Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

In today's mainline Protestant churches, young women clergy navigate a precarious leadership space. While women's ordination is well-established in American Protestantism (Burnett, 2017), Gen-X/Millennial clergy women find themselves at the crosshairs of conflicting gender narratives and unsustainable expectations of what it means to be both a woman and an ordained pastoral leader. Through the use of feminist constructivist grounded theory methodology, this study explored the lived experiences of Gen-X/Millennial clergy women who have left active ministry or a specific pastoral position due to concerns over their own interpersonal boundaries and psychological safety. Through dimensional analysis of in-depth interviews with 20 clergy women representing eight mainline Protestant denominations, this study identified the co-core dimensions of experiencing feminized servanthood as dehumanizing and experiencing feminized servanthood as abusive. The social processes within these co-core dimensions severely compromised the clergy women's physical and psychological safety and informed their decisions to leave their respective ministry contexts. Extending from these co-core dimensions were five primary dimensions: 1) developing a sense of call; 2) differentiating self from system; 3) exposing vs. protecting toxic leaders and harmful systems; 4) nail in the coffin; and 5) reconstituting self. As a result of these findings, this study presents five theoretical propositions that address 1) the shadow side of servant leadership in the context of feminized servanthood; 2) reclaiming Gen-X/Millennial women's leadership strengths; 3) perceptions of self-differentiated women leaders as a “dissident daughter” and an “emasculating disruptor”; 4) gendered scapegoating and the disappearance of Gen-X/Millennial clergy women; and 5) reconstituting self beyond “reckoning” and “resilience.” This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD cent (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, History

For the first century of its existence, colonial Puritanism in New England embraced anti-Catholicism. It first emerged out of anti-Catholic efforts to continue the Reformation in England, by removing Catholic rituals, symbols, ideas, and people from the English church, state, and society. Through the processes of migration and settlement-building in the unique contexts of the New England borderlands, their once “English” anti-Catholicism evolved and became “Americanized.” Puritans felt this new “Americanized” anti-Catholicism on an everyday basis, making colonial Puritan anti-Catholicism more intense than its English counterpart. Embracing an anti-Catholic “errand” into the New England borderlands, a region filled with new people and geography that was far from the reaches of the English state, colonial Puritans experimented with and crafted their religious, political, and social institutions, practices, and identities on anti-Catholicism. Catholics became “the Other,” imagined as violent and oppressive tyrants, plotters, murderers, and even the anti-Christ, from which colonial Puritans defined their community in opposition. Constant conflict with Indigenous peoples, New France, and “popery” raised anxieties and fears over the very survival of Puritan communities. As a result, New Englanders passed stranger laws—regulations, oaths, and other means to control the presence of alien peoples—to restrict Catholic “strangers” within their colonies. By exploring the relationship between the colonies of New England and Ireland, it becomes clear that the English language of civility and violence, which was employed in New England against both Indigenous peoples and Catholics, originated within the process of Irish colonization. This language was thus tied to that colonization's virulent anti-Catholicism, which was then transported to New England.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, History

One Nation Under My God studies the issue of Christian Nationalism through the institutional histories and political activism of the United Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. By looking at these histories, this work argues that Christian Nationalism is not always overt but can be subtle and quiet. The overt support for pro-America ideology from the Southern Baptists and the subtler moralism from United Methodists contrast in these ways. This study also discusses regional identity between North and South in the United States and how religious and political affiliation perpetuates regional division.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2024, Theology

Katherine Burton (1887-1969) is a forgotten, yet prolific US Catholic writer who wrote for average, middle-class, white women in the mid-twentieth century. From her conversion to Catholicism in 1930 to her death in 1969, Katherine wrote a monthly “Woman to Woman” column in The Sign for thirty-six years, over forty-four biographies and histories of Catholic men, women, and religious communities, and countless articles for other Catholic periodicals. Her books, as well as the Catholic periodicals in which her writing regularly appeared, had a large, nationwide readership. Katherine's words hold significance for religious scholars today seeking to further understand the faith lives of middle-class women in the pews during one of the most turbulent time periods in US history. Examining Katherine's writing provides scholars with a view into how Catholicism and Catholic womanhood were understood and presented by a laywoman to her mid-twentieth century laywomen audience. Katherine's writing is also a compelling example of how intricately an author's personal life is often entwined with their work and how studying the two side by side enriches the narratives they both tell.

