Browsing by Subject "Grace"
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Item Open Access Formation for Christian Leadership: Wesleyan Reflections(American Theological Library Association Summary of Proceedings, 2003-01-01) Maddox, RLItem Open Access Karl Rahner's Supernatural Existential: A Wesleyan Parallel?(Evangelical Journal, 1987-03-01) Maddox, RLItem Open Access Prelude to a Dialogue: A Response to Kenneth Collins(Wesleyan Theological Journal, 2000-03-01) Maddox, RLItem Open Access Responsible Grace: The Systematic Perspective of Wesleyan Theology.(Wesleyan Theological Journal, 1984-09-01) Maddox, RLThis article reexamines the systematic nature of John Wesley's theology, drawing on recent reconceptions of theology as a praxis-oriented reflection. Gerhard Sauter is used as a model of these reconceptions. Central to these new conceptions of theology is the question whether one's praxis-related reflection is guided and unified by a central orienting concept. Such a concept is clearly evident in Wesley's theological reflection--the concept of responsible grace. This concept is clarified by a study of Wesley's doctrine of grace. This concept exercised a critical role in Wesley's other doctrinal affirmations and distinctions.Item Open Access The Mystery of Christ in You: Christology, Anthropology, and Participation in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley(2022-08) Maxon, CalebThe subject of Christological approaches to theological anthropology has been a renewed area of study for biblical and theological scholarship in recent years. While Marc Cortez (Wheaton College) has been leading much of the contemporary dialogue, the subject is not necessarily new. In some ways, this renewed approach takes its cue from Karl Barth, who responded to the problem of modernist visions of anthropology that were primarily concerned with the human person and their faculties apart from doctrines of God and Christ. Much of this Christological emphasis appears in Barth’s constructive views, examining the human person in reference to Christ as the fullest depiction and example of the human person. Thinking about theological anthropology from the lens of Christology, however, is not a modern invention; examples of thinkers who develop their reflections on what it means to be human in relationship to Christ’s humanity are extensive. In this thesis, I will argue that John Wesley and Thomas Aquinas provide a systematically coherent and mutually beneficial theology of the imago Dei that thoughtfully addresses the believer’s creation in the image of the Trinity and their growing participation in the image through their graced pursuit of Christ, who is their exemplar and their end. Together, Wesley and Aquinas demonstrate a Christ-centered vision of theological anthropology that would be intelligible to one another and should be intelligible and applicable to contemporary audiences. The goal of this thesis will be to demonstrate the relationship between anthropology and Christology in the theological writings of John Wesley and St. Thomas Aquinas, to explore avenues of further ecumenical dialogue on personhood, and to investigate how these two thinkers imagine the mystery of Christ in the believer who bears the image of God.Item Open Access "Whatever Happened to Grace?: Reclaiming Grace in the 21st Century Church"(2017) Douglas, Mindy LouiseMembership in white mainline Protestant churches in the United States has declined over the past fifty years, particularly in recent years as an increasing number of people choose to define themselves as “nones” (meaning they have no religious preference) or “dones” (meaning they are done with attending a particular church and have abandoned traditional religious beliefs). This is in part, I argue, due to a loss of grace in the local congregation. This loss of grace is the result of the redefining of grace by United States culture, religious icons, and authors. It is also due to the judgmental, joyless, and unwelcoming nature of some church communities (perceived and/or real). In this paper, I explore grace as we find it in Scripture and as it has been understood by theologians (particularly those of the Reformed tradition) and offer stories and examples of how the church can be a community of grace through practices of hospitality, forgiveness, reconciliation, and attitudes of gratitude and joy.
Item Open Access Writing Women Dance(2021) Nunn, Tessa AshlinThis project examines dance scenes in nineteenth-century French novels written by women to consider how grace—beauty in motion—defines women as social, moral, and artistic actors. Creating a constellation of dance scenes, I develop a concept called graceful inclinations, meaning experiences that move observers to contemplate space, time, or bodies differently. I use this concept to study representations of women’s sexuality and subjectivity in dances scenes written by Sophie Cottin, Germaine de Staël, Barbara von Krüdener, Claire de Duras, George Sand, and Marie d’Agoult. Because previous studies of dance in nineteenth-century French literature focus predominately on texts by canonical male authors, scholarship on literary descriptions of dance is limited to a masculine perspective. Moreover, studies of the philosophical and esthetic meanings of grace rarely cite primary sources written by women, although, since the eighteenth century, grace has been closely associated with Western understandings of femininity.This project focuses on four genres of dance: contradances, the waltz, presentational dances (the shawl dance, quadrille, and bolero), and the tarantella. Whereas descriptions of contradances propose ideal social relations or contest the idealization of disembodied femininity, waltz scenes create dystopian depictions of upper-class debauchery and masculine authority. Characters performing presentational dances become archetypal representations of their gender or race. The tarantella in Staël’s novel Corinne, ou l’Italie presents the ultimate dancer who is graceful and sensual. Analyzing representations of exoticism throughout this corpus, I use Srinivas Aravamudan’s theory of Enlightenment Orientalism to consider how exoticized bodies became a testing ground for thinking about female sexuality. I draw upon the theories of Adriana Cavarero, Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Genviève Fraisse, and Judith Lynne Hanna to study the sexual politics of dance scenes. In my study of the aesthetic and philosophical concept of grace, dance emerges as an art capable of moving its viewers but not yet capable of instigating social change. Creating both utopian or dystopian moments, dance scenes offer insight into the different worlds that writers wished to create or to avoid.