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What is Church?

The church as an institution sits at the intersection of theology, history, politics, and social organization, making it a subject of genuine academic breadth. Students encounter it across courses in religious studies, history, political science, and ethics, where it functions as both a spiritual community and a worldly power structure. Its relationship to faith, Christianity, and the lives of individual members gives it personal resonance, while its long institutional history ensures that it raises durable questions about authority, identity, and reform. Figures such as John Wesley and events like the trial of Anne Hutchinson illustrate how individual actors and moments of conflict have repeatedly shaped the church's direction and public meaning.

Archived student papers approach this topic from several distinct angles. Historical and comparative analyses examine architectural and cultural expressions of the church, including the similarities among Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic cathedrals. Political essays wrestle with the separation of church and state, sometimes framing that tension through the lens of Augustine's thought. Other papers take an institutional focus, exploring church government, servant leadership in conflicted congregations, and the church's role in colonial Latin America. Ethical questions about abortion, faith healing, and homosexual marriage round out the range, showing how religious institutions remain central to contemporary moral debates.

A strong essay on this topic requires a clearly bounded thesis — arguing about one function, period, or controversy rather than the church in general. Evidence drawn from primary sources, doctrinal texts, historical case studies, or legal precedents carries the most weight depending on the angle chosen. The most common pitfall is conflating the institutional church with Christianity as a whole, which blurs distinctions that careful analysis depends on.

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Paper Doctorate

Fathers and Sons in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead

This paper discusses the Marilynne Robinson novel "Gilead." It is about a man named John Ames who is a clergyman. He has a seven-year-old little boy who he will not see grow up because he is dying from a heart condition. The novel is a series of journal entries where he tries to tell his son all the lessons that he learned in his lifetime.

Research Paper Doctorate

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton: Summary and Analysis

S.E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders is the story of a young boy, trapped in a world of poverty, discrimination, crime, and violence. When his world is turned upside down after an accidental death, he learns that the world…

Research Paper Doctorate

George Orwell and John Wyndham: Class, Hypocrisy, Society

George Orwell wrote much of his work with the ills of society in mind. Among these is his disdain for the general bourgeois mentality that he observed in the England of his time. Thus two major issues that he addresses…

Research Paper Doctorate

Moral Superiority in American History: Roots and Hypocrisy

¶ … Roots of the Feeling of Moral Superiority in the U.S.

Research Paper Doctorate

Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning Review

Grendler, Paul F. Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning 1300-1600. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

Paper Undergraduate

The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark: A Critical Review

Dennis McDonald's The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (2000) is a book that was always guaranteed to upset orthodox Christian theologians and biblical literalists and fundamentalists everywhere, since its main thesis held that the author of the first gospel used the Iliad and the Odyssey as literary models. He compares Mark to the apocryphal Acts of Andrew, a Gnostic book, and describes it as a "hypotext" that "relies somehow on a written antecedent" (McDonald, p. 2). Specifically, Mark used Books 22 and 24 of the Iliad as models for the death and burial of Jesus, in which Achilles brutally kills Hector and then releases the body to his father, King Priam of Troy. Hector's soul went to Hades and never returned, but of course Jesus was resurrected on the third day, even if his rather dim disciples in Mark failed to recognize him initially.

Paper Doctorate

Dispositional Attributions in Western vs. Eastern Cultures

The following study looked at differences between 16 Western Americans and 16 Eastern Americans on their tendency to make internal attributions to explain the behavior of characters they read about. The participants were also administered measures of individualism and cultural identity. Western participants made more dispositional explanations than did their Eastern counterparts, but did not display higher individualism. The findings are discussed in the context of previous research. ?

Research Paper Doctorate

Suicide, Euthanasia, and Capital Punishment: A Sociological View

¶ … death: suicide, euthanasia and the death penalty. Looking at certain aspects of each and discussing the issues concerning society. Also providing a sociological out look and economic basis for the arguments.

Essay Doctorate

Visitor Attraction Management: Legoland, Sydney Opera House & Tourism

(LO 1) Legoland, Denmark and the Sydney Opera House

Thesis Doctorate

Puritanism in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Short Stories

The life of Nathaniel Hawthorne many times was played out in his stories as his life events and experiences bled forth into his works demonstrating the struggles that the writer faced within himself and his own life. Running through the threads of the stories of Hawthorne is the theme of Puritanism and this is clearly perceived as one reads the stories of Hawthorne entitled "The Scarlet Letter", "The Minister's Black Veil and "The Birthmark". In order to understand Hawthorne's view it is necessary that one understand what Puritanism is, believes, and represents.

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