HDS Student Papers

What are the relational dynamics of narrative-as-communication, and why do the biblical scriptures utilize it? Through an exploration of both these questions and several key biblical narratives, this paper seeks to uncover a theology of relationship in which control is cast as antithetical to love for divine and mortal alike.

"Almost No Matter What" is a work of autotheory - according to Stacey Young, a mode of writing "personal experience within political contexts" - in the emerging discipline of post-capitalist pastoral theology. Aware that critiques of capitalism have so far failed to shake us of its spell, "Almost No Matter What" represents the author's assessment of the damage capitalism has wrought on his own relationships and inner life. If Bruce Rogers-Vaughn (who coined the term "post-capitalist pastoral theology") is correct in his view that capitalism enacts a kind of soft trauma on the human psyche, then theory and academic discourse alone do not suffice to bring about healing and transformation; we must bravely examine our own wounds, notice our patterns, face up to our coping mechanisms, and find our way toward new choices. Proceeding from our collective right to "need recognition" - to being seen as ones who need - "Almost No Matter What" takes careful stock of the author's own dwindling spiritual resources in the era of neoliberalism, an aggressive form of capitalism that came of age alongside him. It addresses the reader directly, in a sense saying, "I feel this; do you feel this too?" Insofar as the answer is "yes," the solution becomes ours to forge together.

This is a workshop guide for facilitators teaching Christian seminary or divinity school students how to prevent and respond to intimate partner violence (IPV) in their congregations. Building theoretical, theological, and practical knowledge, this workshop aims to prepare students to approach the issue of IPV from their own informed theological foundation with confident yet humble leadership, competence in their role, and an understanding of its limits. This guide begins with a description of the workshop goals and systems of evaluation. It includes the first two training sessions: Session One, “Community Building & Foundations,” focuses on building a learning community and learning basic information about trauma and domestic violence, and Session Two, “Responding to Disclosures,” builds capacity to respond to those who have experienced IPV. The remaining four sessions are previewed.

This work is a translation into French of half of the book Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews by Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson. In the foreword in English, the translator explains the challenges he has encountered while working of the translation of this theological and biblical book into French.

Memphis, Tennessee is a majority Black city located at the southwestern corner of Tennessee bordering Mississippi and Arkansas. The unique geographic location has created a beautifully urban-country energy that gives Memphis its edginess. There is a spiritual and relational component to the bold lives and culture people in Memphis create. During his last sermon on April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Mason Temple in Memphis. He said, “Something is happening in Memphis. Something is happening in our world”. There has always been something happening in Memphis, and there exists a profound and distinct culture of resilience that deserves to be acknowledged and complexified. In this study, I will honor that brilliance and explore how a culture of resilience has been the site of innovation in Memphis. Some of Black Memphian life represents Black spirituality. Black spirituality invokes freedom of mind, body, and soul for Black people. Through a womanist lens, I will engage with Memphis’s Black history and culture to highlight its depiction of Black spirituality and deliberate, imaginative resilience for Black survival. I will do this through sections on the genesis of Memphis, creativity, defiance and activism, community and fellowship, and lastly, music, dance, and soul. I understand this city as a predominantly Black city. There is no Memphis without its undeniable influence from Black traditions, language, food, style, and residents. I will use “Memphis” and “Black Memphis” interchangeably through my perspective that Memphis is Black. This thesis is my way of expressing my love for the 901 and articulating its authentic beauty and societal contributions.

Telecaring: Lessons on Virtual Care from the COVID-19 Pandemic Written by a Harvard University graduate student who watched her mother navigate virtual care for Stage IV breast cancer in 202, this essay interviews with 30+ care professionals (clinicians, policymakers, chaplains, social workers, doulas, therapists) about their experiences of using virtual communications methods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper explores how some interpretations of scripture and other sacred texts have been used to subjugate women particularly in the COOLJC (Church of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Inc.). We will examine the historical epistemologies that have produced the Black female body politic and how these incendiary tropes have been used to justify why women should not serve as preachers in the Black church. In Black Pentecostalism we often trace our lineage through the spiritual bloodline of the ‘Fathers of the Faith’. The significance of this work is that it breaks ranks with Pentecostal tradition. While we honor the men who have led these organizations, we also know that the Black church certainly would not exist nor would it have the same impact without the contributions of Black women. Therefore, I trace my spiritual lineage through my grandmother and other Black women who spent countless hours indoctrinating me, as well as spiritually forming and molding me to become a devotee of a Christianity that comes with a high moral and ethical mandate for restorative social justice, equity, fairness, and equality (although in many cases, she had not reaped the benefits of the fairness and equality of which she preached). This work pays homage to the countless number of Black women who formed networks to advance spiritual, economic, social and racial uplift, I trace my spiritual lineage through them. In summary, we will offer a call to action for the Black Apostolic Pentecostal Church to reflect on its interpretation of scripture as it relates to gender justice and equity.

