Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation seeks to unearth the inherent complexity of relations among evangelical missionaries, their filial churches, Catholics, and secular actors in the context of Protestantism's precipitous rise in Brazil between the 1910s and 1960s. It argues that American Protestant missionaries proved to be crucial agents of cultural change who successfully imparted to their Brazilian believers facets of their anti-Communist, paternalistic, and intermittently apolitical ideologies over the course of several systems of government, including two dictatorships. Crucially, this dissertation situates missionaries as intersectional, transnational, and non-state actors within the larger framework of U.S.-Brazilian religiopolitics, cultural transfusion, and the construction of gender, economic, and racial norms. Although far from passive recipients of American evangelical ideas, Brazil's newly-converted Protestants embraced U.S. missionaries' thought to a considerable extent, thereby cementing the incisive cultural change that American missionaries had sought to foster in Brazil. In doing so, Brazilian church workers and leaders refashioned U.S. norms of evangelicalism while also increasingly advocating for the nationalization (indigenization) of evangelical denominations. Basing itself on four case studies of U.S.-founded or influenced evangelical churches, this dissertation unravels the many contradictions and complications inherent to U.S. missionary work in Brazil. These factors include Brazilian evangelicals' wavering between apoliticism and political activism, a vying for influence with the Catholic Church, the legacy of Jim Crow and its consequences to mission work in Brazil, as well as a series of intra-church disputes that ultimately resulted in the nationalization (indigenization) of each church. At the core of the evangelical experience between the 1910s and 1960s stood an identitarian quest to gain legitimacy among Brazil's secular and religious authoritie (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Peter Hahn (Committee Chair); James N. Green (Other); Jennifer Eaglin (Committee Member); Joseph Parrott (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; History; International Relations; Latin American History; Religious History; World History

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2015, Theology

Broadly speaking, this dissertation is a work of theological reflection within a specific context, bringing together history, ethnography, and theology to examine a form of evangelical lived religion in contemporary America. The particular situation I am exploring is the so-called “Quiverfull movement.” The Quiverfull movement is a growing subculture of American evangelicalism that has emerged over the past forty years within the networks of the Christian homeschooling movement. Quiverfull families have a very particular lived religion. They have an unlimited number of children (pronatalism), practice homeschooling exclusively, and advocate for “biblical patriarchy,” with very prescribed sex roles for men and women. Ultimately, they view their way of life as the most faithful embodiment of biblical teaching on the family, as well as the primary way that that Christians will win the culture war in America over the next few hundred years. This dissertation advances one primary thesis: Despite the apparent strangeness of their lived religion, the Quiverfull movement in America is both thoroughly evangelical and thoroughly American. Rather than offer a radical, counter-cultural vision for the Christian family, the Quiverfull movement presents a slightly modified version of something quite commonplace: a privatized, isolated nuclear family struggling (and often failing) to maintain their bonds to the broader community, the church, and other systems of support. As such, the Quiverfull movement serves as an illuminating case study of the weaknesses and blind spots of evangelical and American cultural conceptions of the family. Lacking a broader social vision or any sense of the church as an alternative society, Quiverfull families simply cannot be the radical agents for change that they desire. Instead, they re-inscribe the norms of American individualism and privatization but with a more thoroughly religious sheen. In the end, the problem is not that the Quiverfull mo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Vincent Miller Ph.D. (Advisor); William Trollinger Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jana Bennett Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sandra Yocum Ph.D. (Committee Member); Mary McClintock Fulkerson Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Bible; Families and Family Life; Gender Studies; Religion; Religious History; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, History

This dissertation explores the formation of social capital and middle-class culture on the revolutionary frontier. As a lens, I use Methodism, an evangelical movement rooted in the British colonial period that flourished in the American Revolutionary Era and by the Civil War accounted for one in three American church members. Methodism was more than the fastest growing major religious movement in early American history. Combining social theory with manuscript, print, and demographic sources, I argue that Methodism, by circulating itinerants and founding religious societies, was a powerful force for creating social and political capital. My study is the first to appraise Methodism's role in the development of settler colonialism in the Old Southwest and the southerly regions of the Old Northwest. My research uncovers practices of social exchange and epistolary culture among Methodist men and women (who were the majority of members) to explain how Protestant Christianity transitioned from a discursive role—as a justification for indigenous dispossession—to a technique for possession. Methodism engendered social networks, disseminated knowledge, and aided pursuits of land development and commerce among middling settlers. These benefits of religious association were valuable social and economic resources, and they preceded the formal evangelical politics of the late antebellum era. They were the soil from which grassroots evangelical political power grew. My research makes three main contributions. It intercedes in the debate on social capital in American society from a historical perspective. Addressing a dearth of historical analyses of social capital formation, it also provides a major assessment of social networks within the most dynamic popular movement of the first half of the nineteenth century. Whereas popular supporters and critics of the social capital thesis often align according to their philosophical embrace of communitarianism or individualism, I show t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alan Gallay (Advisor); John Brooke (Committee Member); Randolph Roth (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Clergy; History; Religion; Religious History