Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Puritan theology'

In this dissertation, I argue that the iconoclastic and anti-materialistic "art of living to God" is the central theoretical preoccupation of English and American Puritan intellectuals. I call attention to a wealth of previously unacknowledged writing about image, art, architecture, and form in Puritan literature, while highlighting how recent materialist analyses of Puritan culture have effectively obscured evidence of iconoclasm and anti-materialism in this milieu. In the first chapter, I explore the Puritan inheritance of John Calvin's theology of the "living image," which defines human beings as God-made pictures and greater than all images that are man-made. I explain how Puritan image theory is wedded to a theorization of the art of living to God, such that Puritan art and image theory are one and the same. The second chapter delineates various ways in which the imitation of Christ undergirds the conceptualization of "art work" in Puritanism. Here I focus on how Puritan ideas about both art and image intersect with their theorizations of happiness, shining, walking, and printing/pressing. I examine the theology of "edification" in my third chapter, probing how godly Puritans were understood to be "living architecture" and "living plants." In Chapter 4 I consider how Puritan anti-formalism contributes to and complicates Puritan art and image theory. More than anything else, a preoccupation with theorizing image, art, architecture, and form is what makes intellectual Puritanism a coherent tradition across space (England and the Netherlands to New England) and time (ca. 1560-1730). In the fifth and concluding chapter, I address an aspect of Puritan ministerial writings in which pastoral practice is defined not as art work but in terms of image curatorship and conservation. I then suggest that Puritan biographical literatures are archives or histories of artful and edificatory performativity. I argue that texts such as broadside elegies, funeral sermons, the monumental collections of lives by Samuel Clarke and Cotton Mather, and perhaps even gravestones should be understood as histories of Puritan art and architecture.
History of Art and Architecture

John Eliot (1604-1690) has been called ‘the apostle to the Indians’. This thesis looks at Eliot not from the perspective of modern Protestant ‘mission’ studies (the approach mainly adopted by previous research) but in the historical and theological context of 17th century puritanism. Drawing on recent research on migration to New England, the thesis argues that Eliot, like many other migrants, went to New England primarily in search of a safe haven to practise pure reformed Christianity, not to convert Indians. Eliot’s Indian ministry started from a fundamental concern for the conversion of the unconverted, which he derived from his experience of the puritan movement in England. Consequently, for Eliot, the notion of New England Indian ‘mission’ was essentially conversion-oriented, Wordcentred, and pastorally focussed, and (in common with the broader aims of New England churches) pursued a pure reformed Christianity. Eliot hoped to achieve this through the establishment of Praying Towns organised on a biblical model – where preaching, pastoral care and the practice of piety could lead to conversion – leading to the formation of Indian churches composed of ‘sincere converts’. The thesis starts with a critical historiographical reflection on how missiologists deploy the term ‘mission’, and proposes a perspectival shift for a better understanding of Eliot (Chapter 1). The groundwork for this new perspective is laid by looking at key themes in recent scholarship on puritanism, focusing on motives for the Great Migration, millenarian beliefs, and the desire for Indian conversion (Chapter 2). This chapter concludes that Indian conversion and millenarianism were not the main motives for Eliot’s migration to the New World, nor were his thoughts on the millennium an initial or lasting motive for Indian ministry. Next, the thesis investigates Eliot’s historical and theological context as a minister, through the ideas of puritan contemporaries in Old and New England, and presents a new perspective on Eliot by suggesting that conversion theology and pastoral theology were the most fundamental and lasting motives for his Indian ministry (Chapter 3). After the first three chapters, which relocate Eliot in his historical context, the last three chapters consider Eliot’s pastoral activities with the Indians. These have usually been understood as ‘mission’, without sufficient understanding of Eliot’s historical and theological context in the puritan movement and how he applied its ideas to Indian ministry. The thesis examines Eliot’s views on ‘Praying Towns’ as settlements for promoting civility and religion, and ‘Indian churches’ as congregations of true believers formed by covenant (Chapter 4). It investigates Eliot’s activities in the Indian communities, to apply puritan theology and ministerial practice to the Indians as his new parishioners (Chapter 5). Finally, the thesis offers a comparison of puritan and Indian conversion narratives, to try to recover Praying Indians’ own voices about conversion and faith (Chapter 6). This analysis finds both similarities and differences. The extent of the similarities does not necessarily mean (as some have alleged) that puritanism was unilaterally imposed on the Indians. The evidence equally well suggests a nuanced picture of Eliot’s engagement with the Indians from the perspective of 17th century puritanism and its conversion-oriented parish ministry.

