Browsing by Subject "Christianity."
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Alien citizens : discerning the now and the not yet in the thought of Richard John Neuhaus.(2011-01-05T19:44:35Z) Reynolds, Matt (Matt L.); McDaniel, Charles A.; Church and State.; Baylor University. Institute of Church-State Studies.Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009) was a prominent author, editor and cleric whose reflections on the relationship between Christian faith and American democracy were highly influential. This paper describes his efforts, over more than four decades as a public intellectual, to correctly prioritize his patriotic attachment to the American experiment and his ultimate loyalty to Christ and the Church. Neuhaus discerned perennial and irresolvable tensions between what he termed the "Now" and the "Not Yet" of the Christian experience, ideas that are roughly analogous to Augustine's concepts of the City of Man and the City of God. The paper demonstrates how Neuhaus exhorted American Christians to engagement in the political arena, taught how American democracy depends upon acknowledgment of Christ's lordship, and warned against the desire to build a perfectly Christianized society on earth.Item God's wildness : the Christian roots of ecological ethics in American literature.(2012-08-08) Bilbro, Jeffrey L.; Fulton, Joe B., 1962-; English.; Baylor University. Dept. of English.Early Puritan colonists expressed conflicting views regarding the religious significance of the New World’s natural environment. On the one hand, it was “the Devil’s Territories” that God would transform into “a Mart” to enrich his church. On the other hand, it was “God’s temple” in which humans should act as priests. While the first view justifies, even demands, America’s voracious extractive economy, many literary artists have developed the latter view to imagine ways that humans might fulfill more caring, priestly roles within America’s ecological communities. Instead of reordering the Devil’s territories to suit human ends, these authors challenge readers to reorder their own lives in order to participate in God’s wild ecology. This study examines the work of four American writers—Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Willa Cather, and Wendell Berry—to understand the different means they propose to enable humans to participate in the ongoing redemptive work that God desires to accomplish in his creation. Thoreau draws explicitly on Puritan forms of history and natural philosophy as he calls his neighbors to glorify and enjoy God “in his works.” Muir’s writings in support of the National Parks transfer the central tenets of Disciples of Christ theology to his own “gospel of glaciers,” so he preached that humans could experience God’s presence most powerfully in primitive wilderness. In Death Comes for the Archbishop, Cather models her priests’ reconciliatory work in their mission and gardens on the active submission to God’s will that enabled the Virgin Mary to participate in the Incarnation and Jesus to participate in his Father’s redemptive plan. In Berry’s essays and fiction, he articulates a “way of love” that humans can follow to honor and participate in God’s redemptive love for all creation. Each of these authors imagines practical ways by which humans can fulfill their role as priests in God’s wild temple, and their insights may help Americans reinterpret their religious traditions in order to find wisdom regarding how to care for the damaged ecological systems within which they live.Item Lectio divina.(2010-06-23T12:18:33Z) Crites, Margaret.; McAllister, Scott.; Music.; Baylor University. School of Music.Lectio Divina is a musical exploration of the contemplative prayer and scripture‐reading practice called "Lectio Divina". The work is written for a chamber ensemble: flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion. Each instrument represents an individual that participates in this contemplative moment. There are three sections in the practice of Lectio Divina and thus three movements in its musical realization. As is intended in the contemplative practice, the three sections in this composition Lectio Divina progress from complexity and fullness to simplicity and understanding.Item "Man is made a mystery" : the evolution of Arthur Machen's religious thought.(2010-10-08T16:25:34Z) Reiter, Geoffrey (Geoffrey Richard), 1979-; Fulton, Joe B., 1962-; English.; Baylor University. Dept. of English.Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author now known almost exclusively for his late nineteenth-century weird horror tales such as The Great God Pan (1894) and The Three Impostors (1895). The few Machen critics who have researched his corpus as a whole sometimes deride his later works, and whether they do or not, most have tried to read his entire body of work as a thematic unity. Even if they admit that his changing outlook on life did affect his fiction, critics often believe his interest in mystical ecstasy—as articulated in his 1899 work Hieroglyphics—can be read across his entire career. Absent from this critical discourse is an examination that takes seriously the distinct worldviews of Machen's fiction at its various stages. This dissertation represents a diachronic examination of Machen’s fiction, treating the entire scope of his fiction while proposing several stages in which his altered philosophy led to a concomitant alteration of literary style and structure. Because the events of his life are important to this diachronic reading, chapter one begins with an introductory biography of Arthur Machen, then proceeds to a summary of the critical response to Machen's work and the relevance of this dissertation in that critical conversation. Chapter two treats the first major phase of Machen's career (1890-95), arguing that the horror of his most famous works stems from a fear of the implications of his own skepticism at the time. Chapter three traces his second phase (1896-99), when his initial doubt gives way to belief in a form of ecstatic mysticism, a belief that is still ill-defined and polymorphous, resulting in a fiction characterized by florid imagery but philosophical tension. Chapter four examines the impact of Machen's conversion to Christianity on his twentieth-century career (1899-1936), suggesting that it is marked by a technique of juxtaposition, in which mundane reality is contrasted with ecstatic spiritual experience. Chapter five evaluates some late writings in Machen's Christian career (1930s), positing that their acknowledged aesthetic failure results from a return to the themes of his first stage even though his worldview can no longer accommodate such terrors.