Adams, Richmond B. "Trains and Billboards: Carrie's Existential 'Fall.'" Vol. 1 (2008). I

      argue that Sister Carrie can be interpreted through Paul Tillich's theological lenses. 

      Tillich's exploration of the tension between what he calls the essential and existential

      selves also resembles the literary critical distinction proposed by Charles Child

      Walcutt in his 1956 work American Naturalism: A Divided Stream. Walcutt argued

      that naturalism developed from a split transcendentalism with Dreiser—like Crane,

      Norris, London and other writers like him—examining the dark sides of American life

      through his fiction.  In his earliest novel, Dreiser presents Carrie Meeber as exhibiting

      her own version of the Genesis 3:3 fall, but in an ironic direction.  Rather than, in

      Tillichian terms, falling from her essential to existential self, Carrie begins her journey

      from her existential self in Columbia City, Wisconsin, and begins to fall into her

      essential self in Chicago, completing the transition once she arrives in New York

      City.  Dreiser's portrayal of George Hurstwood as undergoing the opposite nature of

      that fall from respectable business and family man to someone shivering in a New

      York winter goes beyond Carrie's spectacular ascension toward a thundering

      denunciation (even as Walter Benn Michaels argues otherwise) of the capitalism that

      makes Hurstwood's suicide just as inevitable and searing.  In my article however, I do

      not propose to supplant more traditional forms of criticism.  I believe, at the same

      time, that Judeo-Christian theological categories can shed additional light on these

      and other literary issues. (Keywords: essential self, existential self, Paul Tillich,

      Charles Child Walcutt, transcendentalism, divided stream, American naturalism,

      Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser, theological categories, Walter Benn Michaels, June

      Howard, Richard Lehan, Donald Pizer, George Hurstwood, Robert Ames, and

      capitalism).

Aukeman, Renee Alida. "The Multiple Roles of the Roll in The Pilgrim's Progress."

      Vol. 1 (2008). Since faith is an intangible theological concept, believers need concrete

      entities, such as the sacraments, as reminders of their faith. Story, with its ability to

      communicate truth subtly, is an ideal vehicle for encouraging faith, which is what John

      Bunyan does with his allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress. This essay focuses on the

      significance of the roll that Christian receives at the foot of the Cross. The main role of

      the roll is to remind Christian of his faith and assure him of his salvation. To this end,

      Christian’s roll plays many other roles throughout the allegory, such as symbolizing

      encouraging words, memory, a key, armor, and the fellowship of believers. In the

      contemporary world, memoirs and autobiographies of faith play a similar role in the

      lives of believers today. (Keywords: The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan, allegory,

      faith, assurance of faith, marginal notes, Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris)

Costandi, Samia. "The Poetics of Conflict and Reconciliation: A Narrative of Palestinian

      Dispossession." Vol. 2 (2009). My narrative inquiry into my life and work as a   

      Palestinian Canadian teacher, researcher, writer, and activist has allowed my

      students to gain insight on the much-misunderstood Palestinian history and the

      realities of the dispossession of our people. I hope that through the stories I relate and

      the writers on Palestine whose work I highlight that I will be able to shed some

      understanding on the complex web of issues that underpin this conflict. For

      reconciliation to happen, issues of racism and injustice need to be addressed with

      diligence, passion and compassion. I especially hope to motivate American readers to

      get a better education about the conflict and to gain insight by example from those,

      like Rachel Corrie, who refused to participate in the conspiracy of silence surrounding

      crimes against Palestinians. (Keywords: dispossession, Birzeit West Bank, narrative

      inquiry, Christian Palestinian Arab, Reverend Naim Ateek, Liberation theology,

      conflict, reconciliation, Zionist massacres, Sabra and Shatilla, historical Palestine,

      Kamal Nasir, Edward Said, Rachel Corrie, Palestinian resistance, Palestinian identity,

      Arab Islamic civilization)

Chung-Kim, Ester. "Calvin on the Use of Wealth in the Christian's Life." Vol. 2 (2009).

      When John Calvin describes the Christian life, one key issue that arises is how

      believers are to use earthly and material blessings. The condition for using and

      enjoying these material gifts is that they be used rightly, namely according to the

      purposes of God. This paper illustrates how John Calvin understood the balance of

      theology and ethics in his sixteenth-century contest. If poverty is no longer the

      religious ideal, what does a pious Christian do with his or her possessions? By

      examining Calvin’s biblical interpretation of the last section in Acts 4 concerning the

      communal sharing of possessions and the first section in Acts 5 on Ananias and

      Sapphira, it becomes clear that the goal of reflecting God’s providence guides the use

      of material wealth and the answer to the question of how much one should give.