This thesis proposes to make an intervention in two scholarly debates in respect of puritanism: firstly, that concerning puritan identity; and secondly, that on the nature of the puritan experience and inner life. In this thesis the importance of the pursuit of happiness in puritan pastoral theology will be explored, particularly as it is illustrated in the thought of Ralph Venning. Venning’s ministry is investigated in its social, cultural, political, economic and religious context in order to explore his puritan identity and it will be proposed that he is defined, not by his opposition but by irenicism. Influences upon Venning’s thought are identified and it is noted that he illustrates elements of continuity as well as discontinuity with Medieval theology, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas and Thomas à Kempis; as well as Reformation and Post-Reformation sources: both puritan and anti-puritan. The significance of humanism in his University education at Emmanuel College, Cambridge is likewise identified including the influence of Cambridge Platonism. Ultimately, it is argued that Venning’s pastoral theology, having been shaped by each of these formative influences, is defined not by an agonised interiority but by the pursuit – and temporal enjoyment - of happiness. Indeed, this theme constitutes the unifying principle of Venning’s pastoral theology shaping as it does its three key elements which are in respect of the nature of sin, godliness and spiritual growth.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2002
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During the history of Israel the concept of "purity" had developed as a way in which God's people could honour his holiness and draw nearer to him, as a sanctified nation. By the time of Jesus, in Second Temple Judaism, the purity system had become restrictive. This had been influenced by political and social developments, including an increased desire to withdraw from Hellenistic and other factors which were seen as contaminating the integrity of Judaism. There were diverse perceptions regarding the achievement of the purity of Israel, including militaristic confrontation and expulsion of alien occupation forces, stricter adherence to the Law and, in some cases, total withdrawal from general society (such as at Qumran). It was, however, particularly the Pharisaic imposition of the supplementary oral tradition, supposed to clarify the written Law, which imposed hardship on those who, through illiteracy or inferior social status, were unable to meet all the minute provisions which would ensure ritual purity. The expansion of the Law of Moses by the commentary of the rabbis, which over time became the entrenched oral "tradition of the fathers", was originally intended to promote access to God by clarifying obscure points of the Law, in the pursuit of purity. However, this oral tradition had, in fact, become an instrument of alienation and separation of the ordinary people not only from the Pharisees, who considered themselves as the religious elite, but also from God. The common people, that is, a large section of the population, felt rejected and on the outside of both religious and social acceptance. On the material level they also suffered under a heavy tax burden, from both Temple and State, which aggravated their poverty. It was this situation which Jesus confronted in his mission to change the ideological climate and to reveal the Kingdom of God as being accessible to all who accepted the true Fatherhood of God, in penitence and humility. He denounced the hypocrisy which professed piety but which ignored the plight of those who were suffering. Hark 7 : 1-23 symbolizes the difference between the teaching and practice of Jesus and that of the Pharisees, and provides metaphorically a pattern of Christian engagement which is relevant in the South African situation today. The Christian challenge is to remove those barriers, both ideological and economic, which impede spiritual and material well-being within society. By active engagement, rather than by retreating to the purely ritualistic and individualistic practice of religion, the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven, as inaugurated by Jesus, will be advanced.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Gedurende die geskiedenis van Israel het die konsep van reinheid ontwikkel as 'n wyse waarin die die volk van God Sy heiligheid kan eer en tot Hom kan nader, as 'n geheiligde volk. Teen die tyd van Jesus, tydens Tweede Tempel Judaïsme, het die reinheid sisteem beperkend geword. Dit is beïnvloed deur politieke en sosiale ontwikkelinge, insluitende 'n toenemende drang om te onttrek van Hellenistiese en ander faktore, wat beskou is as 'n besoedeling van die integriteit van Judaïsme. Daar was diverse persepsies aangaande die uitvoering van die reinheid van Israel, insluitende militaristiese konfrontasie en die uitwerping van vreemde besettingsmagte, strenger onderhouding van die Wet en in sekere gevalle, totale onttreking van die algemene samelewing (soos by Qumran). Tog was dit in besonder die Fariseërs se oplegging van bykomende mondelinge tradisie, veronderstelom die geskrewe Wet te verhelder, wat ontbering veroorsaak het vir die wat as gevolg van ongeletterdheid of minderwaardige sosiale status nie in staat was om aan elke haarfyn bepaling, wat rituele reinheid sou verseker, te voldoen nie. Die uitbreiding van die wet van Moses deur die kommentaar van die rabbies, wat met verloop van tyd die ingegrawe mondelinge "tradisie van die vaders" geword het, was oorsproklik bedoel om toegang tot God te verseker, deur die verheldering van onduidelike aspekte van die wet, in die nastreef van reinheid. Hierdie mondelinge tradisie het egter 'n instrument van vervreemding geword en skeiding gebring tussen gewone mense en die Fariseers, sowel as die wat hulleself beskou het as die religieuse elite. Dit het egter ook skeiding gebring tussen mense en God. Die gewone mense, dit is die meerderheid van die bevolking, het verwerp gevoel en aan die buitekring van beide religieuse en sosiale aanvaarding. Op materiële vlak het hulle ook gelyonder die juk van swaar belasting, van beide die Tempel en die Staat, wat hulle toestand van armoede vererger het. Dit was hierdie situasie wat Jesus gekonfronteer het in sy strewe om die ideologiese klimaat te verander en om die Koninkryk van God te openbaar as toeganklik vir almal wat die ware Vaderskap van God aanvaar, in berou en in nederigheid. Hy het die skynheiligheid verwerp wat aanspraak maak op vroomheid, maar die toestand van die lydendes ignoreer. Markus 7:1-23 simboliseer die verskil tussen die onderrig en die praktyk van Jesus en dié van die Fariseërs en voorsien metafories 'n patroon van Christelike verbintenis, wat relevant is binne die eietydse Suid-Afrikaanse konteks. Die uitdaging aan die Christendom is om die skeidslyne te verwyder, beide ideologies en ekonomies, wat geestelike en materieële welsyn binne die gemeenskap belemmer. Deur aktiewe betrokkenheid, eerder as om bloot te onttrek tot die suiwer ritualistiese en individualistiese beoefening van religie, sal die realisering van die Koninkryk van die Hemel soos ingehuldig deur Jesus, bevorder word.

