2,365 research outputs found
A Cradle of Sandstone: The Origins of Industry in Northern Ohio
Get PDFAbout the Author
Christian Ellis is a senior history major at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Christian is a Phi Alpha Theta member
The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century
Get PDFThe thesis discusses the role of the Christian Right in the US foreign policy decision making process. The research revealed that the Christian Right has long been fascinated with some international issues in general and US foreign policy in particular. The Christian Right’s interest in international issues increased markedly during years of the George W. Bush presidency. It successfully widened its activities from domestic social conservative issues to foreign policy issues by participating in, articulating and lobbying for its religious version of American foreign policy. In assessing the role of the Christian Right in US foreign policy making, this dissertation examines three aspects of US foreign policy, namely Israel, international religious freedom and global humanitarianism. Based on these aspects, the Christian Right is seen as skilled in framing and defining issues. The Christian Right seems effective in selecting and prioritizing international issues that have a reasonable chance of being selected by foreign policy decision makers, especially in Congress. Moreover, the Christian Right has shown its maturity in seeking engagement and cooperation with other organizations, secular and religious, in order to advance its international goals. Finally, in pursuing and conveying its international agenda, the Christian Right has adopted a more moderate and less overtly religious approach. Instead of using its traditional religious rhetoric, the Christian Right has successfully projected its foreign policy preferences into the conventional realist discourse of American foreign policy that is largely based on the objective of national interest and national security. Nevertheless, this study does not, in any way, conclude that the Christian Right was able to influence or determine the direction of US foreign policy and its outcomes; however, it does suggest that the Christian Right did contribute and have an impact on the formulation of some US foreign policy. As such, the research contends that the role of the Christian Right is similar to other interest group lobbies and that its perceived influence on US foreign policy should not be exaggerated. Finally, the research suggests that the emergence of the Christian Right as an actor in asserting its global agenda through US foreign policy can possibly provide an example of how religious beliefs and values can become a potential source of “soft power”. Together with the “climate of opinion” of the American public during the Bush administration, the “soft power” at domestic level could serve as a valuable new explanatory variable in understanding how the US foreign policy was formulated in the early 21st century
Christian Eschatology and the Physical Universe
Get PDFThe scientific picture of the end of the Universe has undergone dramatic changes since 1998, with its future characterized by accelerated expansion and futility. Yet Christian systematic theology has been largely silent on this, despite the interest in eschatology in popular culture and in theology itself. This thesis argues that Christian theology can learn and contribute in a dialogue with the scientific picture of the future of the Universe. Using a Wesleyan approach to theology, the biblical narratives are explored in conversation with the scientific discoveries. If Christian eschatology is to have a fruitful dialogue, then it must take seriously the relationship between creation and new creation. In particular this relationship, modelled by the resurrection, must be represented by a tension between continuity and discontinuity. In this way the movement to new creation is seen as transformation rather than destruction of this creation. Indeed, there are pointers to this new creation which may be part of a revised natural theology. The action and faithfulness of God are both key elements in this transformation, working both in process and event. Contemporary theologians including Mollmann and Pannenberg either ignore this tension or fail to relate it to the physical Universe. At the same time the 'scientific eschatologies' of Dyson and Tipler, and the eschatoiogical speculations of contemporary fundamentalism are shown to be inadequate scientifically and theologically. This tension leads to the suggestion that space and time are real in creation and new creation, and a multidimensional view of God's relationship with time is proposed. Further, speculation on the transformation of matter in new creation needs to reflect its relationality and context. The consequences for the relationship of Christian eschatology to the biological world, providence, hope, ethics, and Christian apologetics are explored. In particular such a robust Christian eschatology engages constructively with questions of hope in contemporary culture
Zechariah 9-14 as the substructure of 1 Peter’s eschatological program
No full textThe principal aim of this study is to discern what has shaped the author of 1 Peter to regard Christian suffering as a necessary (1.6) and to-be-expected (4.12) component of faithful allegiance to Jesus Christ. Most research regarding suffering in 1 Peter has limited the scope of inquiry to two particular aspects—its cause and nature, and the strategies that the author of 1 Peter employs in order to enable his addressees to respond in faithfulness. There remains, however, the need for a comprehensive explanation for the source that has generated 1 Peter’s theology of Christian suffering. If Jesus truly is the Christ, God’s chosen redemptive agent who has come to restore God’s people, then how can it be that Christian suffering is a necessary part of discipleship after his coming, death and resurrection? What led the author of 1 Peter to such a startling conclusion, which seems to runs against the grain of the eschatological hopes and expectations of Jewish restoration ideology?
This thesis analyzes the appropriation of shepherd and fiery trials imagery,
and argues that the author of 1 Peter is dependent upon Zechariah 9-14 for his
theology of Christian suffering. Said in another way, the eschatological program of
Zechariah 9-14, read through the lens of the Gospel, functions as the substructure
for 1 Peter’s eschatology and thus its theology of Christian suffering.
In support of this hypothesis, this study highlights the fact that Zechariah 9-
14 was available and appropriated in early Christianity, in particular in the Passion
Narrative tradition; that the shepherd imagery of 1 Pet 2.25 is best understood
within the milieu of the Passion Narrative tradition, and that it alludes to the
eschatological program of Zechariah 9-14; that the fiery trials imagery found in 1
Peter 1.6-7 and 1 Pet 4.12 is distinct from that which we find in Greco-Roman and OT
wisdom sources, and that it shares exclusive parallels with some unique features of
the eschatological program of Zechariah 9-14; that Zechariah 9-14 offers a more
satisfying explanation for the modification of Isa 11.2 in 1 Pet 4.14, the transition
from 4.12-19 to 5.1-4, why Peter has oriented his letter with the term διασπορά,
and why he has described his addresses as οἶκος τοῦ θεοῦ; and finally that 1 Peter
contains an implicit foundational narrative that shares distinct parallels with the
eschatological program of Zechariah 9-14.
