Christian baptism and Jewish ritual bathing are related and many assume that Christians transformed and rejected Jewish bathing practices. Most studies have considered textual and archaeological evidence separately. This dissertation examines these sources together to outline a …
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“The Theology of Baptism: Equipping Parents to be Christian Educators After Infant Baptism” was an intensive, church-based project which lasted for one year and twenty days respectively. It was constructed to educate eight African-American and two non African-American families (…
The Naaman story has been curiously neglected throughout history both in Hebrew Bible and liturgical studies. Scholars have paid little attention to the event of Naaman's conversion through a water rite. In this study, the Naaman story is analyzed in relation to conversion and w…
In Spain, in 1501 the conversion of Muslims to Christianity was thought possible, hence the decreed baptisms; by the end of the century metanoia was deemed impossible. Similarly, religious otherness was thought to be surmountable; yet, it ultimately became indelible or racialize…
On 7 March 203, a young Roman noblewoman, Vibia Perpetua, experienced a series of disturbing visions while she and her slave, Felicitas, awaited execution in a Carthaginian prison. In the first of these revelations, Perpetua witnesses the opening of the heavens and the miraculou…
This thesis examines the written debate that occurred in 1525-1526 between Balthasar Hubmaier and Ulrich Zwingli on the proper candidate of baptism. Both pastors held to the reformation principle of sola scriptura yet came to different conclusions as to what the Bible teaches ab…
This dissertation focuses upon the use of handlaying as an initiatory rite among early Western Churches up to the point preceding the Carolingian reforms in the eighth century. The study begins by surveying the various types of handlaying rites revealed in Graeco-Roman literatur…
Is monastic profession in the West-Syriac tradition a “second baptism”? I have argued, in this dissertation, that it is. There exists, clearly, a relationship between the two rites of initiation: the monastic profession and baptism. This dissertation examines these two rites of …
Europe's history is marked by consistent tension between orthodox institutions and non-conformist communities, radical groups seeking to create new autonomous religious movements. What make the heresies I am studying significant are their shared objections, and the extent to whi…
Baptism as a ritual is not the creation of Jesus, but is introduced by John the Baptist. John's baptism originated in Judaism and his baptism preserved the function and implication of Jewish washing, i.e., ritual cleansing from impurity, by means of repentance and forgiveness. B…
This thesis proposes that the narrative engagement of ethical leadership is foundational for contemporary Lay Ecclesial Leadership of ministries of the Catholic Church in Australia. It is argued that in the appointment of women and men as board directors it is essential to devel…
Tertullian wrote extensively on the subject of baptism. Tertullian’s mention of baptism is surveyed throughout his corpus. Special attention is paid to his De Baptismo and other pre-Montantist works. Tertullian’s De Baptismo 18 has received significant use by Presbyterians, Bapt…
The insertion of ὁ ἀγαπητός ("beloved") into the allusion to Ps. 2:7 in Mk. 1:11 echoes the command to sacrifice Isaac in Gen. 22:2 and evokes the wider-ranging theme of the "death and resurrection of the beloved son." When read in light of the "Davidization" and "historicizatio…
René Girard’s mimetic theory posits that culture is predicated upon religion, which in turn is predicated on sacrifice that stems from mimetic behavior. In archaic systems, culture is ultimately rooted in a violent scapegoating mechanism whereby human violence is attributed to t…
The trans-national Regular Baptist tradition in the northeastern borderlands of Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick grew rapidly from 1780 to 1815. The spiritual imperatives of this Calvinistic group with its commitment to believer’s baptism of adults and closed communion chur…
This thesis draws upon empirical data from fifty semi-structured interviews, participant observation and living alongside the community of Kirkham, Lancashire to answer the question "Why do people bring their infant child to baptism when they do not attend Church?" The study con…
In 2008, Lewis Ayres and Michel Barnes published several articles in the journal Augustinian Studies proposing a theory of early Christian pneumatology in three stages. They argue that each successive stage marked a downturn in the church’s pneumatology, progressing from a high …
Children are important members of society. Their membership as participants in humanity has gotten lost at times throughout history. Children have a particular type of dependency in relationships with the adults around them. This means that adults need to understand children in …
The purpose of this study was to explore the role of confession, repentance, and Baptismal Identity within the Antiracist Identity of four, White Christians to further the work of Antiracist transformation and organizing in the local church. The primary methodology for this work…