This essay presents evidence that the institution of the corporation has its origins and its main developmental 'epochs' in Judaeo-Christian theology. The notion of the nahala as the institutional symbol of the Covenant between YHWH and Israel is a primal example of the corporate relationship in its creation of an identity independent of its members, its demand for radical accountability on the part of its members, and in its provision of immunity for those who act in its name. On the basis of the same Covenant, St. Paul transforms an ancillary aspect of Roman Law, the peculium, into the central relationship of the Christian world through its implicit use as the institutional background to the concept of the Body of Christ. The exceptional nature of this relationship allows the medieval Franciscans and the papal curia to create what had been lacking in Roman Law, an institution which can own property but which cannot be owned. This relationship is subsequently theorized as the Eternal Covenant by Reformed theologians and successfully tested in one of the greatest theological/social experiments ever recorded, the 17^th century settlement of North America. The alternative 'secular' explanation of the corporation provided by 19^th century legal philosophy relies implicitly on the theological foundations of the corporation and remains incoherent without these foundations. The theological history of the corporation was recovered in the findings of 20^th century social scientists, who also identified corporate finance as the central corporate activity in line with its Levitical origins. Although the law of the corporation is secular, the way in which this law was made a central component of modern life is theological. Without a recovery of this theological context, the corporation is likely to continue as a serious social problem in need of severe constraint.