We can conclude that 1 Peter offers a unique vista into the way in which at
least one early Christian witness came to understand and to communicate the fact
that Christian suffering was a necessary feature of faithful allegiance to Jesus Christ
A theological critique of Christian education, with special reference to developments in Northern Ireland since 1944
Get PDFThe perspective adopted in this thesis is that of a Northern Irish Catholic Christian, a teacher by profession. The field is that of the theology of education. The thesis has three principal aims; firstly, to provide a justification for a confident Christian education in an increasingly secular and agnostic world; secondly, to evaluate the development and present status of Christian education in Northern Ireland in the light of its sectarian history and current situation of community conflict; thirdly, to consider the remit of Christian education and its role in promoting societal harmony. The thesis consists of eight chapters. Its overall design may be discerned in a general introduction and seven other chapters of which four engage the issue of Christian education in the Northern Ireland context. Of the other three, one chapter criticizes analytical philosophy and positivist influences in contemporary liberal education, especially where these have affected conceptions of religious education. The second attempts a validation of Christian education, and in addition promotes Christian apologetics as both a viable and needed response to relativistic agnosticism. The third consists of the conclusions to be drawn. The scope of the thesis embraces considerations of the assumptions and values of Christian education; the nature of religious education; theistic belief the Christian tradition, the nature of confessionalism; Northern Ireland confessionalism; the influence of ideologies; the separate schools system; the question of integrated education; the historical background to the divided communities; the challenge of the great Christian imperatives of love and forgiveness in respect of community reconciliation and of implementing a Christian education fully alive to its responsibilities. The penultimate chapter confronts practical issues and suggests models and approaches in Christian education with outreach towards reconciliation
Christian contradictions: the structures of Lutheran and Catholic thought
Get PDFTitle: Christian contradictions: the structures of Lutheran and Catholic thought. Author: Hampson, Margaret Daphne Christian contradictions xi,323 p. Publisher: New York ; Cambridge : Cambridge Univ Pr, 2001
Church and state in religious education 1944-1984: a critical survey of trends in England from the point of view of the Christian parent with special reference to the Christian schools movement
Get PDFAt the end of the forty year period 1944-1984 a minority of Christian parents in England and Wales were expressing their disquiet at trends in Education in general, and Religious Education in particular. The five year research project 1979-1984 was primarily aimed at communicating their concept of events, and their aspirations, to those who, having had their attention drawn to the actions of the dissenting parents, wondered what sort of thinking inspired those actions. For those inclined to regard the parents as on the Christian fringe, evidence is presented to show that on the contrary they were mainly the orthodox, and in line with mainstream Christianity, as delineated by the historic creeds. The argument of this thesis is that the parents were a grass-roots reaction to a creeping revisionism that affected Christian thinking on education in the Protestant sector, but did not similarly affect the Roman Catholic sector
Surprised dailies: contemporary U.S. press coverage of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
No full textThis dissertation examines contemporary U.S. press coverage of the 1956 Hungarian revolution through six selected dailies between October 1956 and March 1957. The newspapers are the Atlanta Constitution , the Christian Science Monitor , the Los Angeles Times , the Milwaukee Journal , the New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . The study seeks to find out if the American press, like the Eisenhower government, was caught by surprise at the news of the outbreak of the Hungarian revolution. The author studies the six dailies' coverage of Hungary before, during, and after the revolution, including their handling of the diplomatic implications of the uprising and the refugee problem. Another question to answer is whether the New York Times always provided the best news stories under all circumstances, as one would generally assume. Or perhaps the Christian Science Monitor surpassed the Times in certain respects? Another task of the study is to find out if the four regional dailies were always far behind the two prominent international newspapers. Is it possible to establish certain political and geographic patterns of the periodicals based on their coverage of the Hungarian events? Did the attitude of the papers toward the Eisenhower government change during the seven months of the period researched
Muslim-Christian relations in Palestine during the British mandate period
No full textMy dissertation
examines
Muslim-Christian
relations
in Palestine during the British
mandate period, specifically, around the question of what constituted
Palestinian-Arab identity. More broadly
speaking, the dissertation
addresses the topic within the
context of the larger debate
concerning the role of material
factors (those
related to
specific
historical developments
and circumstances) versus that of
ideological
ones. in
determining
national
identities. At the beginning
of the twentieth, century, two models
of
Arab
nationalism were proposed-a more secular one emphasising a shared
language
and culture
(and thus, relatively
inclusive
of non-Muslims) and one wherein
Arab identity
was seen as essentially an extension of the Islamic
religious
community, or umma.
While
many
historians dealing
with
Arab
nationalism
have
tended to focus
on the role of
language (likewise, the role of
Christian Arab
intellectuals), I
would maintain that
it is the latter
model that proved
determinative
of
how
most
Muslim Arabs
came to conceive of their identity
as Arabs. Both
models
were essentially
intellectual
constructs; that the latter
prevailed
in the end reflects the
predominance of material
factors
over
ideological
ones.
Specifically, I
consider the
impact
of social, political and economic changes related to the Tanzimat
reforms and
European
economic penetration of the nineteenth century; the role of proto-nationalist
models of communal
identification-particularly
those related to religion; and
finally,
the role played
by
political actors seeking to gain or consolidate authority through the
manipulation of proto-nationalist symbols
Gender and the aristocracy of dissent : a comparative study of the beliefs, status and roles of women in Quaker and Unitarian communities, 1770-1830, with particular reference to Yorkshire.
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