This paper seeks to shine a light on the National Socialist approach to both religion and temporality as they intersect in the narrative of the Third Reich. Using the Nazi propaganda documentaries 'Triumph of the Will' and 'The Eternal Jew,' I examine one kernel of traditionally religious temporal imagination that found a place in the Nazi narrative: eternity. I suggest that understanding the work that the concept of “eternal” did to root and propel Nazi ideology will offer a nuanced view of the Nazi approach to both time and religion as well as the stakes of such language. First, I give a brief picture of the complexity of the question of religion in the Third Reich. As an undergirding framework, I offer philosopher Charles Taylor’s concept of social imaginary as it intersects with Victor Klemperer’s conclusions on the rhetoric of the Third Reich. Next, I turn to scholarly analyses of German temporality leading up to and following World War I, drawing on Roger Griffin, Taylor, and historians Reinhart Koselleck and Christopher Clark. In analyzing the concept of eternality in 'Triumph of the Will,' I use historian of religion Mircea Eliade’s work on ritual and sacred time as well as with Taylor’s on gathered time and kairotic knots. Building on that analysis, I examine the Wandering Jew myth in relation to 'The Eternal Jew.' Ultimately, I suggest that there are two versions of eternity being offered in these pieces of Nazi propaganda. One version is beyond time in the form of appeals to transcendent Aryan and Jewish essences––the constructive and destructive foundational pillars of Nazi ideology, respectively––and the other version is within time appearing in references to the Third Reich qua modern state-entity as the immanent manifestation of the Aryan essence. I claim that, in weaving together these differing yet intersecting eternities into their narrative, Nazi leadership tied a modern state-building project with a vision of an immanent utopian future to seemingly primordial categories of identity framed in a Christian logic of theophany.

A paper examining Unitarian Universalist youth movements since 1953, asking how the past might inform youth history today. Roughly chronological, this paper looks at moments in history through four central themes: youth culture, youth empowerment and adult commitment, governance and distribution of material resources, covenant as a process for decision-making and conflict-mending. Ultimately, it argues that Unitarian Universalism calls us to center relationship and covenantal processes in order to enact sustainable and faithful ministry to and with youth. This paper also takes a historiographical stance, arguing that this is a history that is important to tell, and that Unitarian Universalists stand to benefit from paying attention to how we tell these stories.

John Main, OSB (1926-1982) taught a method of Christian meditation that was notably developed from the synthesis of two major sources: his encounter with Swami Satyananda (1909-1961) in British Malaya in 1955 and the tradition of the “prayer formula” of John Cassian (circa 360-435 CE). Although Main’s interpretation of John Cassian has been the subject of some scholarship, few have been able to place his meeting with Swami Satyananda in its proper context. In order to appreciate how John Main arrived at a modern, universalistic, and lay-oriented understanding of Christianity with the practice of meditation at the very center, their meeting must be contextualized within the religio-political context of Malayan Hindu reform during the British colonial period.

This paper argues that anti-Blackness is so vast, pervasive, and powerful that it has disfigured the concept and experience of time for Black people, and it argues that, against and within this disfigurement, Black people might yet reclaim this “time” to demonstrate and enact ways of being that help sustain and honor Black life. This paper explores how the distorting effects of anti-Blackness on time can be discerned in what we broadly understand as “the law” in the United States, including its case law, statutes, and prison system. And, alongside this, this paper argues that the Black capacity to refigure time is evident in Black music. Here, this paper analyzes two pieces of music (Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” and Herbie Hancock’s “Ostinato”), how their composers and performers navigate and manipulate rhythm, and what we might glean from these different orientations to and in time.

How can reading stories help us become better caregivers? And what skills can Theravadin story literature build in the context of chaplaincy and spiritual care? Using original translations of the story of Kisa Gotami as guide, this thesis takes up these questions in tandem. While Kisa Gotami's story is often viewed as a tale of extreme grief, it is also a story about stories and, as such, offers novel ways of approaching narratives with attention and care.

Analyzing the relationship between white mainline Protestant theology and white supremacy in the twentieth-century United States raises methodological challenges because of the coded language of dog-whistle politics and color-blind racism, and the shifting categories of whiteness, Christian, and American. The challenge is how to identify the racial implications of theological arguments not explicitly marked as such. This paper examines how theological constructs explicitly linked to white supremacist projects may continue to replicate whiteness and racial logics even when they become detached from explicit racial markers by tracking the shifting theo-racial discourse of white U.S. Congregationalist minister Josiah Strong from 1885-1915. Drawing on Ann Stoler’s theorization of the “polyvalent mobility” of racial discourse, I demonstrate how racial essentialisms entwined in Strong’s theological discourse shift while the grammar of an evolutionary logic that hierarchizes categories of being based on these shifting essentialisms remains consistent. The result is a subsuming of racial grammar into a more narrowly articulated theological discourse, and the subsuming of a global imperial project of assimilation to Anglo-Saxon U.S. Protestant “civilization” into a global evangelizing project. Ultimately, for Strong, religious training becomes a eugenic tactic as the three social laws of Christ become evolutionary laws, and conversion to Strong’s “Christianity of Christ” becomes the culmination of both God’s plan for humans and the evolution of humans. This paper demonstrates one instance in which racial and theological discourse are intertwined even when devoid of racial markers, and how, in certain instances, theological claims made on behalf of Christianity may also function as claims on behalf of whiteness.