Master of Arts in History, Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Humanities

Peace activism has had a constant presence within the broader landscape of social movements in American history. From the pre-revolutionary era to the present, there have always been Americans animated by the idea of peace and eager to agitate for it. Diverse perspectives abound, from strict religious pacifism to softer, secular, and politically motivated non-violence. The Vietnam war, combined with the cultural transformations of the long-1960s, thrust the undercurrent of peace advocacy into the spotlight, bringing what was once a niche movement to much greater prominence. This thesis concentrates on the rhetoric, politics, and tactical debates of the Vietnam-era antiwar movement from 1963-1971. The rise and fall of the movement's influence is analyzed as part of a greater trend in social activism, beginning in 1900. The peace movement of the Vietnam era was novel in its demographic makeup and ideological tapestry, but it did not come to life in a vacuum, and the activists responsible for its ascendance made conscious efforts to connect their movements with those that preceded them. To that end, this work makes use wherever possible of the writings of activists and leaders of the antiwar movement. Much of this material was retrieved from the Swarthmore Peace Collection, specifically the papers of Vietnam Summer, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, New Mobilization Committee, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, and the papers of Cora Weiss. Additional primary material was retrieved digitally, in the cases of Students for a Democratic Society, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the War Resister's League. Utilizing these documents, this thesis demonstrates the commonalities of otherwise discrete antiwar organizations. Though the myriad antiwar groups of the Vietnam-era differed greatly in their makeup and ideologies, they retained a constant connection to the shared history of civil rights and peace activism of the twentieth century.

Bachelor of Arts, Ohio University, 2024, History

Do extreme religious groups develop in a vacuum due to the leaders desire for power and the followers' ignorance? Or are there larger forces at play? The United States in the 1970s saw a rise in extreme religious groups characterized by charismatic leaders and catastrophe. Much of the American public believed these groups were formed because of their leader's desire for money and power. However leaders were often motivated by other forces, and followers were typically well educated and middle class, with no obvious reason to join these communities. If this is the case, what other explanation is there for the formation of extreme religious groups? In the case of the 1970s, this was due to the larger pressures of the “Me Decade.” The me decade was characterized by poor domestic conditions in the US, resulting from inflation, stagnation, fuel shortages and government scandal. As the quality of life for average Americans deteriorated, they lost faith in their government to solve these problems, and turned to other solutions. Oftentimes these were attempts at self improvement, hoping for personal improvement if the problems of society couldn't be solved. In other cases, new religious communities were formed, providing spiritual solutions as an alternative to political ones. An example of one such religious group was the Rajneesh, a spiritual community founded in central Oregon known for their 1984 bioterrorism attack. The “Me Decade,” as well as its impact on the Rajneesh can be seen through a number of sources, including the Rajneesh's newspaper, other local newspapers, and essays by writers of the time on the phenomenon of the me decade. In this way, extreme religious groups in the 1970s were not formed by the leader's desire for money and power, but due to larger political and cultural pressures, particularly in the case of the Rajneesh.

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

My thesis discusses the history of gender and sexuality politics in postcolonial Zimbabwe. It utilizes the convening of Christianity and politics to explore how these areas of public life combined to influence different perceptions towards gender and sexuality identities. The background appraises the impact of African Traditional Religion (ATR) during the colonial period and the changes ushered in by Western Christianity. During this time of colonial conquest, ATR was the cornerstone of all the sectors of life including politics. This included the worshiping of God through nature and ancestral spirits. Reincarnation was a very prominent practice of the colonial Zimbabwe ATR, also known as the Mwari cult. The concept of reincarnation was considered an effective way of communicating with the dead through the Masvikiro (spirit mediums) who transmitted information, requests for rains, or prayers for healing and harvest to Mwari or Unkulunkulu (God). Masvikiro gained popularity as the quest for nationalism continuously shaped every aspect of colonial Zimbabwe especially in the anti-colonial protest of 1896-97 Chimurenga (war of independence). Although there was transition in religion since the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial period where ATR's prominence began to diminish due to the absorption of western doctrines, all the three historic phases elaborate how religion was shaped by the prevailing situations until it became a chief cornerstone of every aspect of the postcolonial economy. As a result of colonialism, a significant number of people converted to Christianity. My thesis, therefore, serves to confirm the existence of a continued influence of religion in politics. It reexamines the various ways in which a combination of religion and politics affected the perceptions of gender and sexuality identities. This pinpoints dimensions in which gender identities were understood and perceived in independent Zimbabwe and most significantly how these changed through (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis essays to study and interpret a small body of poems from Southern Gaul which respond to the breach of the Rhine frontier and subsequent crises from 406-418 AD. After demonstrating contemporary literary conventions in both secular and Christian discourses, the paper will survey how the poems in question came to terms with recent catastrophe and thereby rearticulated differing ideas of empire and meta-history which drew upon the Latin Epic tradition but deployed them in a context that was increasingly Christian and destabilized. While this will shed limited light on the political events, it will primarily serve to situate the beginnings of the Fall of the Western Empire in their intellectual context and indicate how they served as agents of the transformation of the Classical World and the draining of the secular.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, History (Arts and Sciences)

