The mental health literacy (MHL) rates of Christian clergy in the United States remains underinvestigated in the current literature. This gap of knowledge is problematic for the large numbers of individuals with mental illness who seek assistance from clergy and may receive inadequate care for their concerns. As theoretically designated by the behavioral models of health care and MHL research, denomination-type, educational variables, and demographic characteristics were investigated as potential predictors of MHL. A sample of 238 Christian clergy from throughout the United States completed the web-based Mental Health Literacy Scale and demographic questionnaire. Results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed no significant differences among MHL scores of Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Historically Black Protestant groups. Results of the multiple linear regressions showed that number of years of postsecondary school, degree-type, age, and geographical location were not significant predictors of MHL scores. Higher numbers of clinical MH training courses and female gender did significantly predict higher levels of MHL scores. The findings provided the first parametric measure of a diverse, national sample of Christian clergy and indicated a need for increasing MHL trainings. Results also provided counselors and counselor educators with information useful for initiating and modeling interprofessional trainings, collaborations, and referral partnerships with clergy who currently serve as front-line mental health workers to millions of U.S. residents. The results may also inform social justice initiatives to reduce mental health care disparities in underserved populations.

This thesis is an analytical study of the place of clairvoyance (avadhijñāna) in Jain epistemology and soteriology. It argues that avadhijñāna occupies an ambivalent position regarding both, since it is not solely attained by means of spiritual progression but may also spontaneously arise regardless of a being’s righteousness (samyaktva). Beginning with a survey of descriptions of avadhijñāna in the canons of each sect, including a translation of Nandisūtra 12-28, it examines how commentaries, philosophy and narrative literature developed and elaborated upon avadhijñāna as part of its epistemological system. Further, it examines the nexus of avadhijñāna and karma theory to understand the role of clairvoyance in the cultivation of the three jewels—correct perception, knowledge, and conduct—that lead to liberation (mokṣa). Finally, several examples of clairvoyants from Jain narratives show how clairvoyance reamined an ambivalent tool for virtuous transformation in popular literature.

In this thesis, I explore the psychological and experiential aspects of the shift from a supernatural theistic worldview (specifically born-again Christianity) to aphilosophically naturalistic and atheistic worldview in the context of the religiouslandscape in the U.S. I posit that certain features of this transition, which is known as "deconversion,” can be thought of as potentially analogous, both psychologically and subjectively, to the experience of another's death as an objective environmental change. I provide anthropological and psychological evidence that believers often experience the God of born-again Christianity as an independently existing and active agent in the world. The similarities between human relationships and God relationships provide the foundation for the claim that loss of these relationships potentially constitute similar experiences, respectively. Both shifts (deconversion and death) share a number of similarities. For example, they both feature a reduction in the number of entities that are believed perceived as having minds (i.e., theory of mind determinations). Also, both shifts require a re-understanding of purpose and meaning in the world (i.e., teleological reasoning). I explore each of these shifts in detail. Finally, I show that the interpretation of the deconversion experience as analogous to the experience of death has implications for the public dialogue between Christians and atheists.

This study conducts a critical analysis and defnse of John Hick's philosohpy of religious pluralism. Contrary to his critics, Hick's theory is shown to be philosophically plausible and logically coherent. However, while the pluralist hypothesis can be defended philosophically, there are theological or religious problems with it. Both the strengths and weaknesses of the hypothesis are drawn out in this study, which is conducted under four main categories - epistemology, ontology, truth calims, and eschatology. Major criticisms of the hypothesis are debunked. Important concepts of Hick's overall philosophy of religion, such as experiencing-as, soul-making, and the Kantian connection, are explored in relation to the hypothesis, as are Hick's influences from the various religions.