      (Keywords: Calvin, wealth, Biblical interpretation, Acts, ethics, money, property, poor,

      Christian living)

Johnson, Galen. "An Augustinian Model for Conceiving and Measuring the Influence of

      Christian Higher Education." Vol. 2 (2009). This essay addresses the question, “How

      if at all, can the kind of thinking undertaken at Christian institutions of higher learning

      differ qualitatively from that at non-Christian institutions, and can this difference enable

      graduates of Christian colleges to make unique contributions to society?” Its answer

      is structured along Augustine’s thoughts concerning the intellect’s union with the

      heart. (Keywords: Christian higher education, Augustine, Confessions, intellect, heart,

      love, mind)

Jordan, Timothy R. "Implied Acceptance: The Religious Other in the Decameron." Vol. 1

      (2008).  While much of medieval literature takes negative views of Jews and Muslims,

      the Decameron presents a more complex view.  Through the use of paraleipsis in the  

      Decameron’s frame and characterization within the tales, Boccaccio gives a more

      humanistic view of the religious Other than do other places in medieval literature.  The

      result is an implied worth in the Other’s secular virtue, individuality, and personal

      association. (Keywords: Boccaccio, Christians, Decameron, Jews, Muslims, Other,

      stereotypes)

Kaufmann, U. Milo. "Bacon's New Atlantis and the Contexts of Science." Vol. 2 (2009).

      Despite the deserved acknowledgement of Francis Bacon as uniquely important in the

      late Renaissance encouragement of applied science with the associated emphasis

      upon empirical knowledge, the common judgment must be qualified by noticing the

      evident limitations upon any science-based optimism implicit in the fable of New

      Atlantis. It is also true that Bacon’s epistemology is much more inclusive than a strict

      empiricism would imply. A lingering question posed by his utopian fable is how the

      science of new Atlantis is implicitly regenerative of the human person and community.

      (Keywords: epistemology, knowledge, Bensalem, Renaissance, Bacon, science,

      empiricism, utopia, New Atlantis, revelation, providence)

Kaufmann, U. Milo. "The Wardrobe, the Witch, and the Lion: C. S. Lewis and Three

      Mysteries of the Christian Faith." Vol. 1 (2008). In this essay I muse upon three

      central, basic convictions of Christianity—the human spirit is boundless, the moral life

      is dynamic, and the Incarnation is paradoxical but historical. I will anchor my

      observations concerning each of these three mysteries to a term found in Lewis’ title

      The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The wardrobe suggests the wonder of

      embodied spirit, or our insides—measureless in depth, reach, and promise,

      measureless in imagination and moral potential. The witch suggests the dynamics of

      the moral life, one version of which is the self who descends into terminal nastiness,

      cruelty, and death. The lion suggests how the Incarnation can be imaged in the figure

      of Aslan both by the strategies of the mind’s inferring the highest reality from a

      ontologically lower manifestation of it and by the New Testament understanding of

      God’s suffering love. (Keywords: C. S. Lewis, Narnia, Aslan, Jadis, Christianity,

      inwardness, consciousness, spirit, moral process, choice, higher good, lesser good,

      evil, Incarnation, representation, paradox, hierarchy, suffering, magic)

Porreca, David. "Biblical Authority in the Malleus maleficarum: Sacred Text in Support of  

      a Radical Agenda." Vol. 1 (2008). The authors of the Malleus maleficarum rely

      extensively on earlier authorities in building their case for the uprooting and elimination

      of the ‘heresy of the sorceresses.’  In going about their task, they intentionally distort

      the established Dominican tradition of biblical commentary as it was embodied in the

      works of Thomas Aquinas.  This distortion is apparent through a comparison of the

      use of biblical quotations in the Malleus maleficarum and the commentaries on those

      same passages found in Aquinas’ works. (Keywords: Malleus maleficarum, Johann

      Sprenger, Heinrich Kramer, Henricus Institoris, biblical commentaries, Dominican

      order, Thomas Aquinas)

Render, Jaime. "Inner Space and Outer Regions in Medieval Meditative and Visionary

      Literature." Vol. 2 (2009). This essay investigates the role space demarcation played

      in meditative and visionary practices of the Middle Ages. I suggest that a pattern of

      planer centricity evolved that allowed the mind to access a vertical axis of

      contemplation. Moving to the center of a geographic ring allowed the visionary to

      cultivate a theo-expectant mood that facilitated his or her spiritual experience. I use

      St. Francis’s experience at Mount La Verna and Dante’s descriptions of his beatific

      visions to illustrate this pattern. (Keywords: Assisi, Dante, “The Little Flowers of St.

      Francis”, templum, inner sanctum, Paradiso, visionary, meditation)

Tharn, Tom A. "The Medieval Christian in 'Mirror-Mode': A Brief Sketch of the Mirror as  

      Sacred Tool from Paul's 'In Aenigmate' to Dante's Paradiso." Vol. 1(2008). This paper

      argues that Paul, Augustine, Bonaventure, and Dante all can be viewed as supporting

      the notion that the human mind cannot gather non-subjective truth from an object-filled

      world wherein it (the mind) is situated. The mind’s epistemological mode of accessing

      these objects always leaves open the possibility that the apparently stable physical

      backdrop of the world is a phenomenological fiction. For these thinkers, it is only in

      the assumption that an absolute, outside agent of omnipotent and supra-legislative

      standing exists that certain, or incorrigible, human knowledge is possible, for if there 

      is no God that can bypass the epistemological equipment and the supposed

      proprietary rights of the human mind in order to implant genuine knowledge, then the

      ultimate kernel of the self is left with only a cracked mirror that always deficiently

      represents reality. (Keywords: mirror, Paul, in aenigmate, Augustine, The

      Confessions, Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind to God, Dante, Paradiso,

      epistemology, mediation, self, sensory data)

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