This paper examines the antislavery stance of Catholic Archbishop of Cincinnati John Baptist Purcell and his brother, Father Edward Purcell, during the American Civil War. Purcell is an anomaly in that he advocated for the immediate end of slavery when most prominent Catholics did not. This study situates Purcell in state, national, Catholic, political, and social contexts, and shows how Purcell's thoughts on slavery developed in the antebellum and Civil War years. Purcell developed a distinctly Catholic antislavery position that drew from Catholic theology and experience. He received much criticism from other prominent Catholic persons and publications for his stance. This study examines the debates between Purcell and his critics and discusses their impact on the ecclesial unity of the Catholic Church in the United States.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, Art History (Fine Arts)

This thesis examines the cultural and religious contexts behind the production of the Girona Apocalypse [Museu de la Catedral de Girona, Num. Inv. 7(11)], a tenth-century copy of Beatus of Liebana's eighth-century Commentary on the Apocalypse. It delves into the ways in which medieval society, guided by the gendered perceptions of the Latin Church, played a pivotal role in categorizing women within a binary framework: either as pure or immoral. The focus is on the portrayal of femininity in the Apocalypse of St. John, where the contrasting figures of the Great Harlot and the Woman Clothed with the Sun are juxtaposed, and how this imagery and symbolism are transformed into feminine archetypes in the Girona manuscript, resulting in a pictorial conflict and shedding light on the nuanced dynamics of gender in medieval Iberia. The Girona Apocalypse was created at the dual monastery at San Salvador de Tabara, and apparently was illuminated by a woman, Ende. Her contribution provides a subtle layer to the understanding of womanhood in medieval Iberia, highlighting the importance of the role she played in a society where women received limited validation and recognition. The Girona Beatus not only offers a unique perspective on the conception of womanhood in the Middle Ages, but also provides valuable insights into how a woman artisan painter navigated her identity within the constraints of a malecentric Christian narrative.

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2023, English

Zora Neale Hurston is an African-American writer, anthropologist, and ethnographer of the Harlem Renaissance. She is distinguished for documenting and celebrating the religions of African Americans in the South. In this study, the author argues that Hurston represents the practiced religions in Southern African-American communities in Jonah's Gourd Vine and Moses, Man of the Mountain while noticeably omitting Islam, despite the fact that Islam predominated in more Northern African-American Communities as a reclaimed religious history and practice. Hurston's exclusion prompts inquiries into the history of Islamic erasures in Southern African-American communities and introduces ambiguity in interpreting the metaphors found in Jonah's Gourd Vine because of the differences between the Biblical and Quranic narratives surrounding the figure of Jonah. The author concludes that Hurston omits Islam because it was not noticeably practiced in the South among the African-American community. Finally, the author argues that Muslim readers must understand the Biblical Jonah to understand the metaphorical meanings of the vine relative to the protagonist John Buddy Pearson in Hurston's Jonah's Gourd Vine.

Undergraduate Honors Program, Malone University, 0, Honors Thesis

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how single women have been viewed by the church throughout history as well as today and to discuss how the church could potentially better serve the needs of its single members. The methodology used was an analysis of how singles have been viewed historically, sociologically, and through biblical teachings. For the last couple of centuries, the Evangelical church has idealized marriage and the nuclear family over all other relationships. Before the Protestant Reformation, singles were viewed as set apart and more holy than their married counterparts. However, after this period, the church began to elevate marriage as a higher calling than celibacy and to look down upon single women, which is a sentiment that still exists in many American Evangelical churches today. This is an issue because almost half of Protestant Evangelical women today are no longer or never have been married, making the church's ideal of marriage increasingly unattainable. Instead of propagating this idealized view of marriage, the church should value each individual as it fosters a sense of community for personal growth, making the church more inclusive of all its members, including single women.

