Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'God and religion'

The purpose of this research was to develop the components of a theory for retention of young people after their high school years by examining the factors that contribute to continued spiritual vitality in Assemblies of God (AG) post-high school young adults. Data was collected from a stratified sample of ninety-five young adults in the United States during their senior year of high school in 2011 and two years later in 2013. In line with research by the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI), continued spiritual vitality was operationalized by using the Religious Behavior Scale, the Religious Identity Scale, and the Risk Behavior Scale. The results identified nine elements from spiritual formation factors, social considerations, and high school youth group experiences that produced fourteen statistically significant correlations with higher levels of retention and spiritual vitality in the sample two years after leaving school. This research appears to suggest that it is the aggregated effect of intentional youth group experiences providing opportunity for the internalized guidance of the Holy Spirit, recognized as God's work, and not specific youth group programs or religious activities that have the potential to create a unique spiritual journey that would ensure spiritual vitality for the youth after they leave high school.

This project examines the dynamics of discipleship and missional community. The concept and perceptions around both topics are relational. As all relationships are, by definition Discipleship is multilayered and multifaceted. Christian Discipleship is revealed through Christ’s example, as evident in His teachings and His ministry within the community. This project begins with a specific definition of Christian Discipleship followed by a demonstration of how that definition can be executed within a particular church. The paper will not limit Discipleship solely within the church but will articulate discipleship through community outreach and conclude with an evaluation of the project and its methodologies.

The goal of the project is to define and effectively utilize Christian Discipleship principles as revealed through the life of Christ. This paper seeks to explore the making of Christian Discipleship within a church in transition, as we seek to be engaged with the larger neighborhood context. This project will address two major social challenges in East New York: Mental illness and homelessness. It will examine discipleship as a model for effective ministry among and within those realities.

The author of Hebrews is concerned that the persecution of a spiritually immature and discouraged Christian community may cause them to relinquish their mission and lose certain rewards inherent to obedience. He argues that God swears an oath in Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 in order to assure his people of the certainty of his promises (Heb. 6:13–20). He demonstrates that specific elements of the divine oath have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, guaranteeing the eventual consummation of the inaugurated promises of this oath and providing certain benefits that enable Christians to fulfill their divinely appointed mission. These embattled saints can endure attacks from their enemies because Jesus Christ is the anointed king who will utterly defeat his enemies, and he is the promised priest after the order of Melchizedek who grants direct access to his heavenly throne for the power to persevere faithfully in the last days. Therefore, the thesis is that the author of Hebrews views Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 as oaths of God, reassures his audience by proving that God is bringing to completion all the elements of his oaths, and encourages them to take advantage of the benefits provided by God’s oaths.

The movie Dogville (2003) provides viewers with a rare and provocative twist on differences between on the one hand the rigorous, Old Testament Jehovah, characterized by rules, and by rewards or punishments in this life, and on the other hand the loving, forgiving Christ and God of the New Testament and later Christianity who are characterized by forgiveness, and by rewards or punishments in an eternal afterlife. The movie, especially its ending, challenges the forgiving nature of the New Testament God and Christ, and makes a case that the Old Testament, rigorous Jehovah is more appropriate, at least for humans who respect themselves as responsible grown-ups. Earlier than these two views of God and man, and still alive and kicking, is a third view, the "Heroic." God is irrelevant here, either as a source of rules or as a source of forgiveness and redemption. Rather, man generates his own meaning by accepting his fate and struggling to do the best he can; this life is all there is and the struggle, i.e. living it is the only meaning. The three views can be seen on a continuum with the Heroic on one end and the forgiving Christ on the other, and the rigorous Jehovah in between and closer to the heroic than to the forgiving. The Dogville point of view, preferring a rigorous God to a forgiving one, is very rarely found in literature (the Grand Inquisitor episode in The Brothers Karamazov is similar to some extent) but both the Heroic and the forgiving Christian views appear everywhere, in all kinds of non-fiction, and either explicitly or as metaphors or parables in fiction. The Heroic view is taken here to include not only classic Greek and Roman heroic writings (e..g. those of Homer and Virgil) but also more modern schools of thought including Nietzsche, the existentialists, and other "God is dead" points of view. The paucity of the first view in literature is mirrored by the small number of its followers: all self-identifying Jews are less than 0.5% of the world's population and the orthodox are a minority within that. In stark contrast, about one-third of individuals world-wide self-identify as Christian. Followers of the Heroic view, roughly measured by self-identifying atheists and perhaps including agnostics, are between 15 and 20 percent of the population of the USA. Focusing on the United States, the data show that the number of adherents of each of the two extremes of an expanded continuum, i.e. the Heroic view on one hand and the born-again Protestant version of the forgiving view on the other, has been growing while the numbers of followers of everything in the middle, i.e. Judaism (excluding its New Age, non-religious variants), Roman Catholicism, and mainstream Protestantism have been declining. The waxing and waning of these different views are evaluated in the lights of literature, philosophy, psychology, marketing, and the idea that ideas ("memes" as coined, described and popularized by Richard Dawkins) evolve, endure or disappear according to the Darwinian principle of natural selection. The conclusion is that there are important, long-term reasons for the observed trend, and that therefore both born-again Protestantism and atheism are likely to continue to take market share from their competitors in the middle.

Harmony Christian School in Rustenburg, South Africa is a missionary outreach program of Bethel Gospel Assembly, Inc., New York. The school was founded in 2006 to educate learners and develop in them a close attachment with God even as they attained high academic standard in their school work. However, while there were established measures of academic progress from grade to grade, there was no comparable measure of the spiritual growth of the students in terms of how closely they were attached to God in their relationship as a result of their exposure to consistent Bible Study. The Researcher thus created an intervention study using the Attachment to God Inventory to measure the level of attachment of the adolescent learners to God in the school. The study did show that there was an attachment relationship between the learners and God. The study also showed that as a result of their consistent exposure to Bible study, there was a shift to a closer attachment to God. The level of the shift was minimal but statistically significant at a low level of confidence. The study then offered ministry recommendations.

This interpretive phenomenological analysis research study articulates the experiences of 3 Christians who manifest secure attachment to God characteristics. Human infant attachment theory and subsequent attachment to God conceptualizations were the perspectives used in order to explore the phenomenon. Analysis of the data led to 4 emergent themes focused on the psychological implications of having a secure attachment to God: View of God as Kindhearted, View of Self Transformed by God, Theological Exploration without Fear, and Need for Closeness When Suffering. Findings indicated that participants experienced God as a loving parent who fully accepted an authentic self. Across time, participants were able to deconstruct theological concepts incongruent to life experiences and explore new theological ideas and practices without anxiety of experiencing negative responses from God. Participants? need for closeness to God when experiencing painful events, in particular when feeling powerless to fix the circumstances, was described as needing authentic conversation with God. These findings suggest that secure attachment to God may have psychological benefit and encourages clinicians to validate and explore attachment to God dynamics with clients who indicate having a relationship with God.