, address the expanding geography of Kanchipuram and its widening sphere of influence. The first two chapters trace the city's shifting contours and the emergence of a major pilgrimage route that led precisely through the urban core. The city was radically reconfigured around this new central road, which functioned as a processional pathway that created relationships between monuments both inside the city and beyond its borders. The third chapter reveals patterns of movement linking the city with its rural and coastal hinterland, and considers connections with Southeast Asia. Temples in more remote areas disclose links to Kanchipuram through their use of shared architectural forms, a standardized iconographic program, and inscriptions that detail economic and political ties to the urban hub. The fourth chapter focuses on colonial-era encounters with Kanchipuram and the city's role in the broader production of colonial knowledge. As a site of antiquarian interest and military history, Kanchipuram was subject to competing narratives about India. Whereas European officials and surveyors such as James Fergusson saw in the city's monuments India's past glory and inevitable decline, other travelers found no evidence of rupture or disrepair. I read these conflicting representations against the grain to expose Kanchipuram's continuity as a flourishing cosmopolitan center. The dissertation's goal is twofold. First, it documents Kanchipuram and maps its monuments spatially and chronologically in relation to each other, the city, and features of the natural environment. Second, it situates the temples within their ritual and civic functions as agentive establishments that both served and fostered a growing urban landscape.</p><p>

<p> The project director serves as the director of operations for the New Breed Church Planting Network (NBCPN). A necessity for developing a reproducible disciple-making strategy for the church planters of NBCPN existed. The project exists to develop a reproducible disciple-making practicum to meet the needs of NBCPN.</p><p> Within the first chapter, the project director explored the ministry project proposal and purpose. Listing main objectives, limitations, assumptions, term definitions, and a detailed project rationale explain the project process. The project director researched four North American church planting organizations to assess the respective utilization of disciple-making processes, while providing an explanation for NBCPN&rsquo;s need for a reproducible strategy.</p><p> Within the second chapter, the project director examined two separate passages of scripture. The texts of Matt 28:18&ndash;20 and Acts 1:8 (ESV) became the foundational basis upon which the project director analyzed and made reproducible disciple-making conclusions. Chapter two consists of exegesis, exposition, and application of the chosen texts and explained the biblical and theological foundation of the ministry project.</p><p> Within chapter three, the project director provided research for the ministry foundations aspect of the project. The project director identified and explored past and present ecclesiological disciple-making procedures. The project director&rsquo;s goal for chapter three provided information concerning the development of historical and 11 contemporary reproducible disciple-making, as well as, examining theoretical and application models.</p><p> Within chapter four, the project director described the development of the ministry project. The chapter focused on the project director&rsquo;s seven-practicum reproducible disciple-making strategy for the church planters of NBCPN. The project director&rsquo;s compiling of information regarding the utilization of an expert panel, incorporated Great Commission components, integrated research of chapters two and three, and implemented expectation, completed the chapter. </p><p> In chapter five, the project director documented an overall summation of the ministry project. The director examined the evaluation of the project process, analysis of the findings, and an overview of the lessons learned. The strengths, weaknesses, and personal reflection of the ministry project offered descriptive insight to the project director and for reader clarity. </p><p>

<p> <b>Purpose.</b> At the time, the subject of this study was selected, little to no information was available regarding why the Episcopal Church had decided at the 2012 General Convention had adopted a liturgy to provide a sacramental blessing to same-sex unions. The purpose of this study was to determine what factors and organizational culture elements the Bishops believed led to the adoption of the liturgy. </p><p> <b>Methodology.</b> A qualitative case study methodology was employed to collect the data needed to answer the research questions. This data included responses from 12 bishops to 13 semi-structured questions aligned with Edgar Schein&rsquo;s theoretical, cultural analysis model. Respondents replies were recorded; the recordings were transcribed, and the transcribed data was inputted into NVivo 11 software for analysis. Triangulation included the literature review, transcriptions, and the collected documentation. </p><p> <b>Findings.</b> Major themes were identified for each research question. The finding (or themes) for Research Question 1 were justice, inclusion and equality. Themes for Research Question 2 were relationship, room at the table, long-term and autonomy Research 3 leadership in the church is bishops composed of each Episcopal Bishop, rather than a single spearhead. </p><p> Conclusions. (a) Schein&rsquo;s methodology for culture analysis proved to be valid for this case study, (b) Schein&rsquo;s theory of culture resting on a single leader did not lend itself to this study, and, (c) the Episcopalian&rsquo;s three-pronged discernment method allows the Church to remain relevant in this ever-changing world. </p><p> <b>Implementation for Action.</b> The Episcopal Church should: (a) remain an active voice in human rights issues, (b) provide guidance to other religious groups struggling with marital equity, (c) continue to utilize the current discernment process to remain relevant (d) persist in reconciling people to each other, (e) provide communal decision-making workshops for community business leaders to encourage active employee participation and f) open their church to function as a haven for the marginalized and refugees.</p><p>