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2023, History

Women in modern Nigeria have been subjected to decades of gender discrimination manifesting in societal gender oppression and institutional prejudice. Women trail behind men in education, financial power, and political representation. Religious reformation and British colonialism have proven to have had a significant role in the uprooting of Indigenous customs in specific northern and southern regions of Nigeria. This project interrogates the factors of religious change and colonialism upon the internal valuation of womanhood of Hausa women in a Muslim society and Igbo women in an increasingly Christian region. The Colonial Womanist Devaluation model is used to identify the changing internal definitions of womanhood of Hausa and Igbo women against the external factors of religious change and colonialism. Through the application of this model, it was revealed that the slow process of Islamization within Hausa communities primed Hausa women to commonly accept the restrictions of an increasingly patriarchal society. In contrast, Igbo women more commonly resisted the patriarchal norms brought by Christian conversion and colonialism due to the perseverance of Indigenous Igbo culture. The findings of the Colonial Womanist Devaluation Model have proven consistent in the interrogation of the behaviors and internal valuations of womanhood in modern Hausa and Igbo women.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, English (Arts and Sciences)

This study documents patterns of description of Roman Catholic characters, beliefs, cultural attitudes, dispositions, doctrines, worship and ceremonial rites, and visual and material culture in eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth-century British prose fiction. From Daniel Defoe's Religious Courtship (1722) to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814), British prose fiction wrestles with the problem of religious difference between Anglo-Protestants and a defamiliarized Catholic other. Delineating Roman Catholicism the spatial-geographical as well as timebound “constitutive outside” of Protestant Great Britain, numerous British novels portray Catholics and Catholic religion as shadows of a dark age past from which Britain itself has emerged, enlightened and whole. And yet certain features of these fictions belie a clean, easy separation and indeed problematize Anglo-Protestant identity itself. Describing in fetishistic detail Catholicism's visual and material culture, to emphasize its strangeness and outlandishness to British observers, British writers draw attention to Protestant Britain's own lack of internal religious unity and coherence, which is often symbolized by the novel's inability to render a rival Protestant religious imaginary on the page. I argue that the stark contrast between the visible and embodied evidence of Roman Catholic religion and an Anglo-Protestant religious imaginary that both contains and resists Catholic art and artifice, is a constant source of unspoken disquiet and tension in the British novel. British writers of the eighteenth-century wrestle with the question or what Britons have lost or gained in shedding the visual and material culture of Catholicism for comparatively immaterial and rational constructions of faith. In consequence, however, a Catholic religious imaginary and sacramental universe—part of England's religious heritage from the Catholic Middle Ages—is preserved in the realm of the symbolic, and becomes a challenge to b (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

The religious content of nineteenth-century American sentimental texts is often overlooked as a subject of study itself and is instead analyzed as a means to another end, such as its contributions to the abolition of slavery or to women's rights. Both are powerful uses of religion in writing; by contrast, this dissertation analyzes the use of religion in nineteenth-century American sentimental texts as an active and evolving blueprint by which to live everyday life. Utilizing the sociological/historical theory of ‘lived religion' and emphasizing the literary mode of ‘surface reading,' I explore how women writers of sentimental texts—Jarena Lee, Julia Foote, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Susan Warner, Louisa May Alcott, and Frances E. W. Harper—implemented religious themes and lessons in their sermons, essays, speeches, novels, and poetry in serving the purpose of faith itself. The analysis of lived religion focuses on how these women and their personal theology and religious practices interacted and evolved, which they then taught to society through their writing and speaking.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, History