Protestant nuns, Stiftsdamen, fulfilled a unique role in early modern Lutheran society. This papers focuses on the implied social roles and expected virtues of Protestant nuns [Stiftsdamen] in the works of male Lutheran pastors who supported Protestant theological positions that promoted marriage as the proper place for women, and yet who also praised unmarried female monastics in funeral sermons [Leichenpredigten]. Lutheran pastors wrote funeral sermons for both Stiftsdamen and married women, funeral sermons display similarities or differences between what virtues, characteristics, and displays of piety for women. A comparison will also be made between funeral sermons for Stiftsdamen and those written for Catholic nuns by Catholic clergy. Convent necrologies, written by Catholic abbesses will also be used to compare what virtues were expected of female religious. Also included is an examination of nuns’ writings about theology, their doctrinal reasons for remaining Catholic, leaving the cloister, and adapting their convent life to fit Lutheran teachings. Damenstiften preserved access for women to positions of authority and self empowerment. These women were, however, different from earlier female religious communities and from Catholic nuns living in other Lutheran areas. Protestant Stiftsdamen had more contact with outside society than cloistered Catholic nuns due to the desire of Lutherans to incorporate these women into their communities. An analysis of the perception of Stiftsdamen by Lutheran pastors and the nuns' consciousness of their own position, duties, and piety is the cornerstone of this new research on gender and religion in early modern Germany. The perpetuation of Protestant convents into the seventeenth century is only briefly documented by historians who focus instead on the religious experience of women in Germany during and directly following the Reformation. Catholic examples of female piety will contribute to the understanding of female religious and their role in society at large. In conclusion, this research displays how Stiftsdamen were praised for the same virtues as early modern married Protestant women and Catholic nuns in funeral sermons, but were not specifically praised as female religious by male Lutheran pastors.

This dissertation investigates the God-world relationship between Joseph Bracken as a process theologian, Philip Clayton as a panentheist, and the open theism. They have affinities and differences as conversational partners in their multilayered relations. Their common question must be as follows: “What does it mean to believe in God today?” In this dissertation I compare their respectively theological perspectives and explore their affinities and differences. Many scholars have already noted more affinities than untenable differences among Bracken’s theology, Clayton’s panentheism, and the open theism. On the one hand, even though theological perspectives of Bracken and Clayton are obviously different from each other, they are both influenced in specific ways by Whitehead. On the other hand, open theism is a movement that emphasizes “the openness of God,” from within evangelical theism. The fact that there is even within classical theism the pursuit of new models of God such as revised classical theism or modified classical theism might suggest the need for contemporary models of God in philosophical theology. This dissertation will thus explore philosophical theologies that are proper both to the biblical faith and intellectual earnestness, that is, 居敬窮理 (geo (to live) kyeong (piety) kung (to acknowledge) li (reason)) in Eastern philosophy, which means distinctions but not separation between piety and intelligence, and that stand between classical theism and “orthodox” process theism. If there is no consistency among biblical, rational and existential descriptions of God, how can we establish philosophical theologies? Our theological task is to frame a new constructive theology whose primary aspect must synthesize both classical theism and process theology in the hermeneutical circle. For example, this new theism admits an infinitely qualitative difference between God and the world, as well as a really radical relation between God and the world. Aspects and domains do not encroach upon each other.

This dissertation places Wittgenstein and Nietzsche alongside one another in an attempt to deal with the question: "what is the role of the philosophy?" On the one hand Wittgenstein promotes a descriptive approach to philosophy, which insists that the philosopher should not meddle with practices but rather seek clarity and understanding as ends in themselves. On the other hand Nietzsche promotes a destructive and creative approach to philosophy, where the philosopher both dismantles values and offers a revaluation of values in their place. This work begins with a survey of remarks by the two philosophers and prominent interpretations of them on how best to conceive of and understand the philosopher and philosophy. In addition, the recent view of Nietzsche as a naturalist is responded to at length. If Nietzsche turns out to be offering substantive, naturalistic positions on human morality, the origins of religion, and so on, then he cannot be advocating a creative, spontaneous orientation towards perspectives. This work argues that while Nietzsche offers naturalized accounts of human practices, he does not mean these to be considered scientific hypothesis. After responding to this position, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are looked at together, and what emerges is a shared goal: the creating and/or revealing of missed possibilities of human life. These existential possibilities are on the one hand always right in front of us, and yet they are seemingly out of reach and all too often passed over. Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, in their various ways, (re)open these possibilities. Finally, given this "hermeneutics of possibility," the final chapter argues that the way Wittgenstein and Nietzsche differ with respect to Christianity and religion is not primarily about their style of philosophy nor even about Wittgenstein's descriptive approach, but about the existential possibility that each has in mind to promote.