This paper examines Christian women’s responses to the legalization of the birth control pill in America through conversations within women’s magazines of the 1960s and ‘70s. During this time period, women were largely shut out of Christian magazines, and as a result, their voices are frequently underrepresented in broader scholarship on Christianity and contraception. Through women’s magazines, a privileged subset of Christian women was able to express their opinions and beliefs on the role of the birth control pill in their faith lives. At the center of this debate was Catholic women, who struggled to come to terms with the spiritual commitments they held to their faith versus the practical commitments they held to their families. While not necessarily facing the same kind of deep theological struggles in their own lives, Protestant women were also quick to offer their thoughts on the Catholic Church and the Pill. Steeped in various degrees of anti-Catholicism, their sentiments made it clear that these Protestant women opposed what they interpreted as the Catholic Church’s restrictive influence on access to birth control. In light of these primary sources, this paper makes a two-pronged argument that (1) women’s magazines should be attended to with a greater degree of serious scholarly analysis, particularly within the field of religious studies, and (2) within women’s magazines of this time period, Christian women engaged in wide-ranging conversations about faith and the Pill, particularly involving the Catholic Church’s role in regulating that relationship.

This paper will show that Catholic sex education needs an update immediately. I argue that Catholic sex education should move towards a model that is based on consent, that teaches comprehensive reproductive education, and that is culturally competent. Utilizing sources that have been produced by the Catholic Church, the resources from the Loyola Marymount University Cares program, and from survey respondents themselves, I begin to lay out what a new form of inclusive sex education in the spirit of Catholic teaching can look like and how to reduce further harm from occurring.

This paper explores and extends theories on Joseph Smith’s production of the Book of Mormon by discovering and translating a set of ancient gold plates in light of similar events in the Treasure (gter ma) tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Whereas current theorists emphasize how (or if) Smith’s mind worked on a set of (ancient or fabricated) gold plates to produce a text, I argue that in light of similar events in the gter ma tradition, and how scholars of the gter ma tradition have studied those events, the primary sources suggest Smith’s mind to be just one element in a larger system of non (or supra) human agents. In fact, in conjunction with recent studies on what Smith could have meant in using the term “translation,” comparison with the gter ma tradition opens up the possibility that Smith’s gold plates served as a revelatory vehicle that instigated and facilitated his production of the Book of Mormon, rather than the book’s textual source. This possibility, in turn, serves to transcend the traditional bifurcated interpretive options most often applied to this event without bracketing or rejecting important elements of Smith’s account.

With the three models of the human in mind, the paper observes the current shift in paradigm— the downfall of the autonomous individual and the emergence of the co-dependent network— under cyberspace (social media) by borrowing the lens of Feuerbach’s conception of God and the dependent creature.

This guide is a tool for personal and community healing. Exploring themes of body intelligence, impacts of childhood adversity, and self-sustainability, this book will help you recognize and address structural violence, heal, and instill confidence and joy into your being. Written from an anti-racist and womanist perspective, this book gives special emphasis to trauma-informed care.

Luo Rufang (1515–1588) was a very active and influential Confucian scholar and lecturer during his lifetime. In Luo’s work, we can find three main points regarding Shangdi: First, Shangdi is not an abstract principle. Shangdi is a personal deity who generates the myriad things and humans. Shangdi is always monitoring the behaviors of humans and giving corresponding rewards and punishments. Second, Shangdi grants humans a nature that is the same as Shangdi’s own nature. We, as humans, may therefore experience Shangdi’s presence by watching and finding this Heavenly bestowed nature. We should thus be fearful and reverent in feeling the presence of Shangdi, restrain ourselves from misbehavior, and diligently practice moral cultivation to achieve a complete realization of manifestation of the heavenly nature granted by Shangdi. And third, eventually, all our thoughts and deeds will become reflections of Shangdi’s mind. We will then return to oneness with Shangdi. When Luo talks about Shangdi, his ultimate concern is the moral cultivation and spiritual transformation of humans. Shangdi is important only in relation to humans. Further examinations will demonstrate that his idea of Shangdi is almost entirely rooted in the ancient classics and contemporary neo-Confucian thought. Luo’s case may provide us with a new historical and intellectual resource for the study of Ming Confucianism and its dialogue with Catholicism.

Ethical Neo-Aristotelians hold that ethical standards are fixed by something’s end (telos). Moreover, they hold that such ends are inherent in nature. I argue that an end is normatively binding only if it is intended. Thus, I distinguish between “functional” ends (which are immanent in nature yet non-normative) and “purposive” ends (which are set by agential intentions and thus normative). The purposes of individual’s can fix normative standards, but these standards are relative. This raises the worry that teleological conceptions of ethics devolve into ethical relativism. I show how the charge of ethical relativism can be met by appeal to Christian theology. If a providential God exists, then God’s purposes for humans become an ultimate ethical standard. In order to know God’s purposes for humankind, we look to God’s revelation in Christ.