The purpose of this research paper is to analyze a historical, theological subject concerning the rationale for the transition from a Puritanical view of God at Harvard in the early seventeenth century to a Utilitarian perspective in the first part of the nineteenth century. The Puritans had a profound effect on Harvard, bringing with them severe discipline and an authoritarian view of God. As a result, many of the first Harvard students left the college never to return,[1] and the school had significant difficulties in maintaining an enrollment in its early years. Puritanism viewed students as being essentially depraved and only allowed to live by the grace of God. The Cambridge community portrayed the Lord as being an almost heartless, judgmental father, whose main concern was the discipline of the wayward children. This perspective led to regular beatings, cruelty, and a lack of concern for scholarship that encouraged the pursuit of multiple points of view. However with the coming of Romanticism and Unitarianism to Massachusetts in the early part of the nineteenth century, there was an emerging, change in the nature of truth with respect to God. The people envisioned the Lord, as a kindly parent, who was primarily concerned with the happiness of the individual and the community. With this perspective came a drastically different view of theology, wherein all points of view had to be examined and understood. The rigidity of Puritanism gave way to the more liberal Unitarianism, and God became part of a joyous experience of living. This paper examines the change that occurred at Harvard with respect to the University’s view of God and its impact on the academic curricula. It considers the reasons for the charge and the view of the students, faculty, and administration. It a analyzes how changes within a community can have a profound influence on changes within a college, and it provides a basis for academic freedom that is the basis for academic freedom—a concept that was alien to the Puritans. The key question is whether it has been successful in shaping the development of academia or whether it has caused more chaos than success? [1] George M. Marsden. The Soul of the American University (Oxford: Oxford, 1994) 33-5.

« Les Puritains et la fondation spirituelle des Etats-Unis d'Amérique» répond à cette question: l'œuvre des Puritains constitue-t-elle la seule fondation spirituelle des Etats-Unis d'Amérique? D'une part, cette étude met en évidence la question d'actualité soulevée par l'identité, découlant de la recherche des origines. D'autre part, elle permet de voir comment, d'une marginalisation spirituelle et idéologique, des hommes, les Puritains, sont passés à la postérité sous forme d'un mythe bien éloigné de la réalité historique mais tout de même récupéré pour des objectifs politiques précis dans les Etats-Unis actuels. La thèse se développe autour des trois axes suivants: tout d'abord la mise en lumière des origines du Puritanisme; car, à partir du ISe siècle, un vaste mouvement bouleversait le climat spirituel de l'Europe et devait aboutir à l'émigration de Puritains dans le Nouveau Monde. Le deuxième axe analyse la façon dont ces hommes mirent en place les composantes d'une organisation économique et politique régentée par la religion à travers la colonie anglaise symbole: la Nouvelle-Angleterre. Mais le Puritanisme ne pouvait s'opposer indéfiniment aux conflits internes et externes ainsi qu'aux vagues continues d'immigration. Le troisième axe traite donc du déclin de ce mouvement face à l'explosion spirituelle ayant précédé la Déclaration d'Indépendance, et du parti qu'en ont tiré des hommes politiques ayant adopté des idéologies non exclusivement chrétiennes. Une effervescence, influencée par la philosophie des Lumières, allait ainsi contribuer à la naissance du sentiment national et à la rédaction de la première constitution des Etats-Unis d'Amérique
"The Puritans and the Spiritual Foundation of the United States of America" answers this question: does the work of the Puritans constitute the only spiritual foundation of the United States of America? On the one hand, this study highlights the topical issue of identity, rising from the search of the origins. On the second hand, it makes it possible to see how, from a spiritual and ideological marginalisation, those men, the Puritans, passed from a myth quite far away from historical reality but recovered ail the same for precise political objectives in the current United States. The thesis develops around the three following axes: first of ail the setting in light of the origins of Puritanism. Starting from the 15th century, a vast movement had upset the spiritual climate in Europe and was to lead to the emigration of Puritans in the New World. The second axis analyzes the way these men put in place the components of an economic and political organization influenced by puritan ideology through the English colony symbol, New England. But Puritanism cou Id not indefinitely resist numerous internaI and external conflicts added to continuous waves of immigration. The third axis thus treats the decline of this movement vis-a-vis the spiritual explosion that preceded the signature of the Declaration of Independence; it analyzes the party that sorne politicians having adopted ideologies not exclusively Christian would draw from it. An effervescence, influenced by the philosophy of the Lights, was going thus to contribute to the birth of a national spirit and to the drafting of the fust constitution of the United States of America