Within Judeo-Christianity there is a belief in an all perfect God who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. However, in this world evil and suffering exists, so how is it possible that an all perfect God can exist? This is called the problem of evil. This thesis examines the problem of evil and how philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, John Hick, and Richard Swinburne attempt to solve the problem of evil through different theodicies. In this paper I argue that all three philosophers and their theodicies fail to solve the problem of evil. I then turn to the writings of Herman Melville, specifically Mardi: and a Voyage Thither and Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, and consider how he, as an author, struggled with the problem of evil and religion. While Melville may have struggled I argue that within his works we can find part of the solution to the problem of evil. Through these two novels Melville demonstrates that God is not good. My final chapter considers this fact that God is not good and also considers how God is not evil. In the end I argue that God is neither good nor evil which allows us to no longer have to face the problem of evil.

For years, critics and fans of C. S. Lewis have noted his curious attentiveness to descriptions of food and scenes of eating. Some attempts have been made to interpret Lewis's use of food, but never in a manner comprehensively unifying Lewis's culinary expressions with his own thought and beliefs. My study seeks to fill this void. The introduction demonstrates how Lewis's culinary language aggregates through elements of his life, his literary background, and his Judeo-Christian worldview. Using the grammar of his own culinary language, I examine Lewis's fiction for patterns found within his meals and analyze these patterns for theological allusions, grouping them according to major categories of systematic theology. Chapter two argues that ecclesiastical themes appear whenever Lewis's protagonists eat together. The ritualized meal progression, evangelistic discourse, and biographical menus create a unity that points to parallels between Lewis's body of protagonists and the church. Chapter three focuses on the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and charges that Lewis's meals which are eaten in the presence of the novel's Christ figure or which include bread and wine in the menu reliably align with the Anglo-Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. Chapter four studies how sinful eating affects the spiritual states of Lewis's characters. The chapter first shows how Lewis's culinary language draws from Edenic sources, resonating with a very gastronomic Fall of Humanity, then examines how the progressively sinful eating of certain characters signifies a gradual alienation from the Divine. The fifth, and concluding, chapter argues that Lewis's portrayal of culinary desire and pleasure ultimately points to an eschatological theme. This theme culminates near the end of Lewis's novels either through individual characters expressing superlative delight in their food or through a unified congregation of protagonists eating a celebratory feast during the novel's denouement. I close the study by emphasizing how this approach to Lewis's meals offers a complete spiritual analysis of Lewis's main characters that also consistently supports Lewis's own theology.

People of the Jewish faith base their belief on the written word of the Torah. Presented in this paper are fine artists that produce work within these laws. The Torah sets guidelines for life and morality. The belief system within this domain is that visual images have an impact on the viewers, and artists are accountable for what they produce. This is in opposition with art education, where freedom of expression takes precedence over morality. The results of this study will form the basis for a curriculum for the community college. The researcher's area of inquiry is directed to painting and sculpture made by artists of the Jewish faith who follow the Torah, meaning those who are observant of their faith and practices. Their skills and perceptions will be presented to educate the viewer about their visions. The research questions were posed to rabbinical authorities and artists in order to establish a clear and defined statement of what the Jewish law is regarding the fine arts. The evidence presented was obtained by questionnaires, personal interviews, articles, and opinions from Jewish scholars. Four rabbis were selected based on their erudition on Torah law, and their strong leadership positions in Jewish educational institutions. The ten artists were selected based on recommendations from art historians, and art and gallery directors. The artists and the rabbis were mailed questionnaires, which was followed by an interview. The conclusion from this study is that fine artists are encouraged to use their talents, this is supported by the Torah text, and rabbinic explanation. The restriction for the Jewish artist is in making a replication of a realistic full-scale figure, making a visual rendition of G-d, a nude, or violent image. Art is made by the observant Jew with the intention of enhancing the world with visions inspired by their belief in the Torah. A crucial belief in Judaism is that there is but one G-d, and all man-made images should reflect the majesty of G-d's creations.