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz's employment of references to the classical Greco-Roman tradition as well as literary devices allowed her to skillfully weave her thoughts between the lines of both her secular and religious pieces. The written works of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz served as an outlet in which the nun could express her opinions and commentary regarding the status of indigenous peoples, women's roles, and the influence of the Catholic Church. Without straying from the confines of what was deemed acceptable by the elite male authorities of the Catholic Church, Sor Juana was thus able to successfully navigate the social and religious norms of Colonial New Spain while living a paradoxical life as a woman, a nun, and a public intellectual. Chapter one provides an analysis of Sor Juana's veiled critiques regarding the treatment and status of indigenous peoples within two of her dramatic works, The Loa to the Divine Narcissus and The Divine Narcissus. It is asserted that Sor Juana's public display of sympathy for indigenous peoples during the Spanish conquest and the portrayal of indigenous religion and culture as valid beliefs indicates her support and awareness of the issue. In chapter two, the focus is shifted to women's roles and education. I contend that Sor Juana used her poetry to defend women's rights to attain an education and to partake in experiences that contradicted patriarchal expectations of gender and sexuality. The final chapter is dedicated to Sor Juana's controversy with prominent authorities of the Catholic Church and her justification of her secular writing. The study of the Respuesta and El Primero Sueno reveals Sor Juana's criticism towards the patriarchy and the overarching religious hierarchy as well as her belief that she was entitled to write and participate in both religious and secular intellectual discourse.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2023, Theology

This dissertation is a contextualized and hermeneutical study of the relationship between dialogue and proclamation through the work of John C. H. Wu. Dialogue refers to the intercultural and interreligious dialogue between Christians and members of other faiths. Proclamation refers to the explicit proclamation of the Gospel of Christ among the nations. It begins by placing Wu back into his historical context in Chinese modernity from the 1840s to 1949. He is described as a humanist who takes a different approach than liberals and Communists to the relationship between China's past traditions and modernity, between China and the West. Wu's participation in dialogue is explored through his cosmopolitan journal, T'ien Hsia Monthly, and his explicit writings relating Christianity to the traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. His involvement in the proclamation of the Gospel is explored through his Christology, his translation of the New Testament, and his interpretation of Therese of Lisieux. The examination of his work yields three main findings. First, dialogue and proclamation in the Chinese context are inseparable. Second, Wu applies an existential hermeneutic of joy as his criterion of comparison, through which he can appreciate with continuity the gift of his native traditions and the gift of Christ. Third, he displays a dynamic and contextualized theology of religions that can be termed “transfigured harmony.” His contribution to Christian theology lies in his ability to hold opposites in creative tension as well as his literary, aesthetic, and sapiential theological imagination.

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

This dissertation is an analysis of American service members of Italian origin and how their military service during World War II influenced their assimilation into American mainstream society and the construction of present-day Italian-American identity. I argue that Italian-Americans' large-scale service in the military between 1941 and 1945 proved crucial in determining a rapid assimilation into the American mainstream that was complete by the end of the war, as well as substantial educational, professional, and economic advances in the years immediately afterward. One of the keys for this positive record lay in Italian-Americans' unquestioned demonstration of loyalty through their service against their country of origin, Italy. At the same time, while World War II was a catalyst for Italian-Americans' assimilation, their service in Italy also brought about a reconciliation with their Italian roots that they were aiming at downplaying, and ultimately their maintenance instead of complete erasure. Loyal service in World War II later became a tenet of Italian-American pride when it was re-elaborated during the 1960s and 1970s movement for ethnic revival by later generations of Italian-Americans. This study also complements the existing historiography on enemy alien minorities during World War II (German and Japanese-Americans) and other ethnic groups. As a result, it facilitates understanding of the interplay of factors of military service, race, ethnicity, and wider socio-racial contexts in determining inclusion or exclusion into American mainstream society and preservation of elements of ethnic identity.

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)

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

The purpose of this study was to examine the works of William Perkins and situate his singular treatise A Discourse on the Damned Art of Witchcraft within his broader theology. This thesis argued that Perkins approached witchcraft not from a superstitious viewpoint but as a means of addressing a broader range of concerns he held about the nature of sin and piety. By analyzing his wider collection of publications as well as the Puritan movement in Elizabethan England this study demonstrated that William Perkins held a very similar view on witchcraft as other Puritans of his time. Perkins did not believe witches had any genuine power but instead were a part of illusions produced by the devil. Perkins argued that the primary issue with witchcraft is that it is a grave sin against God because it breaks the promise Christians make during their baptism. This treatise is an excellent example of Perkins using relevant fears his parishioners would have had to dismiss popular superstitions and translate Scripture into understandable and relatable lessons.