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
Esta dissertação busca investigar a existência de uma Teologia Reformada brasileira no âmbito da eclesiologia e da relação com a cultura, trabalhando com a Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil como base de dados para tal investigação. Na primeira parte, pesquisa-se como se formou o reformador João Calvino e que relação a sua formação humanista teve com os ensinos que desenvolveu, bem como tais ensinos poderiam ser aplicados à Teologia Reformada brasileira, escolhendo-se a graça comum para entender a relação com a cultura e buscando-se compreender a abrangência de sua eclesiologia. Na segunda parte, calvinismo, puritanismo e neopuritanismo são analisados sob a perspectiva de compreenderem-se possíveis rupturas ou continuidades. Tais situações serão verificadas na influência cultural do silogismo prático dos calvinistas e da relação de Calvino e dos puritanos com a ciência. A terceira parte apresenta Richard Shaull como contraponto ao modo de ser reformado designado como neopuritano, aplicado à boa parte dos reformados brasileiros da IPB, na medida em que tenta construir uma Teologia Reformada da revolução, que seus seguidores, possivelmente seu maior legado, transformariam em Teologia da Libertação. Ele será comparado em sua visão eclesiológica com Ashbel Green Simonton, pioneiro da IPB no Brasil. Por fim, à guisa de conclusão, a quarta e última parte estudará a construção da atual Teologia Reformada da IPB, sua possível relação com o fundamentalismo, a partir dos puritanos ou não, e acima de tudo o grande receio quanto a sua brasilidade, buscando pistas para responder que tipo de eclesiologia afinal tem produzido a Teologia Reformada da IPB.
This dissertation seeks to investigate the existence of a Brazilian Reformed Theology in the area of ecclesiology and its relation to culture by using the Presbyterian Church of Brazil as the object of investigation. The first part investigates how the reformer John Calvin was educated and how his humanism related to the teaching he developed, as also its possible application to Brazilian Reformed Theology, choosing common Grace to understand this relation to culture in seeking to understand how wide was its influence in his ecclesiology. In the second part, Calvinism, Puritanism and Neopuritanism are analyzed toward possible divisions or continuity. Such situations will be studied as a possible cultural influence of the practical rationalization of the Calvinists and of the relation of Calvin and the puritans with science. The third part presents Richard Shaull as a contradiction to the style of being reformed neopuritans, applical to a good part of the Brazilian reformed of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, to the extent that he attempted to construct a Reformed Theology of Revolution that his followers, perhaps his major contribution, could transform into a Theology of Liberation. His ecclesiastical vision will be compared to that of Ashbel Green Simonton, pioneer of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil. The fourth and final part will study the construction of Reformed Theology in the Presbyterian Church of Brazil today, its possible relation to fundamentalism, beginning or not with the puritans, above all a real fear as to its Brazilianity, seeking ways to respond to the kind of ecclesiology the Reformed Theology of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil has produced.

