Chapter One: The Sacred within the Secular: Philosophical and Salvific Value of Culture, Creativity, and Community

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• What does it mean for the secular to be connected to the sacred/reality of Spirit in the thought of philosopher and theologian, Paul Tillich?
• Discuss the relationship between culture and creativity and Tillich’s understanding of the Life in the Spirit.
• In what ways might the Christian doctrine of consubstantiality be assumed in Tillich’s understanding of the human potential to participate in the saving power of Christ? What does this human participation look like both individually and communally in the midst of what Tillich describes as “the demonic”?

Chapter Two: Black Women’s Experience of Desacralization in a Culture of Violence as a Context for Theology

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• Using historical, literary, and theological texts, describe Black women’s historical and contemporary experience of physical, sexual, and cultural violence in the U.S. Address the three periods of 1) antebellum slavery, 2) post-emancipation domestic work of Black women in white homes, and 3) present-day Black women’s experience of intimate violence, community violence, and structural violence (i.e. state violence and public policy).

• Identify and discuss how whiteness and the metaphysics of gender and sexual difference have pathologized/or desacralized the visible and embodied identities of Black women with Linda Martin Alcoff’s Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self and M. Shawn Copeland’s Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being as primary conversation partners.

Chapter Three: Theosis as Divine-Human Communion

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• Discuss what it means to experience salvation, or theosis in the historical theology of Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, and Maximus the Confessor and the contemporary theology of Vladimir Lossky, John Zizioulas, and Aristotle Papanikolaou. Pay special attention to way each subsequent thinker is attentive to the following themes: 1) the image and likeness of God as communal rather than individual property, 2) epekstasis, 3) recapitulation/imitation of Christ, and 4) the significance of community for the common good.

• Identify the ways in which the perspectives of the subsequent thinkers have been challenged by the thought and perspective of Sarah Coakley, Morwenna Ludlow, Robert L. Wilken , and J. Kameron Carter as it relates to gender, race, and embodiment.

Chapter Four: The Legion of Demonarchy: Modern Disfigurement of the Imago Dei

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Conduct an exegetical analysis of Mark 5: 1-20, the account of the Gerasene demoniac with special attention to its historical, cultural, and political context. Using a womanist biblical hermeneutic of suspicion, resistance, liberation, and hope, offer a contemporary theological interpretation of this text with specific attention to the following:

• The correlative relationship between the Jewish experience in a Greco-Roman political climate of state violence and Black women’s experience of physical, cultural, and state violence
• The continuities and discontinuities between the Gerasene man’s experience of sin and evil and Delores S. Williams describes as demonarchy and the four aspects of a Womanist notion of sin as degrading to the image of God in Black women.
• The Womanist ethical tenet of traditional communalism in Part II of Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society. ed. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, New York: New York University Press, 2006.
• Explore the connections between Lossky’s Vision of God and Delores S. Williams’ notion of the salvific nature of the ‘ministerial vision of Christ’ in Sisters in the Wilderness, and propose Alice Walker’s vision of ‘Democratic Womanism’ as a socio-cultural, economic, and political expression of what theosis looks like as divine-human communion in a post-modern context.

Chapter Five: Divine-Human Communion in a Context of Social Sin

• How do the main characters within Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, and Tina Turner’s I, Tina: My Life Story (Sethe, Celie, and Tina) experience what Artistotle Papanikolaou describes as ‘divine-human communion’ in his work Being With God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion?

Clarify the role of 1) contemplation, 2) eucharistic community, and
3) ekstasis-hypostasis, and 4) how these components are found in the protagonists of the aforementioned novels.

• How do we find each protagonist developing a vision and or taking action that revealed her grasp of the sacred (or religious or supernatural) meaning and value of black women’s bodies?

Pay special attention to what Williams’ describes as ‘Black women’s resistance activity’ in Sisters in the Wilderness as it is depicted in the lived experiences of Sethe, Celie, and Tina. Discuss how their expressions of resistance to violence connects with Papanikolaou’s notion of ekstasis-hypostasis.

• Compare and contrast Aristotle Papanikolaou’s notion of ‘Trinity and Personhood’ and eucharistic community with M. Shawn Copeland’s discussion on Black Women’s Embodiment and Eucharistic Solidarity in Enfleshing Freedom: body, race, and being.

• Provide a critical reflection of a cross-read of Aristotle Papanikolaou’s second work, The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy and Alice Walker’s short poems “Democratic Womanism” and “Democratic Motherism” to offer a more social and political interpretation of divine-human communion as it is embodied by women of African descent.

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Dear Support Team: Per your suggestion, I have given my Writer a chance to revise the finished chapters that were uploaded for the distinct purpose of following the instructions accompanied with the placement of my original order which has not been done. For example, in the instructions “DissChapterInstructionsForWriting” for the chapter entitled: “The Sacred within the Secular: Philosophical and Salvific Value of Culture, Creativity, and Community” • What does it mean for the secular to be connected to the sacred/reality of Spirit in the thought of philosopher and theologian, Paul Tillich? Discuss the relationship between culture and creativity and Tillich’s understanding of the Life in the Spirit. MY CONCERNS: Spirit as a noun is mentioned only twice and Creativity is only mentioned once in the whole 35-page document. There is zero mention to the doctrine of consubstantiality. There is zero mention of Tillich’s understanding of the demonic. And there are two scant references to “African American women” in the whole document which is hardly sufficient in the discussion of Delores Williams. I need to cancel my order with at least a 50% refund given that the original instructions have not been followed. Thank you.

55 pages should be added. Chapter 1 should be edited. 2, 3, and half of 4 chapter were completed already. Please refer to additional file.