Darbo tyrimo problema: nepakankamas šiandieninių paauglių dėmesys skaistumo dorybei. Tikslas: atskleisti skaistumo dorybės sampratą ir jos teologines ištakas bei nustatyti jos aktualumą X mokyklos 14-15 metų amžiaus mokiniams. Metodai: naudojantis literatūros šaltinių analizės metodu surinkta ir išanalizuota pirminė tyrimui reikšminga informacija. Apdorojant duomenis, taikyti kokybiniai – interpretaciniai metodai, konkrečiai – kokybinės turinio (content) analizės metodas. Kokybinis tyrimas – pusiau struktūruotas interviu. Tyrime remtasi krikščioniškosios etikos nuostatomis (Peschke, 1997; Puzaras 2004). Vertybių ir dorovės sampratos pagrindu laikytini moralinės filosofijos pagrindai (Navickas, 1988), taip pat egzistencializmo filosofijos atstovo Buber (2001) idėjos, filosofinė moterystės samprata (Maceina, 2006). Pagrindinės nuostatos – iš Katalikų Bažnyčios katekizmo, Vatikano II susirinkimo, Jono Pauliaus II, Pauliaus VI dokumentų, taip pat šventojo Jono Auksaburnio mokymas apie mergeliškumą. Pirmoje darbo dalyje aptarta skaistumo dorybė kultūros, bažnyčios mokymo ir švietimo sistemos kontekste. Antroje dalyje pristatytas šv. Jono Auksaburnio mokymas apie mergeliškumą, apibūdinti skaistumo sampratos pirmaisiais krikščionybės amžiais ypatumai. Trečioje empirinėje dalyje atskleista šiandieninių paauglių skaistumo samprata ir požiūris į skaistumo dorybę. Gautų rezultatų reikšmingumas: teorinėje dalyje aptarti reikšmingi dalykai vertybių sistemoje ir dorybės sampratoje... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]
The problem of work‘s research: insufficient regards to the virtue of purity among the contemporary teenagers. The purpose: to unfold the conception of virtue of purity and it‘s theological origin and to identify it‘s actuality to 14-15 years age schoolchildren of the 10th School. Methods: using the method of analyzing the literature sources, it was collected and analyzed primary useful information. In processing data there were applied qualitative – interpretational methods, specifically the qualitative content analyzing method. The qualitative research - semi-structured interview. The research is referring to constitutions of the Christian ethics (Peschke, 1997; Puzaras 2004). The virtue and the value conception background is kept as the foundation of the moral philosophy (Navickas, 1988), also ideas of Buber (2001) , conception of the philosophical maternity (Maceina, 2006). The main statues – out of documents of the Cathechism of Catholic Church, the II Vatican Council, John Paul II, Paul VI, also of St. John Chrysostom teaching, about virginity. The First part of work discusses the virtue of purity in context of the cultural, the Church teaching and the education system. The Second part presents the teaching of St. John Chrysostom, about the virginity, discussing conception of the purity in features of the first centuries Christianity. The Third empirical part shows the conception about purity among the modern... [to full text]

Ideas of kinship play a significant role in structuring everyday life, and yet kinship has been neglected in Christian ethics, as well as moral philosophy and bioethics. Attention has been paid in these disciplines to the ethics of ‘family,’ but little regard has been paid to the fact that kinship is not a given, but is culturally contingent. The thesis seeks to remedy the neglect in recent Christian theological ethics by drawing on resources from the history of Christian thought and practice. It uses social anthropology both to unsettle the accounts of kinship used in Christian ethics, and to expose elements in Christian traditions of thought and practice relating to kinship. Notions of shared bodily substance, the house, gender and personhood recur cross-culturally in giving shape to kinship. By examining these four notions as they inform Christian thought and practice, a theological account is developed. Chapters dedicated to each of these four attempt to provide, in the first instance, a descriptive account of how the notion has structured Christian thought and practice in relation to kinship. Each chapter then turns, in the second instance, to a critical mode, offering a theological treatment of the chapter topic as it bears on kinship. The thesis concludes that kinship in Christ should be considered normatively primary for the Christian, but also that there are ways in which Christians have honoured this kinship in Christ by organising and playing out kinship on a smaller scale. In detailing the distinctively Christian organising principles that structure some practices of kinship ‘in miniature,’ another common practice – the special privileging of the blood tie in structuring kinship – is singled out for critique.

Sex sells. A lot. But who exactly is on the market?

What kinds of bodies are calibrated for traffic and consumption, and how exactly do they get there? When it comes to “sex” trafficking—which comprises a minority percentage of human trafficking, yet dominates the moral imagination as an “especially heinous” crime—the rise in predominantly white, evangelical Christian American interest in the trafficked subject galvanizes an ethical outrage that rarely observes critiques of race, ethnicity, sexuality or class as conditions of possibility. Though a nuanced mandate to fight trafficking is all but cemented in the contemporary American political and moral conscience, Virgin Territory accounts for the ways Christian ideas of purity annex both gender and sexuality inside the legacies of racialized colonial encounter, and foreground the market expansion of the global sex trade as it exists today.

In Part I, I argue that the narratives of virginity tied to Mary’s body simultaneously foregrounded the gendered, sexed Other as sparked disdain for the religious Other, for the Jewish body and for Mary’s Jewish identity. Through this analysis I explore the connections of racial identity to the Christian theological elision of Jewish election. I demonstrate how the questions of sexual ethics materialized at the site of the Virgin Mary, and align the moral attachments of sex and purity in the production of whiteness. These machinations, tied to the emerging European identity of empire, irrupt horrifically into the narrative ontology of dark flesh in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

In Part II, I highlight the function of these narratives inside of the moments of colonial encounter, demonstrating how the logics of purity and virginity were directly applied to manage dark female flesh. I map the visual iconography of the Black Madonna first through a Dutch painting entitled The Rape of the Negress. I read this image through the social theological imagination instantiating the idea of the reprobate body and white imperial gaze. This analysis foregrounds a theological reading of Sarah Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus,” as the center of a complex sex trafficking investigation, outlining the genealogy of race, as well as the ideologies of the racial, ethnic and national Other, as mitigating factors in the conditions of possibility of a global sex trade. By restoring these narratives and their theological undertones, I reiterate the ways Christian thought is imbricated in the global sex trade, and propose theological strategies for rethinking humanitarian responses to sex trafficking.

Dissertation

This project studies the theological legacy of white evangelical purity culture (WEPC) and proposes a constructive Baptist practical theology of baptism in response. It foregrounds the activism and testimonies of Christian women to foment and intervene in white supremacist constructions of womanhood in the Female Moral Reform movement; to perpetuate and prevent racial violence in the lynching era through the deployment of a reimagined vision of sacred white womanhood; and to expand conceptions of the wounding legacies, persisting challenges, and alternative visions proposed by those harmed by WEPC. In the “afterlife” of white evangelical purity culture, baptism, conceived as a practice of solidarity, is a critical intervention to the persistent and problematic deformations of identity, salvation, and ecclesial formation. The project begins with analysis of the theopolitical history of WEPC and its founding frameworks and promises. It then turns to the Female Moral Reform movement, and particularly the activism and theological arguments of Sarah Grimké and a dissenting interlocutor in 1838, to illustrate how questions of womanhood, race, and women’s rights were forged in the context of institutional slavery. Next, this project engages the activism of Rebecca Felton, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, attends to the character de/formations deployed in women’s activism and rhetoric supportive of and against lynching, and argues that the uninterrogated sacred status of white womanhood prevents a full acknowledgement and dismantling of the regnant theological frameworks of WEPC. It then frames the online writing as testimonies to the wounding experiences in WEPC, offering an emergent tripartite framework of shame, misplaced blame, and silence to capture the impact of WEPC. Finally, drawing from the works of James Wm. McClendon, Jr., Ada María Isasi-Díaz and M. Shawn Copeland, it proposes a Baptist theology of baptism wherein baptism is revelatory rite that initiates solidarity in the service of a world that engenders the possibility of mutual liberation and human flourishing. This project contributes to the growing literature on WEPC by exposing the raced theological scaffolding that necessitate a transformation of core Christian practices.
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The function of patterns of faith experience and theology in religion and society forms part of the whole complex system of God, life and world views which operate amongst Zambian Presbyterians Christians. The dissertation endeavors to make an assessment of the place of faith and theology within the ambit of a Black Zambian and Presbyterian God-life-world view. This home grown African God-life-world view of Zambian Reformed Presbyterian making, is similar in some respects and differs in others with European and Western God, life and world views of the Reformed and Presbyterian brand. In the first chapter the stage for this dissertation is set. I do not claim to be exhaustive or definitive in discussing the mixture of faith patterns and theories of faith (theologies) from different parts of the Reformed/Presbyterian world. What plays an important operational role in this analysis and synthesis are what can be called a God, life and world pattern or view which is more or less the same as a sense making system, an ideology or a belief system. Therefore quite a number of pages are allotted to this phenomenon in the first chapter. Furthermore a broad outline of the basic points of departure of a contextual-historical approach which operate with a radical, integral and differential view of God, human life, and the physical world is spelled out. The last part of the chapter is devoted to provisional comments on a view of the experience of everyday faith and a theory of faith. The latter is the designation for what is usually called theology. In here I have tackled the problem of theology and human experience of faith from the angle of the traditional double sided or dualistic view of faith as a extraordinary supernatural and ordinary natural support structure for a discipline like theology. Theology is not intrinsically involved in people's faith experience and thus is not a real reflection of their everyday faith experience. When one is however emphasising that a faith (belief) pattern includes belief towards God, belief of the self (self-confidence) and belief towards the many neighbours as well as belief towards the physical-organic environment then one is closer in the neighbourhood of a radical and integral black African faith pattern and what we call a theory of faith. In chapter two the Reformed/Presbyterian legacy is discussed and reflected upon in terms of nine features of a Reformed/Presbyterian sense making system, ethos or God, life and world view which emerged in Reformed history since the days of John Calvin (1509-1564). Reformed-Presbyterian theologies, theories of faith and philosophies are examined as well as the major impact of Calvin on the characteristic features of Reformed God, life and world views or sense making systems. Some of the main features of these Reformed/Presbyterian sense making systems repetitively recur in the majority of Reformed experiential settings, communities and churches. The nine features or characteristics of a Reformed-Presbyterian ethos are the following: the well known soft duality of special and general; the social attitude of accepting every phenomenon and immediately start to criticize it; the tendency of pilgrimage through life; the idea of the extra-calvinisticum; the dual idea of special and general determination, that is the doctrine of election and the doctrine of providence and its strong encapsulation by a very strong theology of covenantal duality; the idea that a Reformed community or church is always in the process of reformation (ecclesia reformanda semper reformata); the doctrine of the dispensation of the gifts of the Spirit; the idea of a presbyter system and the democratic legacy that flows from it; and the regulative principle of the Church or the Kingdom of God? In chapter three the black-African-Zambian-Reformed-Presbyterian heritage is discussed in terms of the nine features discussed in chapter two. The idea in this chapter is to acknowledge the fact that an interchange, exchange and mixed appropriation between Reformed/Presbyterian contextual settings has taken and is taking place and that a Reformed/Presbyterian ethos is already incorporated and accommodated within the African milieu and experience. Our task in this chapter is to deal with the African reflections on faith and theology looking for black African similarities with the nine main features that we have detected as determinative of a Reformed/Presbyterian ethos. The predicament of non-African (European Western, Eastern and others) and Bantu-speaking black African experience manifests their differences in the realness and concreteness of their God-life-world views. Generally speaking, one of the main differences in the experience of faith and theology in the European Western and Black African Southern hemisphere contexts amount to the difference between reflective thinking experience as typically European Western and action directed reflective experience as the main emphasis of Black African experience. This entails that we must identify the foremost traits of European Western Reformed-Presbyterian theology and compare and contrast these with Black African, specifically Zambian Reformed-Presbyterian experience. The comparison and contrasting of these two broad contexts, that is European Western Reformed and Zambian Reformed are caught up in the complexities of a to and fro networking of Reformed ideas, clues and cues all over the world. There is more than one view of faith and theology and more than one God-life-world view in both the European cum Western and African ways of life. The existence of various views of faith, theology and God, life and the world explains the co-existence of these views of faith and theology and God, life and world views amongst African Christians. Africans and African Christians are not only Bantuspeaking and black because even if we take our white African counterparts out of the equation about who and what an African is, the Moroccans, the Egyptians, Algerians, Felani Hausas, Wollofs and others would surely disclaim such a statement. In chapter four theology as a theory of faith is discussed as aware reflection of everyday experiences of faith and belief that is far more important than doctrinal ideas that hover abstractly in the minds of ministers, pastors and theologians and is thus not intrinsically part of people's day to day experiences of faith and belief. A few markers on the way to a theory of faith as a functional paradigm is discussed. In order to do this four things have been touched upon: Firstly themes are compared in the Christian theological and philosophical world from both Eurocentric as well as the Afrocentric worlds. Secondly, theology as theory of faith is discussed as a concrete enterprise of aware reflection in the midst of the experience of a faith community or a church. Thirdly, some issues are highlighted which are analysed and synthesised in an attempt to expand a Reformed ethos and agenda by using clues, cues and hues from both Eurocentric and Afrocentric experiences of faith, belief and trust as well as the written and oral theological and faith theoretical reflections of these experiences. Finally, an attempt is made to interweave theories of faith from both contextual worlds as a functional paradigm. The desire to know God, oneself and other human beings as well as the physical-organic environment in this life in tandem and coterminously has a great bearing as a black African contribution to the ongoing building of a holistic Reformed/Presbyterian ethos or sense making system.
Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics
M.Th. (Systematic Theology)